Formula One Group (FWONK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Okay. Great. Well, we are very happy to have at the conference for the first time, Derek Chang, President and CEO of Liberty Media. Thanks so much for being here.

Thanks for having me. Good to see everyone.

Okay. So Derek, you've been in the Liberty CEO seat for about 5 months now. You have an extensive history in sports media, leagues and content distribution. Maybe you can run us to your background and what attracted you to taking this role at Liberty?

Sure. So as you mentioned, I do have -- got a career that spans a lot of different companies in sort of the media, entertainment and sports industries, ranging from starting my career in cable television back in the mid-90s with a small company called InterMedia Partners, which happened to be a TCI. TCI was a partner in these various ventures and that's how I first got to TCI and got to meet John Malone. Later, helped start the New York Yankees, bad word here, but sports network, the YES Network in New York, ended up at Charter Communications for a bit and then I had a long run at DIRECTV, where I sort of flipped over from the finance side of things to the content and entertainment side and managed our business there and sort of did all the negotiations with the programming partners as well as people like the NFL and movie studios, ended up over in Asia for a bit with Scripps Networks, where I kind of went into lifestyle, which actually has bearing on what we do with the Food Network and HGTV. And then ran the NBA in China for a couple of years as the CEO there and then sort of started rotating back towards the U.S. about 4 or 5 years ago and went on the board of Liberty Media. So this is sort of my third or fourth stint kind of working with John first at TCI at DIRECTV when Liberty bought News Corp.'s interest. I went on the board of Starz for a bit, probably 10 years ago or over 10 years ago and then the Board of Liberty and then late last year as we transitioned management at Liberty, and I was speaking to John, he asked if I would take this role to run Liberty. And so for me, it was a combination of things. One, the assets that we have right now between Formula One, knock wood, we should be getting towards a close on MotoGP, our sports assets -- global sports assets, and given my background, very familiar with that and sort of my interest in these assets. But then I think as more importantly, even as my relationship with John through these years and sort of the familiarity there, but the opportunity, frankly, to work with John, again, as well as the Liberty management team. But then on top of that, we have an executive committee of the Board right now, which is John, Bob Bennett, who used to run Liberty, who I've known a long time, as well as Chase Carey, who joined the Liberty Board late last year. And Chase is actually the one who hired me at DIRECTV. So I've worked with Chase for a long time. So the ability to work with sort of some of the biggest figures in our industry over the last 50 years in this setting with this group of people has probably really attracted me to the role.

Got it. Great overview. So we asked a variation of this question at TKO just before. But when you look at Formula One today, interested to know how you gauge the state of the sport as it pertains to fan engagement or cultural resonance and then relatedly, what's your view of the on-track product, especially with the new regs coming up?

First of all, I think we actually have more people in the room than TKO just did. So I get to tell Mark that later when I see him. So thank you all. I think the state of the sport is it's -- we're in great shape right now. And you see it sort of across multiple fronts. I think you see it from an attendance standpoint, we keep sort of raising the bar at each race almost in terms of attendance. Some of these races are doing more than 400,000 attendees for the entire weekend. Viewership continues to rise, generally speaking, across the board. I think in the U.S. this year, our ratings are up on the weekends, for full weekends, probably 45% or so year-over-year, which is a testament to sort of probably what's going on, on the track. In addition, I think you see the engagement that we are getting from sponsor community. This has been a huge sort of lift here in the recent past. It's always been strong. But if you see the names that are now associating with Formula One, LVMH, Amex coming into Vegas and then upscaling to a global deal. LEGO on the licensing front. I don't know how many of you guys saw the whole promotion that we did in Miami with LEGO with the drivers' parade and sort of all the life-size LEGO cards. That had, I believe, 10 billion unique views across the Internet. So I realize that some kids were probably tapping on at about 100 times. But still, the phenomenon is huge. And I think what it really points to is this sort of underlying current of Formula One really being a true sort of mainstream entertainment asset. It's probably well beyond the core sports crowd. And now it touches a lot of different people, a lot of different demographics. We are probably one of the younger skewing sports leagues. I think our average age fan is probably around 35 years old. And a huge pickup among female fans over the last 5 to 10 years. So the state of the sport right now, I think it's in a great place. I think in terms of the on-track racing, even though Oscar, I believe, has won 4 races this year, I think it's been a bit more of a competitive situation for races that we've had, and you've got some of the rivalry between Oscar and Lando. All that's great, as you might imagine, for television and for just the following and the fandom and sort of the conversation that it initiates. So I think that's all great. I -- we've got new regs coming in next year. We'll see what happens. Again, controversy is actually not a bad thing in terms of driving engagement. And so we'll see. I don't think our sport is necessarily dependent every year on exactly what happens on the track. Clearly, more excitement is better. But I think we've actually gotten the sport to the point where this is much more of a cultural phenomenon and not just sort of what happens on the race track. Look, I don't know for sure, but I'm sure there are some of our fan base that barely watch the races and they're in it for sort of, again, the cultural aspect of it and sort of the coolness factor and the lifestyle factors. And that's all great because at the end, what we're trying to get to is a premium brand and let alone premium sports brand, but just a premium brand. And I think what you're seeing is that, that's kind of happening and materializing right before our eyes.

