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Examining Liberty Media's Takeover Of Dorna: How Much Will It Change MotoGP?

By David Emmett |

The acquisition of Dorna by Liberty Media turns out to be a lot more interesting than expected. The purchase raised a lot of questions - not least, how they expect to get it past the regulators in a number of countries and territories. But it also provided a glimpse of what the future might look like for MotoGP, and how different it would be under new ownership.

First, the details of the purchase. You can read a summary and the press release in a story from earlier today, but the basics are this:

  • Liberty Media are buying 86% of Dorna shares, buying out Bridgepoint Capital and the Canadian pension fund CPPIB, as well as buying 7% of shares from Dorna management.
  • Dorna will continue to be based in Madrid and run by Carmelo Ezpeleta as CEO, with the rest of the management board also remaining in place.
  • Dorna will be kept as a separate entity, but fall under the Formula One Group, under which F1 also resides.
  • Dorna will continue to operate and negotiate independently, and will not be bundled with F1 outside of the FWONK stock listing as an investment vehicle.
  • Because of this structure, Liberty Media expect to get the deal past the regulators, and avoid the pitfalls which forced CVC to sell F1 when they purchased MotoGP in 2006.

Let's start with why Liberty Media want to buy MotoGP in the first place. Liberty Media is, as the name implies, a media holding company. They own a number of major sports and media properties, including the F1 series, SiriusXM, the Atlanta Braves MLB team, music and event ticketing giant Live Nation, and Quint, the travel and hospitality business which offers VIP tickets to F1, MotoGP, and other major sporting events.

MotoGP fits seamlessly with their existing properties. As they describe it, it is a "scarce, league level asset". A sports championship at the highest level. Liberty's expertise is in exploiting and promoting major sports series, and in reaching fans, and they see in MotoGP a series which is successful but which has a lot more potential.

Shake your money maker

That is reflected in the price they are paying. Liberty Media are paying out €3.5 billion to acquire 86% of the stock, valuing the company at €4.2 billion total. They bought out all of Canadian pension fund CPPIB and Bridgepoint Capital's shares, as well as taking 7% of the shares still held by senior Dorna management.

Dorna proved to be a lucrative investment for both the CPPIB and Bridgepoint. The CPPIB got a return of around €1.1 billion in 2024 prices over 12 years, while Bridgepoint saw a return of over €2 billion in 2024 prices for the investment they made in 2006, when they bought the company from CVC.

In the Investor Deck information pack provided by Liberty, and in the investor call held on the morning of April 1st, the US firm laid out the strengths they saw in MotoGP. Apart from being a unique property - the world's leading motorcycle racing championship (notably, there was almost no mention made of WorldSBK throughout the presentation) - Dorna also represents a highly profitable business with very low capital expenditure and a solid return on investment.

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Comments

"That list of goals is precisely where Dorna has been weakest." By keeping the same management will anything change in these areas? Especially with a hierachy based management. One that apparently will receive a €285 million payout.

Thank you for this excellent analysis, boiling down the investor call, full of really useful and interesting information, and especially your opinions as the subject matter expert. I am optimistic, the glass is half full.

Thanks specifically for the financial data and the key slides from their PP deck to investors, in addition to your analysis. I have always hoped that MM would, at least every now and then, provide a deep dive into the financials, whether rider contracts or Dorna. Despite my GD screen name I'm a numbers guy at heart, and always want to see the data. Great read.

Surely this is one area Liberty can institute some major diversification, in both riders and Dorna management.

There are no, and little prospect of, replacements for Binder and Miller coming through, an Asian rider is guaranteed by passport only and no Americans whatsoever. The Continental Circus of old has nothing on what we are experiencing and, worse, headed towards.

WSBK has just a single fly-away round.

Coincidentally the Euro manufacturers are also completely dominant.

The growth options for Liberty are obvious given the sport has geographically shrunk.

I understand your views of the Euro-centric nature of MotoGP (and WSBK). But I don’t want diversity for diversity’s sake. I’m American, and I do not care one bit that there are currently no American riders in MotoGP. 

