Formula One Group ($FWONK)

Okay. Great. So we'll kick things off today. Here on my left, I have from Liberty Media, Derek Chang, President and CEO. Derek, thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me.

Great. So Liberty Media is about 6 months into its current era, operating as an asset-backed stock with 2 main units and Formula OneFormula One and MotoGP. So Derek, what does this new structure meant in terms of your focus or priorities?

The -- as you know, we spun off Liberty Live last year -- late last year, which holds the interest in Live Nation, which has left Formula One One with Formula OneFormula One and MotoGP, as you alluded to earlier. I don't know if it necessarily changes much in terms of our sort of unyielding focus on sort of the operations of the business and how we grow the businesses. That's been our fundamental focus, I think, for a while now, which is how do you take these great assets that we have and continue to grow them and continue the momentum that you have, particularly at F1, where the -- Stefano and his team have been sort of on fire, as you know, based on the performance that you've seen. But I think how do you continue to drive that over the next few years and then where are those opportunities for growth. And then on the MotoGP side, we're really laying into that right now. We closed, I think, in July last year, undergoing some changes there with respect to upgrading the team in terms of the commercial applications and really taking a sport that is fundamentally probably 1 of the coolest things I've ever seen and really making it accessible to a much broader group of people. And I think with that, you'll start to see the commercialization start to ramp over the next several years.

Got it. So similar to the way I began with TKO yesterday, I always think it's important to start with product. So maybe we'll start with Formula One One. Drama is always kind of normal course of business. But -- there has been a lot of noise rightly around the kind of new regulations and cars. So I'm interested to get your thoughts on the rollout so far and maybe the read-through to your various stakeholders.

I think the rollout has been fantastic. Look, every time you introduce new rules, new engines and things like that, there's always some controversy for the business that we're in, controversy is actually not a bad thing. And it gets people talking about it. And even then the mid-season corrections that you have, we took the break in April and people were able to tune their cars and do everything that they do doing when they're off. And we keep having ongoing conversations with the teams because we're constantly trying to make sure the product, as you describe it is as good as it can be. And so I think it's been great. I think you'll have sort of the people who are appraising it, some of the detractors, whatever it is good for business, as you say, to have people talking about it. And I think the fans have gotten into it even more because of what it's enabled in terms of the competitiveness on the track. The overtaking the passing all that sort of stuff is again, has made it very, very exciting, [indiscernible]. I was a very young driver, second season in F1 and has been sort of on fire recently. That brings a whole another element into the equation because you're constantly trying to promote the competitors self-support. And I think you see that in Formula One 1 right now.

Maybe staying on presentation. So in the U.S., you're in a new distribution framework with Apple TV and streaming maybe beyond any early metrics. Can you talk about what Apple is doing differently with the product, the broadcast itself, the ecosystem around it, maybe that you haven't seen with other partners prior.

Yes. And let me just start by saying that Apple, I think the relationship with Apple has gotten off to a fantastic start. I think it's everything that we envisioned when we did the deal with them last year and more. And so the things that you worry about when you transition from one broadcaster to another is, okay, will the audience follow? Can they find it. And what we've seen thus far is that we had no hiccups going from ESPN, who was a great partner to Apple this year. And the people, the fans have followed. The fans have been there. And I think now what you're seeing is less, certainly from an investor standpoint, less sort of, hey, is this going to work to, oh, what is this unleash and what is the potential of the deal with Apple. And I think this is what you're talking about. All of a sudden, you're on a tech platform, which has many more sort of capabilities and flexibility with what they can do. And so things like the multi-view application, the amount of data that's coming for through to the product is pretty amazing. And I think that the fans are gravitating towards it. fans are noticing what they have, and what Apple is actually bringing to them. And it's all been, in my mind, very, very positive. I think the other element of Apple that we've seen is -- and I've spoken about this before because I have a long history for better, for worse than the pay television industry. And in pay television, what happened over the years as the broadcasters and programmers sort of demanded more and more in the way of fees. The distributors sort of fought back through sort of restrictions that they put on what the programmers could do with the product. And so to think about ESPN or someone like that taking F1 and doing what Apple has done it would have been unpatentable. And now Apple, what you're seeing is, okay, they did sort of the last Miami race, they broadcast it in IMAX theaters. They've done a deal with Netflix, where this weekend, GP in Montreal, can be broadcast on Netflix in addition to Apple. And at the same time, season of Driver survive is on Apple is available on Apple also. They've got other deals with, I think, 2b and other ways of distributing the product that in the old world, you never would have thought of because you would have said, oh, that's a competitive, you're giving content to a competitor. And what we see now is really an innovation and a way to innovate where it's not really a competitive concept, but more of a promotional concept. And I think it's working. And I think that's, again, one of the elements that Apple brings to the table. I think finally, we haven't done any other deals with Apple yet, but clearly, they have been invigorated by sort of the success that they've had with us in the U.S. thus far. It goes without saying that EQ is a huge F1 band and whether or not we can maybe do business with Apple in other locations around the world remains to be seen, and I think we'll have those discussions and at a minimum, that helps tighten the market in other markets.

