We recently wrote an article and recorded a video about Saudi Arabia’s hopes to convince some teams to move to the Kingdom in order to create a hub of motorsport in the country. We unpacked this and said why we thought it was unlikely. Interestingly now though, there are a vast amount of solid reports that Saudi Arabia went a big step further than this and intended to buy F1 itself.
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The current “leasers” of F1’s commercial rights, purchased F1 management from Bernie Ecclestone and CVC back in 2017 for $4.4 billion. The company has made impressive strides with the racing series’ ratings since then. The advent of increased Social Media usage following the sport, along with a massive influx of new fans through Drive to Survive and the cost cap making teams more enticing as a franchise model, has led to the valuation of F1 exploding since the takeover.
Now reportedly it seems that this value sits around $20 billion, or at least that’s what Saudi Arabia was willing to pay. Given the fact that F1’s Commercial Rights currently generate around $2 billion per year, $1 billion of which goes to the teams, it is safe to say, even at this massive cost it would be a safe investment.
This is clearly also why Liberty Media also weren’t willing to sell up at a time when it’s popularity is on a massive upwards trajectory. It seems then that F1 is staying in the same hands for the future, but it would have been interesting to see the public’s and the team’s reaction to such a purchase given Saudi Arabia has been a controversial topic for the west in recent years.
