Up until 1981, FOCA had battled the Fédération Internationale du Sport Automobile (FISA) over control of F1’s TV rights, the subsidiary arm of the FIA. Disagreements between the two organisations often spilled over and onto race weekends, resulting in several events being cancelled or declared invalid.

In order to avoid a mass exodus of teams, sponsors, and fans, Ecclestone organised the first Concorde Agreement in 1981. Signed by team managers, president of FISA Jean Balestre and other representatives, the agreement required all complying teams to compete in every scheduled race and granted FOCA the right to televise Formula One races.

But in 1987 Ecclestone took full control, forming the Formula One Promoters Association, which managed all of F1’s commercial rights. This later became Formula One Management and then the Formula One Group, as it is known today. Under its terms, 47 percent of the TV revenues were split between the teams, with the rest divided between the FIA and FOM, who also received massive fees from promoters to stage F1 events.

In the years that followed, the series continued to profit off of the talents of world class drivers such as Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, and Nigel Mansell who in turn brought in massive fan-bases — growing the sport even further. Suddenly, a sport that was once enjoyed by the minority, was followed by the masses.

Prospering from the media boom

Another successful F1 season in 1996 delivered a new British champion in Damon Hill and another spike in viewing figures, with an average of just over five million fans tuning in per race — giving Ecclestone the opportunity to prosper from F1’s growing popularity. SLEC Holdings was created as the holding company for the Formula 1 Group, transferring ownership to Ecclestone’s wife, Slavica Ecclestone, ahead of the stock launch in 1997. Despite its popularity, it seems companies were still apprehensive in taking a sip from the previously poisoned F1 chalice, with Morgan Grenfell Private Equity (MGPE) not purchasing its 12.5 percent share until 1999 for £234 million. But this was soon followed by Hellman & Friedman, who acquired 37.5 percent of SLEC Holdings for £625 million in February 2000, later combining with MGPE to form Speed Investments.

Back on-track, interest had stalled, with increasingly less viewers watching F1 races since the ’96 peak. In 1997, average viewership fell to 4.5 million viewers per race, in a season which saw Michael Schumacher disqualified from the drivers’ world championship after intentionally colliding with eventual victor Jacques Villeneuve during the European Grand Prix. Schumacher’s return in 1998 was enough to boost viewership to 4.8 million viewers per race, but he was again unable to capture an elusive first world title with Ferrari, finishing second to Mika Hakkinen and McLaren by a 14-point margin. Misfortune and failure followed him into 1999, culminating in a crash at the British Grand Prix where he broke his leg. Pursued by Eddie Irvine, Hakkinen eventually ran away with the title, leading to another decrease in average viewership by the end of the season.

Heading into 2000, German media company EM.TV & Merchandising purchased Speed Investments for £1.1 billion, taking a 50 percent stake in F1’s commercial rights — possibly in an attempt to support Schumacher’s title efforts. On-track, its gamble paid off, with Schumacher ending Ferrari’s 21-year wait for a drivers’ world title, but it came at a severe off-track cost.

The 2000s slump

EM.TV’s acquisition plunged them into financial turmoil, and after it announced disappointing annual earnings, the company’s share price dropped by 90%. Help came in the form of the Kirch Group, a fellow German media giant that agreed to rescue EM.TV in return for a stake in the company and control of Speed Investments. As part of the deal, Kirch also exercised the option to purchase another 25 percent of SLEC, paid for with a €1.6 billion loan from Bayerische Landesbank (BayernLB), JPMorgan Chase and Lehman Brothers. This made Kirch the majority stakeholder (75 percent) in Formula One Holdings (FOH).

The takeover was met with stiff opposition from F1 constructors such as BMW and Renault, as the media conglomerate announced its plans to turn Formula 1’s coverage from free-to-air to pay-per-view — even threatening to leave the series altogether. On-track, the situation wasn’t much better, with Schumacher’s dominance becoming predictable — achieving landslide title victories in 2001 and 2002. In response, viewer interaction dwindled once again, falling to an average viewership of 3.7 million viewers per race in 2002 – the lowest since 1993.

But whilst rare wheel-to-wheel battles were failing to capture intrigue, the struggle for power off-track threw the future of Formula 1 into disarray. In April of 2002, the Kirch Group filed for bankruptcy after huge losses and massive expenditures. BayernLB, JPMorgan Chase and Lehman Brothers quickly stepped in to dismantle the company and took over a 75 percent stake in F1. In light of the turmoil and in an effort to remain in control of his stake in F1 (valued at 25 percent), Ecclestone made several changes on the boards if the SLEC, FOH, Formula One Administration (FOA) and Formula One Management (FOM), effectively restricting the banks’ rights as shareholders.