Maybe just talking about other markets. So you recently announced an extension with Sky in the U.K. and Italy. I think it should be noted that Sky is a somewhat unique partner for you in terms of their broadcast and content that gets licensed around the world. But -- can you speak to that water relationship and then just the decision to kind of renew early here?

Sure. Sky is -- for those of you who have lived in the U.K. as I have, Sky is the best platform to be on in the U.K. by far, if you're a sports holder rights holder. And so what they've done with us from going exclusive on Sky in 2019, I think that audience has increased by 90% the female quotient of the dealership is now at 50-50, I believe, are close to it, 45%, the growth in sort of the younger demographics to 35%, I think, has increased considerably over that amount of time. And a lot of it is due to sort of what Sky does in terms of its reach -- it is the major sports platform. So to be on it, just sort of brings that credibility to what you do, what you have. I also think that Sky, the amount of energy and investment that they put into the broadcast not just on rate state, but similar to Apple, what they do sort of on a 24/7, 365 days a year basis, helps us promote the sport and keep it ever present in front of our fans. And so -- and this year, and I spoke about Kimmy and Taneli earlier, I think viewership in Italy on Sky Italia is up by 25%, so they are constantly in their own way despite the fact that people would think of them as a traditional distribution platform, but they've innovated over time in a way that incorporates a lot of the streaming aspects, the digital aspects to go along with sort of their traditional linear platform. And they've been -- are probably one of our best partners globally for the last handful of years.

Got it. F1 TV continues to be a great story for you. I think you reported Q1 revenue ex the U.S., where it's tied to Apple now was up 30%. Can you frame some of the growth drivers there? And how do you balance sort of having this DTC product against, obviously, the needs of your local partners?

Sure. I think F1 TV is -- has sort of been the leading edge for us in terms of our direct-to-consumer applications. So it's not just the content, but as you think about things like merchandising and licensing and things like that, how we get closer to our fans. We have historically, the roots of F1 have been -- has been a B2B business and we've been very successful at it, and we'll continue to be -- that will be a huge component of our business, but getting closer to the fans and understanding sort of what their behaviors are, who's attending, who's watching all that sort of stuff is very important. F1 TV brings a lot of that to us even in the context of a deal like with Apple, where they've effectively become the sales component of F1 TV, but the data still comes to us. So we actually understand what's going on. I think to answer your first question, though, we are very flexible with how we use F1 TV and our partners because we're here to support sort of the broader ecosystem and again, to drive -- ultimately to drive viewership across the board. And so whether it's the deal that we have structured with Apple or in some cases, where we continue to have a stand-alone product in markets we sort of flex to what the partners need, and we'll do that on a case-by-case basis. I think ultimately, we want to maintain a direct relationship with the fans even if someone else is potentially selling it for us. and then having the data that comes with it is sort of critical to what our mission is.

Maybe shifting to the race promotion side. So with your recent Turkey and Portugal deals, I think the calendar is set through It'd be great to hear how you're thinking about optimizing the schedule beyond this. But maybe as importantly, I know in some of the recent deals you've done, there's been a lot of focus on working with the promoters. Around hospitality and infrastructure. So maybe we can talk to that a bit.

