Formula 1's Liberty Media tops Forbes' Most Valuable Sports Empires list

Liberty Media controls all of F1's commercial activities, from streaming distribution rights to ticketing and event management on race days. With its value clocking in at $18.22 billion at the end of 2023, it dwarfs even the NFL's commercial rights, which hit $12.43 billion in the same year.

The secret to F1's commercial value? Global appeal and city partnerships.

While many sports claim 'global' appeal, few can touch F1's geographic reach. The series is watched religiously across every continent, with broad appeal in places like Europe and China and niche appeal in the United States and India. But unlike fellow global sport soccer, F1 isn't just growing in its niche markets: it's growing in its saturated ones, too. 

In 2022, F1 viewership saw a 48% YoY spike in France, a 40% YoY spike in Italy and a 39% YoY spike in the United Kingdom. Even in markets where the series is popular, it's still gaining huge numbers of net new followers.

But F1's commercial value isn't restricted to its viewership. The series makes a sizable chunk of its revenue from race day operations. Upwards of 400,000 fans pass through F1's most popular tracks on race weekends. At the Australian Grand Prix in 1995, a record-setting 520,000 fans turned up to watch Damon Hill win the race for Williams.

But fans aren't the only ones paying to enjoy F1 weekends. Cities and tracks pay for the privilege of hosting races — and they pay big. Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan, pays $55 million annually to host its iconic Grand Prix. To hear Baku tell it, the investment is well worth it: the city reaped over $500 million in tourism dollars throughout its first four Grands Prix. Plus, F1 helped put the nation of Azerbaijan on the radar of global sports fans. 

The organizers of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix say it has contributed to "intangible fields of national brand reputation and raising global awareness of Azerbaijan as a modern, dynamic country capable of staging world-class sporting and entertainment events." And that matters to Azerbaijan, a small nation whose greatest international claim to fame has been its long-standing violence and tension with its neighbor Armenia.

As F1 continues to grow, it's traded out many of its 'traditional' track circuits for city circuits like Baku. That $55 million payment is a big reason why; cities are generally interested in paying more for F1 races because they reap direct tourism benefits from their attendees. When the Spanish Grand Prix moves from the Circuit de Catalunya to downtown Madrid in 2026, it's that money that will be driving the change.

The 2024 F1 season is scheduled to kick off on Sunday, March 2, with the Bahrain Grand Prix. By all accounts, it's shaping up to be an even more valuable season than the ones that came before.