As interest in F1 continued to decline throughout the 2003 and 2004 F1 seasons, spurred by Schumacher’s continued dominance, the three banks sued Ecclestone for more control over the series, with months of high court rulings in London concluding that the Ecclestone family had too much influence over the commercial management of F1. This put the series in a dangerous position. With Ecclestone at the helm, F1 had flourished, not only creating great personal wealth for himself but for countless other team owners and drivers, as well as expanding world-wide interest in motor racing. But after Justice Andrew Park, the judge presiding over the case, denied Ecclestone’s right to appeal, his grip on the management company was set to be loosened dramatically.

This stirred many questions in the heads of team owners and drivers ahead of the 2005 season, with Jaguar announcing its resignation from the series due to a lack of “compelling business cases” and putting its F1 team up for sale for £1. The team had failed to make any lasting impression on the series, finishing in the bottom third of the constructors’ standings since its initial entry in 2000, but Ecclestone himself admitted that the series had become too expensive for new teams to operate.

In an attempt to keep anymore teams from departing the series, Ecclestone offered constructors £260 million over three years in exchange for the renewal of a new Concorde agreement, which provide a new concrete foundation from which the series could rebound. This type of forward thinking ultimately renewed the banks faith in Ecclestone, who remained at the helm of the Formula One Group after a strong endorsement from Gerhard Gribkowsky, chairman of the formula one holding company SLEC and a member of the board of management at the Bayerische Landesbank.

The only way is up

Despite finally finding some stability off-track, curiosity in F1 continued to decline, with the series reaching its lowest average viewership in over a decade in 2006 – 2.7 million viewers per race. Schumacher had been dethroned, replaced by a young Fernando Alonso who found equal dominance behind the wheel of his Renault, winning back-to-back titles in 2005 and 2006.

Simultaneously, CVC Capital Partners, a private equity firm based in Luxembourg, had acquired a 63.4 percent stake in the Formula One Group, buying shares from BayernLB, JPMorgan Chase, Lehman Brothers and Ecclestone himself. In the words of former team principal of Force India, Bob Fernley, the firm’s acquisition of the series was made “to extract as much money from the sport as possible”, and in its 11 year tenure as the sports majority stakeholders, they did just that. Taking advantage of the meteoric rise of Lewis Hamilton and the new influx of fans that followed, CVC reportedly made £3.5 billion over a ten-year period – a return on investment of more than 350 percent. With Ecclestone still at the helm, hosting fees for race promoters exploded and a gradual departure from free-to-air TV to pay-per-view forced even more money in CVC’s pockets.

For a brief time, F1 did return to its former heights of popularity, with its peak coming in 2011 – the site of Sebastian Vettel’s second consecutive world title triumph. But the German’s following run of dominance and falling audience interest continued to make F1 poorer, losing 137 million worldwide followers over the next decade.

A lack of investment in the sports future and growing pressure from drivers and teams eventually prompted CVC to sell the Formula One Group to Liberty Media, who completed a £6 billion takeover in 2017. Ecclestone was replaced by Chase Carey who championed Liberty Media’s ideals of pushing the series into the future, aiming to “enhance the racing experience” and “adding new dimensions”.

The evolvement of Netflix series Drive To Survive and Formula 1’s numerous social media channels has allowed its fan-base to grow exponentially since the Liberty Media takeover, with record viewerships in the UK and the US. In 2020, the series saw a 99% increase in engagement, the greatest compared to any other major sports league and was followed by another increase in unique viewership in 2021, catalysed by Hamilton’s season long battle with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.

Major regulation changes and promises of closer wheel-to-wheel battles ensured returning audiences in 2022, with viewership in the US reaching new heights (1.2 million viewers per race) – an increase of 28% from the following year.

Looking to the future, it seems F1 will continue to grow its global audience as a new generation of drivers take over the series — just as long as the on-track advancements keep up with ever-changing world of social media that surrounds it.

Liberty Media owns 100% of F1 but investors can take a stake by purchasing Formula 1 tracking stock in Liberty. These shares are valued and pay dividends based only on Liberty’s F1 interests.

There are separate tracking stocks for other parts of the Liberty business, including a share of the Live Nation entertainment company.

Expanding across racing formats 

In April 2024, Liberty Media agreed to buy 86% of Dorna Sports, the business with controls MotoGP’s commercial rights, in a deal valued at $4.2 billion.

This is being partly funded by a new public offering of Liberty’s Formula 1 tracking stock (listed under the symbol FWONK). The sale of 12.25m shares raised almost $1bn (£747m). The Dorna deal is expected to be completed by the end of 2024.