Got it. So F1 recently finalized the commercial elements of the Concorde Agreements with the teams that run through 2030. How would you characterize the relationship generally between F1 and the teams coming out of this process? How important is it to have alignment with them?

Yes. So for context, Chase -- when Liberty bought Formula One, we put Chase Carey in as the CEO. Jason and I had a long history together at DIRECTV, have seen each other off and on over the years, but really over the last few months, as we've both been engaged in this project, have spent a lot of time together, which means we end up races together, having breakfast together. And Chase has actually -- it's been a great history lesson for me because he's walked me through a lot of what's happened in F1, even before Liberty owned, but certainly during his tenure. And I think the friction that was quite evident when Liberty bought the F1, the F1 versus the teams, the local promoters, it was a bit of a mess. And Chase, to his credit, really took huge strides towards cleaning that up. And under Stefano, it's continued to improve. And I think what you're seeing today as we go to renew this Concorde Agreement is, a, just the actual environment of the negotiation or discussion was very positive and constructive, and it wasn't like a zero-sum game, but how do we actually continue to build this sport collectively. And so I think what you also see is even stuff that's not necessarily written into the Concorde where we have to work with the team, say a LEGO deal, for instance, and get everyone to sign up, you probably recall the first season of Netflix's Drive to Survive, Mercedes and Ferrari did not participate in that, whereas now you see this LEGO deal and everyone's participated and you see the impact of that. And I think the last bit I'll add is I've actually spent some good time in the Paddock over the last -- probably even the 3 races at this point already this year. And the general consensus of everyone in the Paddock, despite all the small negotiations we have, the complaints we have about this, that and the other thing is they all are very appreciative of what Liberty and Formula One have done to raise the profile of sport and frankly, raise their valuations at the end of the day. And I think that's been significant. So they are sitting here saying, "Hey, we've watched this unfold. We like what you guys have done. We believe in you guys." And I think that's the spirit of the partnership that we have right now.

Got it. Well, as you just saw with the prior Q&A, media rights are very much top of mind for investors right now. Before I press you on the U.S. renewal, which you know I'll do, I want to get your high-level view on rights, and this would apply globally, right? And how you think about factors such as balancing reach in payment, linear versus streaming, or even your response to some of the perceived kind of shortcomings of F1 as a property, like a more limited ad load or different time zones?

Yes. To be honest with you, I don't really think about it like that anymore in those trade-offs. I feel like that was sort of a construct from the past almost because we think about what we are delivering and every weekend, we're delivering multiple days of content, multiple days of compelling content. And then beyond what even happens at the racetrack, there's all this other content around Formula One, where teams are going out and promoting themselves, what drivers are doing, what drivers are eating for breakfast, what they're eating for dinner, whatever it is, it's Formula One and it's always on. And I think what we are trying to do is we look at the landscape is how do you insert yourself not as a sport, but really as almost a content producer into this environment, continue to sort of both build a sport, but really, as I was saying earlier, build the brand. And I think that is where the world has gone and the platforms -- and look, the broadcasters who focus on the event or the game, even they sit there and are figuring out how do they have assets that can sort of ingest and take in all the other surrounding content and run it across their various platforms. But the digital guys clearly have a somewhat of an advantage here because they're not bound by the various technologies and that sort of stuff, and they can basically take any amount of content they want, proliferate it across their platforms. And so what I see and having spent almost my entire life in sort of media and sports rights and all that sort of stuff is it's just a different way of viewing it now, and it's not sort of the historic, we have 24 races, how much are you paying me per race for this content.

Got it. All right. So you've stated you're in active talks at the moment for a new U.S. rights agreement. I'll ask if there's any update to provide. But given the U.S. is still very much a growth market for Formula One behind a healthy payment, right, what kind of support are you looking for in a partner?

Well, calling out Mark Shapiro, like we don't hit the radar screen because he didn't mention us as sort of a major rights negotiation.