Sure. I think on the demand side, and I spoke about this earlier today on an interview with Bloomberg, which is there is just this insatiable demand for live entertainment. And then how that applies to Formula One One is we continue to see sell-outs of [indiscernible] club. I think we're close to sold out for the rest of the year, for instance. And so -- how do you deal with that? I think you've got to deal with it through creating more inventory. And so as we do sort of renewals or new deals with promoters, the concept is how do you expand capacity, and you've seen it more recently in Hungary, which just renovated last year. I think Mona Austin are undergoing renovation right now to expand capacity, Australia is another 1 where capacity is going to expand. And so that really creates clearly, additional inventory and therefore, additional revenue. I think the first part of your question in terms of how you sort of plan out the race calendar and what do you look at. The great news for us right now is we're constantly having conversations I think that what we've seen over the last handful of years is folks really view Formula One One as an important component to a strategy to promote particular geography or city or whatever it is they're trying to do. And so that partnership is huge. And you see this in the amount of interest from potential new locations as well as the renewals that were that are underway now where I would say 5 years ago, people might have been a little bit look warm every time you did a renewal and they were like, oh, that's a big jump up. And b, the reality is the market is commanding higher fees. And I think that people are starting to -- are understanding that where they haven't necessarily before. And I think later this year, we're introducing our race in Madrid. As you noted, we have Turkey and Portugal coming back on the calendar next year. So we're keeping things fresh also. And as you look at what your raise calendar is, it's not like you change it over every year. I think every year, there may be a spot in some years, there are no spots in some years like next year, there's 2 spots that are opening up. And so you're constantly kind of tweaking it to say, hey, how do I create geographic diversification, making sure that I'm reaching as many fans as possible. We only have 24 races and there are many more cities and many more fans than we can sort of supply. But that being said, we're going to do our best to do it and keep it fresh, keep the exposure as broad as possible.

So for this year, Formula One One made the decision not to hold planned races in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, MotoGP rescheduled Grand Prix in Qatar to later this year. I think Stefano has publicly indicated a willingness to put a race back on the calendar. Maybe you can just elaborate on the circumstances you need to see for that.

Sure. It's challenging time, not just for us. I mean there are others who obviously are much more impacted than we are. I don't mean sporting properties but people. And so we're keeping a careful eye we don't control what happens in the Middle East. To the extent that things settle down and it's safe to have races there, then ideally, we try to get another race -- one of the races back on the calendar probably between Baku and Singapore would be the logical place. But at this point, we're sort of in the same boat as most other folks, which is everyone, I think, is hoping for hostilities to end, but none of us sort of are in a position to dictate any of that.

Got it. So with the Las Vegas Grand Prix, we thought last year's race weekend and underlying financial performance, demonstrated traction across a range of revenue and cost items, with the event now in year 4, Curious what are the ways in which you can further elevate the GP and leverage it across the wider F1 ecosystem?

Sure. Vegas has turned out to be what we thought it would be, which is sort of a landmark destination 1 of the stops on the calendar. And I think like any race that starts or any event that you start the early years are always a little bit choppy. I think we've gotten through most of that choppiness. And from an operational standpoint, it's performing really well. I think from a commercial standpoint, we're already ahead of where we were last year in terms of ticket sales, both volume as well as dollars. And so we're happy about that. We work very well with -- and it wasn't always the case with sort of the local partners, whether it's the Las Vegas authorities or the casinos who are obviously major stakeholders in this operation. I think those relationships are in a great place. And I think that we are looking forward to having a sustaining race in Vegas for a long time. And I think what that allows people to do is make investments. So whether you are the sponsors that we have there are definitely sponsors that came into F1 because of Vegas, who have then expanded their footprint across more races in F1. American Express is a great example of that. So I think those opportunities continue because Vegas is such a signature event for ourselves beyond the Grand Prix, we have Grand Prix Plaza, which is the permanent branded attraction that we have in Vegas, which last year, we opened again early on, you always have some challenges. I think a lot of that's been smoothed out, and now you see sort of the attraction and it being another destination for people to go to in Vegas. The Go carting, I think, is probably one of the busiest, if not the busiest go car track in the U.S. So for those of you who haven't been there, can't go during the race because we have to take the track down. But outside of that, it's a great experience.

Right, outside of October to maybe...

I think early January. Yes.

Got it. Okay. That's a good segue to sponsorship. So F1 has been active on that front recently. You've added partnerships in the bedding and insurance categories. You renewed some long-standing deals. How should investors view the growth opportunities from here in terms of new verticals, more inventory repricing deals?

Yes. As you guys know, I think our sponsorship revenue was up, I think, 30% last year in '25 over '24. And we see continued strength and continued growth. And I think you see it on 2 fronts. One is on renewals, where our existing sponsor base is -- and some of them coming back early and saying, hey, this has been great, and we'd like to renew and understand that the market is moving. I think with sort of new sponsors Look, I think the question we consistently get is what happens to categories and inventory. And I think there are still categories you mentioned bedding is one that continues to have we see some space. I think even within existing categories, call it more broadly speaking, financial services. As you mentioned, we just did a deal with Marsh in insurance. We did a deal with Standard Charter and Wealth Management early this year. And so I think there are ways that you continue to broaden the sponsor set. I think that the other thing that you see is sort of the vertical dynamic where people will flip from being a regional sponsor to a global sponsor or vice versa to the extent that if they can't tolerate certain increases in sort of what the fees are, I think you can always find a place for those. So you keep everyone happy at the same time that you grow [indiscernible] pie.

