In 2016, when John Malone steered Liberty Media toward acquiring Formula One, the thesis wasn’t simply “buy a racing series.” It was far more ambitious: buy a global attention machine that had never been fully commercialised.
At the time, Formula 1 was already a premium global property but it was operating like a closed system. The digital ecosystem was underdeveloped, fan engagement was limited, and the sport was leaving massive commercial upside untouched. As Liberty’s first F1 CEO Chase Carey put it bluntly, there was an opportunity to take the sport “to another level,” particularly through an untapped digital market.
But Liberty had already tested a version of this ecosystem thinking elsewhere. Years earlier, it had applied the same logic to the Atlanta Braves, transforming the franchise into a sports-anchored real-estate platform around Truist Park and the surrounding Battery Atlanta.
Fast forward to the end of 2025, and the same ecosystem thesis is visible across Liberty’s motorsport portfolio. Formula 1 generated $3.9 billion in revenue (+14% YoY) and $946 million in Adjusted OIBDA (+20%), while the global fanbase expanded to 827 million people, a 63% increase since 2018. Race attendance reached 6.75 million across the season, and global live viewership grew 21% year-on-year. Liberty’s expansion into MotoGP further strengthened the platform, with MotoGP producing $573 million in revenue and $201 million in Adjusted OIBDA, while attendance jumped 21% year-on-year.
Public markets have also recognised the scale of the transformation. As of 16 March 2026, Liberty Media’s Formula One tracking shares were trading around $94.74, according to the chart shown, with the stock sitting below its 52-week high of $102.62 and well above its 52-week low of $60.55, giving the company a market capitalisation approaching $20 billion.
But the most important point is this: Liberty didn’t just grow motorsport, it redesigned the business model of motorsport.
Today, Formula 1 operates less like a racing championship and more like a global sports-entertainment ecosystem. The on-track competition is still the core product but commercially, it has become the world’s most powerful customer-acquisition engine for everything else.
In this 365247 Sports report, we break down how Liberty built that ecosystem, break down all the sports properties it has invested in and why it may be one of the most important sports-business transformations of the last decade.