428, yes.

But, you know what, Mark is actually right. In the scheme of things when you look at sort of what the NFL and the NBA and baseball, in the U.S., we're not a major player, but globally, we are. And so as I look at it, again, it's sort of where does the U.S. fit into kind of that landscape from a -- less from a media rights payment standpoint, but what are we doing with F1 to build the property here in the U.S. And I think it starts with fundamentally the Netflix' Drive to Survive kickstarted a lot of things for us. The addition of Miami first and then Las Vegas. So we now have 3 races here in the U.S. I think we've got this. I mean this is a global phenomenon, but the Apple movie coming out this summer. So there is sort of this level of increased engagement in the U.S. and the growing of our fans here across, again, multiple fronts. So to answer your question about what we're looking for, we're obviously looking for a partner that can help us continue to grow the fan base. We are, I believe, in the U.S., still pretty early on. And especially when you compare against other U.S. domestic leagues where we sit in that Pantheon, it's pretty low still, which means there's a lot of headroom, and it's up to us to go out and capitalize on that.

Got it. F1 TV is a really unique product in our view. And the growth there is a bit of a contrast to other leagues and promotions, which are kind of pulling back from direct distribution. What's the advantage of this type of model? And how do you balance that against the need to give your local partners exclusivity in some cases?

Yes. I think we've -- and I wouldn't say we necessarily designed it this way, but I would say we've been good partners. And so depending on the different markets and what the needs are of our local broadcast partners, we've probably flexed to accommodate sort of different models, whether it's us going side by side in the market with F1 TV or F1 TV, allowing them to effectively wholesale it, whatever it is, we've been able to do, and it's actually allowed us to continue to grow the subscriber base of F1 TV and particularly in the U.S., which is probably our biggest market for F1 TV. I think we are uniquely situated here in the sense that we actually have a decent portion of our, whatever you want to call it, media revenues coming from F1 TV here in the U.S. I think that as we look forward, what we want to do, putting aside the economics is we do want to have that relationship with the customer, with the fan. And I think that will help us on multiple fronts. One, it just feeds into sort of the 24/7 F1, always on. What are our fans doing? What are they interested in? Are they interested in this type of content? Are they interested in this type of merchandise? Are they interested in $50 tickets versus $5,000 tickets, whatever it is, that's another data point for us. It helps us sort of amass a lot of data around our customers and our fans, which is helpful to, again, designing what the right offers are for fans, but also our sponsor partners and folks like that are -- they demand that sort of data. And so the more sort of transparency we have into that, the better off we are. And ultimately, too, the other big benefit of having F1 TV out there for us is who knows where the media landscape goes. It's different today than it was 3 years ago, which was different than 3 years before that. And there may come a day that in certain markets, that is our product because we have the reach that we need. We have sort of the promotional value that we need. And maybe that is the best way to serve our fans in a particular market.

Got it. The pending U.S. deal certainly gets a lot of focus. But like you said, F1 global sport, when you look across the balance of the regions, are there markets that kind of stand out as growth opportunities for rights, either because the sport is really taking off or maybe just changes in local media ecosystems?

Yes. I think as I look really far out in the future, clearly, there's some pretty big markets out there that were only really sort of scratched the surface on. You look at a market like China, where we've actually had a race and we probably haven't -- probably not invested what we should in terms of trying to build that market for ourselves. You look at a market like India, for instance, where the combination of sports, entertainment, those are big businesses. And it's just not F1. So can we break through in a way? And sort of F1 brings a lot of a lot of what you see in a market like that, which is that juxtaposition of sports and entertainment in the Bollywood and sort of -- and IPL is a big sport there, clearly, but can you even scratch the surface of that. So I think -- there are markets as we -- because there's this narrative out there that all of a sudden media rights will ultimately go asymptotic or whatever you want to call it. And I just think there are markets out there that we still haven't fully even penetrated.

Got it. Maybe we could shift gears to promotions. So a few years ago, Liberty and F1 made the unique decision to self-promote in Las Vegas. I think fans and stakeholders gauge that event as a successful addition to the calendar. It has proven to be a little more challenging for Formula One financially than anticipated. How do you view the success of Vegas so far? Has it been worth the overall investment? And how much are you focused on this?