So licensing is a nascent but growing business. It's been a lot more visible recently with partnerships like LEGO and Disney. Maybe just speak to strategic value of these relationships and then just the opportunity for expansion in sort of the big 3 categories of consumer products, apparel, experiential.

Sure. I think licensing is beyond the financial impact, which as we grow licensing partners, we'll continue to grow the financials along with that, and we see a lot of headroom there. But I think the synergistic sort of coupling with some of these major consumer brands like LEGO, like a Disney and what it's done for our reach has been pretty substantial. And so you see it through the growth in the demographic of the younger set, right, whether it's kids, young adults, whatever. And now, look, I was on the phone with LEGO the other day. LEGO's demographic is much broader than kids. But clearly, there is a specialty to it. And what you've seen is how -- with the right licensing partners that they can increase the funnel that we have and drive sort of fan engagement different types of fan, different ages, different demographics, which the younger they are, hopefully, they stay a stance through their entire lifetime. So if you get them in whatever form you get them, my guess is they migrate over time and become different types of fans, but hopefully remain fans. So I think the ability to broaden our exposure, broaden our reach off the backs and in partnership with our licensing partners is a significant opportunity.

I want to ask on Formula One One costs. So you've been clear on the impact of the new Concorde Agreement, pre-team share margins this year I'm curious, as you look over the medium term, though, and this relates to your kind of overall EBITDA margins at F1, how do you think about the ongoing growth investment that shows up in SG&A and other costs?

Sure. I think back in November, when we had our investor conference, we kind of said, look, we're looking at stable margins and growing EBITDA, right? And I think that we're still in a stage right now where we are looking to invest to ultimately drive the top line. And so where that settles over time, we'll see, but we don't want to sort of restrict ourselves to not being able to grow the business because I think long-term growth is clearly where our focus growth short term and long term is always our focus, but we definitely want to be mindful of where we're going long term.

Got it. Maybe before pivoting to Moto, I do want to ask about China, Derek, you bring a unique perspective, having run the NBA in the region. How do you gauge the place of F1 and China sports landscape today? What are the steps to grow that? Do you need more races there? Do you need buy-in from a Chinese OEM maybe?

Boy, that was -- that's a painful memory, my time in China. No, it was actually a great experience, but right at the end, we had an unfortunate tweet from the General Manager of the rockets at the time. Incidentally, I saw was sort of just left the 6 years the other day. But China is a significant market, and we've had a race there for quite a while now. I would say that we -- if I'm being candid, we probably didn't take advantage of that race as well as we could have over these years. But that being said, over the last few years, the vibe in China has changed pretty considerably just like it has around the world. And I think people are taking to F1 now in China like they never have. I think dealership of the China Grand Prix, Chinese Grand Prix was up 60% on CCTV this year over last year. The growing demograph. I think we're close to 50-50 on women fans. Again, the the younger demographics, 16 to 35, I think we probably is 40%, 45% of our fan base at this point. So it is growing. And I think for China, just like in many other places, it sort of hit that point where it's become part of sort of the cultural [indiscernible] guys. And that's really where you want to be if you are going to be a preeminent global entertainment brand. So I see China as an area that we can have growth. We definitely we'll be focused on it. I don't think you necessarily need, say, another race in China, another driver. We did have a Chinese driver for a couple of years. We probably didn't take advantage of that as much as we could have. And -- to the extent there is another Chinese driver, [indiscernible] come back under the grid at some point, we should try to make hay off of that. But I don't think it's completely necessary in order to grow the business. I think that having been in China with the NBA. It's for the most part of digital product because you don't play games there other than we have preseason. We do have 1 race. So that's a huge advantage and we just need to sort of continue to refine our strategy in China make it a ubiquitous sort of 365-day a year concept there, just like we have in many other places. One great stat that we have is that 60% of our fans interact with F1 on a daily basis. So outside of race day outside of qualifying just every day sort of checking in on different elements of what F1 is. I think to sort of reach that standard in a place like China is something that we are striving for. And I think it's certainly doable.

Got it. Shift to MotoGP, where you closed the deal last July, maybe can you discuss where your focus has been in terms of facilitating best practices across the organizations where you see the earliest opportunities?

