{"id":408752,"date":"2025-09-08T21:31:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T21:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/408752\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T21:31:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T21:31:10","slug":"formula-1-u-s-rights-talks-pretty-far-along-as-apple-rumors-swirl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/408752\/","title":{"rendered":"Formula 1 U.S. Rights Talks “Pretty Far Along” As Apple Rumors Swirl"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tDerek Chang, CEO of Formula 1<\/a> parent Liberty Media, did not mention Apple<\/a> by name but said Monday that the company is \u201cpretty far along\u201d in talks with a U.S. media rights partner.<\/p>\n

\n\tSeveral weeks ago, press reports said Apple had made an aggressive bid on the rights, emboldened by the box office success of Brad Pitt blockbuster F1<\/a>: The Movie. The Athletic reported in July that Apple has offered<\/a> between $120 million and $150 million a year for the rights, significantly more than the roughly $90 million bid of current rights holder ESPN<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think it\u2019s been pretty well-documented in terms of the negotiations, we are pretty far along, and we\u2019re pretty happy and comfortable with sort of where we\u2019re going to end up,\u201d Chang said during an appearance at the Goldman Sachs Communcacopia & Technology Conference. \u201cHopefully we\u2019ll have something to talk about relatively soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGiven recent shifts in the media landscape, Chang added, \u201cthe more substantive question is what we are looking for\u201d from a partner. Unlike with conventional sports dealmaking, he said, the current environment begs the question, \u201cIs your media partner even just a media partner, or are they also a sponsor?\u201d If it\u2019s the latter, he said, \u201cthey have other ways that they\u2019re going to monetize and commercialize the relationship\u201d and can help the sports entity do likewise.<\/p>\n

\n\tLong a mainstay of the sports world in the U.K., Europe and other parts of the world, F1 has recently made gains in the U.S., scheduling annual races in Austin, Miami and Las Vegas. The company called out the feature film, which has taken in more than $600 million globally, for helping second-quarter revenue jump 40% year-over-year. The circuit wants to capitalize on that surge of interest. Just as F1 is sure to become the top streaming<\/a> title on Apple TV+ when it lands there later this year, the tech company sees it as a potential driver of interest to the races on the service. \u201cBringing in a partner who amplifies a lot of that for us on an overall holistic basis and driving that engagement with fans is what\u2019s important,\u201d Chang said. <\/p>\n

\n\tAs more and more live sports migrates to streaming, Apple has forged rights deals with Major League Soccer and Major League Baseball, even co-creating a subscription streaming outlet in partnership with the MLS. While the MLS teaming broke ground with its streaming focus, the soccer league also did a linear deal with Fox. Netflix, which has bulked up its sports offerings of late with the NFL and the Women\u2019s World Cup, has also expressed interest in F1 rights, given the fit with its long-running Drive to Survive franchise.<\/p>\n

\n\tChang, a member of the board of directors of Liberty, a diversified holding company controlled by media billionaire John Malone, became CEO of Liberty earlier this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Derek Chang, CEO of Formula 1 parent Liberty Media, did not mention Apple by name but said Monday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[1662,21617,4199,707,4200,79,140726,4097,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-408752","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-apple","9":"tag-espn","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-sports-rights","15":"tag-streaming","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115170815912110097","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}