We think that Vegas has been a huge success. I think underpinning part of our U.S. strategy, it's been huge. I think in terms of bringing new entrants into the F1 ecosystem, like American Express, who came in as a local partner. And even LVMH came in to Vegas first. And those guys have now expanded to become global partners of F1. So I think -- and also just the production value of having a race in Vegas, even some of the mishaps that happened were fun and entertaining as you think about it. So that -- on that front, it's been great. I think financially and operationally, there's probably more work to be done, but I'm probably less concerned about our ability to do that work just because in an event business like this, especially when you're standing something up, there's a lot of unknowns that sort of smack you in the face as you're -- especially in the first couple of years. But then once you're in it, you kind of understand what needs to get done and those unknowns become more known and you can budget for it, you can provision against it and sort of drive it to a more optimal cost structure. And then it comes down to, okay, what you're doing on the revenue side. And I think the falloff from first year to second year is probably a bit more dramatic than we anticipated. But we see the path going forward and now in terms of rebasing and as we build. And look, the Vegas race from a revenue standpoint, we don't release sort of race-specific numbers, but the performance there has probably been one of our better races in the ecosystem. So on a relative basis year-over-year, we've got work to do on a relative basis against the ecosystem, it's a good spot, but we see the opportunity. And I think there's a couple of things happening on that front in terms of assessing what the right supply of inventory is, where we have Paddock, where we have Grandstand, what the ticket pricing is, do we need to make sort of single-day ticket available for certain fans to provide greater access, all of that is stuff that's sort of work in progress. But with 2 years under our belt, we have a lot more information. And I think we continue to build those data sets that will help us going forward. And I don't see sort of the revenue picture going from last year to this year and then flattening. I think this year will be better than last year, and we will continue to build and continue to push towards sort of sellout situations that allow us to really dictate what sort of happens moving forward.

Can we just dig in on that point a little bit, right? We have observed a bit of a different approach to the selling cycle this year for Vegas and ultimately, what's going to get bundled into that ticket? Maybe just talk to the rationale there?

Yes. I think what we did is we have dropped, on a relative basis, some of the pricing, and we see the tickets moving better at this time last -- this year than we did last year. So we are sort of cautiously optimistic that the game plan is playing out as we anticipated. And look, we'll see what happens when we get the race day. But right now, we're tracking on a basis that we're happy with.

Got it. Maybe moving to sponsorship. So the past 12 months have seen a lot of progress for F1 here, adding new partners, refreshing deals for existing verticals. When you look at the portfolio, are there big outstanding categories still available, either globally or regionally? And how do you think about enhancing the value of the inventory?

Yes. First, I'd like to just call out the F1 team and the job that they've done on sponsorships over the last few years. I think that if you look at where we were a few years ago, it's probably more of an endemic sponsorship base. It's probably more of a B2B sponsorship base. And the names that we've added sort of in the past couple of years between LVMH, Amex, folks like that, I mean these are obviously blue-chip consumer companies, which has in itself just broadened universe of sponsors that we can approach and attract. And I think there's a little bit of sort of other folks out there now seeing, "Hey, why would LVMH attached to F1? Why would Amex do that? Why would LEGO do that?" And so licensing is an area that's probably been underpenetrated for us and you see someone like LEGO do what they've done and sort of create the buzz around that affiliation. I think other guys will sit there and go, "Ah, now I get it. That's why they did it. I see how that's working for their business. I can make that work for our business." So I think you're going to continue to see that sort of interest in aligning with Formula One, which we feel will continue to pay off for us. I think in terms of categories, these guys have done a good job of filling in sort of the white spaces. There's certainly always certain categories that are out there. I think we're still searching for a soft drink provider. I think we -- even though we've probably sliced up the financial services segment, I think we're looking for a private wealth partner. And I say that because I'm at a JPMorgan conference, so maybe someone's listening. But it's -- I think we've done -- our team has done a really good job. And I think that being said, there's always room to grow, and I think you'll see that over the next few years.

Can we just dig in on licensing a little bit? It's been a nascent business line for F1, but you're definitely highlighting it a lot more now. It sounds like there's just kind of natural momentum. Is it just about kind of finding more consumer products, apparel experiences? How does that kind of grow from here? And then what role does that sort of just play strategically in expanding the brand?

Yes. I think from a context standpoint, we started sort of on the experiential side with F1 Arcade, F1 Experiences, attaching ourselves to that, which is a slight extension from being able to go to a race. And part of that is just, hey, if there are others willing to sort of build those experiences for us and with us, it's another way for our fans to interact because you only have 24 races, which means there's only 24 locations in this world that people can go experience a race. And then that sort of broadened out to sort of consumer products, and you've seen the deals with Marvel. You've seen the deal with LEGO. And I think that there continues to be others now that sit there and say, "Hey, I think this is a good way for me to align with Formula One and what that does for my own product set." And look, I think the other thing that goes unspoken sometimes, and I think Mark actually said it earlier is what does this do for F1, right? So we're aligning with the right partners who are out there with premium brands themselves or the right types of brands in all these categories, but they're throwing promotional weight behind it. Those are the sorts of partners we want to be with. And it's kind of like on the media side, too, right? You don't want someone just sort of televising your races and not thinking about it the other -- all the other times of the year other than the 24 races, but how they're thinking about it across the board, 365 days a year.