Sure. I think the opportunity that we saw at MotoGP continues to ring true, which is is a property that has a tremendous appeal to its core fan base, and it has a very, very passionate core fan base. The action on the track is unparalleled and it is just integrating. It's exciting. It is -- the riders are fearless, the stuff that they can do, the physical attributes of what the athleticism that they need to be able to ride a bike for 45 minutes in those conditions at those speeds is pretty amazing. And I think that what we want to do is to tell that story, bring that to life to a much broader group of people, just like Mid with Formula One One. And I think you're going to see us do that through how we promote it, who we partner with, the content that we create around it, the content that we distribute around it, all that sort of stuff is part of bringing the sport to life, bringing the riders to life, making a much broader group of people understand sort of what the beauty of MotoGP is. And I think that is -- that's certainly where we're headed, and that's the mission that we're on. From an org standpoint and a leaning in standpoint, I'm spending a lot of time with MotoGP right now as we ramp up and as we hire in folks on the commercial side because we want to get this ball rolling. We are close to sort of filling out members of the senior management team. And once we have that, I think we'll be off to the races. And I think the big advantage that we have over Formula One One is Formula One One and our experience with Formula One One. So you have a lot of credibility in the marketplace, whether you're speaking to media partners or potential sponsors or race promoters because they know what we did with Formula One One. They know we are heavily invested in this. They know that we are committed -- and I think that, that credibility that you bring can accelerate a lot of the efforts that we're trying to make happen in MotoGP.

Maybe on the reach point, right, Formula One One did have great success, especially we drive to survive. And certainly, there's a lot of room to better know the MotoGP riders. Can you run that playbook right just recognizing there's been some saturation for sports documentaries, are there other levers that you're thinking about?

I think when we talk about the playbook. The playbook is what I was trying to describe earlier, which is how do you tell the story to more people, right, and expose a sport, make it more accessible. So there's a lot that goes into that, again, whether it's at the track, whether it's through the sponsors and the licensing partners you have and whether it's through the content that you produce and the content that you deliver around it. And so do you need to have drive to survive like a copy of drivers. I'm not so sure that's the right answer. I think we are looking at different ways, again, to promote the sport and retain its authenticity, retain its core, not just sit there and say, hey, we're going to do the exact same thing. You did at F1 demote GP. You got to realize it's years later, too, right? So things have changed. The environment's changed sort of the technology has changed. So how do you take advantage of all of what is available to you in the current time and apply that against MotoGP, but expanding the fan base, expanding the demographic, all of that is very similar to Formula One One. How we do it, my guess is we'll be different.

MotoGP and its teams are currently engaged in sort of their version of the Concorde agreement negotiations. Just what's the latest on that process? What are the goals from the MotoGP said?

I think the goals from MotoGP from the teams themselves is always to drive as competitive a product as we can on the track. And so as we think about the agreement what are ways to incent sort of the competitiveness to incent the investment to support both on our part as well as on the team's part. All that is sort of part of the dialogue. We actually feel like we're pretty close at this point to getting something done, coming to conclusion on these sorts of agreements never necessarily easy. But at the end of the day, I think we all have a shared interest in what the success of the sport can be. And I think that some of it's education, right? So MotoGP has not sort of had the same level of sophistication both in terms of the sport, both and sort of the teams from a commercialization standpoint that you've seen at Formula One One. But, the great news is underlying it all and underpinning it all, we have this fantastic sport, and we have this fantastic property. And we're going to be able to sort of tell that story. And I think the teams now understand with Liberty coming in that our focus. It's not a sort of a computational focus. It really is sort of how do we build this thing together and I think we're getting close to that. Concluding that, at which point, we'll have another 5 years of sort of this is the way sports going to be, bring the stability, allow people to invest promote and do that together in a way that lifts the sport.

Maybe a couple of questions at the Liberty level. So deleveraging has been a priority. You're executing towards that. Assuming things continue at pace, leverage goes down further kind of what's the framework you apply towards capital allocation?

Yes. So I think we did set out last year when I got on board, I mean, we kind of said, hey, we are going to deleverage, and we have been on that track. I think we announced that we're at 3x leverage at the end of the first quarter. That number probably goes up a little bit because of the disruption to the schedule in the second quarter, but the long-term trend continues. I do think that Liberty being Liberty, we are constantly looking for opportunities to invest. I think investing directly into the businesses to drive organic growth is clearly a preferred path, I think, in addition to that, where we see complementary sort of businesses in and around the assets that we already owned. I think similar sorts of assets where you've got very strong IP or businesses with better highly defensible and that can generate sort of predictable and durable cash flow our businesses that we remain interested in. At the same time, to the extent that you can execute on those types of investments that where we can maintain that discipline against our thesis and our strategy, then ultimately, you think about how you return capital to shareholders. And you've got to be respectful always of sort of creating value, however that comes.

All right. We're about out of time. Derek, thanks so much for being here.

Thanks for having me. Thanks, everyone.