Got it. Let's touch upon MotoGP that's pending approval with the EC, shares a lot of characteristics with F1 in terms of structure and revenue lines, but will differ slightly from the 2016 deal and that you'll carry through the existing management team. So how are you at Liberty kind of thinking about the expertise you can leverage to help them?

Well, first and foremost, we are eagerly awaiting approval from European Commission and working constructively with them to see that through. When hopefully, we close, we are very excited to get engaged with the MotoGP management team. They've done a fantastic job of building sort of the core elements of a sport and a passionate fan base. I don't know if you've been to a MotoGP race.

I have not.

But it's probably one of the more thrilling experiences you can have. And I think you can't replicate that. And so sitting at the -- on the Board of Liberty at the time that we made this decision, I was all in favor of it because I know how scarce these sorts of assets are. And I think that as we look at it from a Liberty perspective, there are elements of this where -- and broadly speaking, you'd sit there and say, hey, I think replicating what we did at F1 would be admirable here in the sense of taking a very core sports product and broadening the reach and broadening the appeal so that you're more mainstream and therefore, opening up the aperture of everyone you want to engage with, whether it's the fans, TV sponsors, all that sort of stuff. How we go about it probably won't be exactly what we did at F1, there are differences to the 2 properties. They will be run separately. But with the knowledge that we have and the experiences that we've had at F1, we can carry a lot of that forward to Moto and I think, see a lot of the expansion impact that we had at F1 happen there, too.

Great. So assuming a close on that deal, I think leverage at F1 goes to a range of between 3.5x and 4x. We assume debt paydown would be a priority of cash used for a period. But a question we often get from investors is what's kind of the longer-term plan? How do you and John kind of see the most effective way to allocate capital from what will be 2 very cash-generative businesses?

So the good news is I think we have a little bit of time in the sense that once we close this deal, as you mentioned, our leverage will be at a pretty good level. We will start to delever pretty quickly given the cash-generative properties of these businesses. But we are having those discussions internally as to what we think the next phase of Liberty and the Liberty companies are. We have a little bit of time here. Look, the markets, as we know, are quite volatile and who knows what happens in the markets, but we feel like we'll be well positioned to the extent opportunities start to arise out of what's happening out there. So I think that's probably one we stay tuned, but we recognize that at some point, as we do pay down debt, we'll probably be thinking how to spend the cash.

Got it. Last November, you announced plans to reattribute assets between 2 trackers within Liberty Media namely Formula One Group and Liberty Live and then you're going to spin out the live piece setting up 2 separate fully asset-backed stocks and thus ending the long-standing tracking structure. Maybe can you update us on where things stand with that process and just refresh on the rationale?

Yes, I think it was all about structural simplification and putting ourselves in a position to have that flexibility. And I think that we stated that in November, right around our investor conference, and that continues to be the plan here. From a process standpoint, I think it's all going according to plan. We had I think indicated that we think would hopefully be effective sometime in the second half of this year, and I think that's still the plan. And then once the 2 assets are separate, we will take each one independently and determine the plans and strategies from there.

Got it. We are coming down to the end. I want to ask you next month is going to see the global theatrical release with an IMAX window of F1, starring Brad Pitt. Have you seen the film? Do you know anyone who has? What does this moment mean for the sport?

I've not seen it. I'm very excited to go and watch it with the population out there who are F1 fans and probably beyond. I think this is a pretty significant moment in terms of the amount of sort of investment promotion that Apple, Warner Bros. putting into a project like this. Brad Pitt, Jerry Bruckheimer, clearly, these are some of the biggest ones out there for a film like this. So despite the fact that I spent part of my life in the sort of entertainment side of things, you can't ever really gauge how a movie will do until it's the opening weekend. But I think we all feel pretty good about it. Eddy Cue at Apple feels great about it. I just got to talk to him. And I think in terms of another leg up on the F1 story,and what it's become and who this movie will hopefully attract and bring further new fans into the ecosystem, satiate the needs of the existing fans, I am eagerly anticipating the film.

Got it. All right. That's a great point to close on. Derek, thanks so much for being here.

Thanks for having me.