I believe an elite sport like MotoGP should be a strict meritocracy. Only the best riders in the world should be on the grid. And, no I do not appreciate that Honda reserves a spot for a Japanese (or possibly Asian) national on its roster. And I would be very disappointed if Joe Robert’s gets a spot in Trackhouse without genuinely earning it.

Or, to put it another way, if every rider in MotoGP were Mongolian, and they were all truly the very best riders in the world, I would be perfectly happy. 

That’s just me though. A part of me does understand the desire for more diversity in many aspects of life. I just like to place elite competitive sports in a special “based on merits” category. :-)

That said, more races in more locations around the world is fine with me.

How does one objectively measure merit in a situation like the route to MotoGP? All the "talent cups" don't seem to be doing much. Any rider who wants to get on the grid has to make their way to Spain and ride in the championships there.

Like it or not passports play a role. There are Spanish and Italian riders who have been given a pass for years when any other rider would have been dropped.

Good points dewang. I just feel it is important for other countries that are interested in developing racing talent to invest the money and time doing it. Clearly Italy understands how to play the game. America also once understood. 

And as far as assessing merit, it isn’t easy, but I think it’s completely manageable. Great talent tends to stick out like a sore thumb. Look at the kid from Columbia, for instance. 

Anyway, it will never be a perfect system, but I don’t feel it is broken. 

The meritocracy is all important…..

….but are we (and Liberty) not at all concerned about growing the sport? That was my point.

Alternatively we can just continue down Dorna’s Spain vs Italy duopoly. All well and good on one level, but I’m not flying/riding/driving across Australia to watch a field of Italians and Spaniards dominate at PI. And I’m guessing a heap of Americans feel the same about COTA, Japanese about Motegi, Brits about Silverstone etc etc.

I’m not an F1 fan in any way shape or form but it is a demonstrably better approximation of a World championship. Motogp is nowhere near it, becoming more akin to American World Series baseball. 

It’s not just about plonking more races around the joint, it’s about building the talent pool. If we aren’t getting the Abe’s/Nakano’s/Ukawa’s or Stoner’s/McCoy’s/Gardner’s/Beattie’s/Magee’s or Roberts’/Chandler’s/Kocinski’s/Rainey’s/Lawson’s/Hayden’s or Barros’ or Ballington’s/ Ekerold’s or Crosby’s/Avant’s/Newcombe’s or Saarinen’s etc etc the sport is all the poorer for it.

 

I suppose if most humans need to have individuals they can personally relate to on the grid, in order to go watch a race or subscribe to MotoGP, then your point is valid. 

And I also suppose you are absolutely correct. Most humans do need to identify with people in order to get excited/invested in them. We are tribal by nature. 

I’m just not one of those people. I’d travel to Spain at a high cost of time and money to see a grid made up of entirely Spanish riders. I’m going to COTA next week from California to see a grid with no Americans. And I’m thrilled to do it. So perhaps I’m an outlier. 

The best athletes come from the countries where the sport is popular.  I can't imagine there are many NFL players that are not from the US or Canada.  Winter sports will not be dominated by athletes from the tropics (sorry Jamaican Bobsledders).  Cricket is dominated by former Commonweath countries.

I expect motorcycle mad countries like Spain & Italy to have the most athletes.  The AMA in the US used to have the GNC which made riders ride flat track and road races.  Roberts -> Hayden came up through that.  Fans would have road trips Louden and Daytona bike week (and watch races).  Daytona used to be the biggest purse in motorcycling and manufactures would build special bikes for it.  I remember watching Robert's 700cc YZR shake as he came out of the infield up onto the wall of the outer track competing against 1000cc inline fours, TZ750s and (a year later?) Spencer/Baldwin on Honda's V4s.  It was on TV.  Last time I watched Daytona, it was 600cc production, not sanctioned by the AMA and only on youtube.  Bike week at Daytona is now a pub crawl of people on V-twin cruisers parked on the curb.  Over in the corner, there are races that week instead of the previous month long series..

The US is trying to get motorcycle road racing back.  What kind of racing series are going on in Asian countries besides Japan?

I don’t think Liberty needs to move away from meritocracy, but as an American I’d like to see them provide some better motivation, incentive or just plain pressure on MotoAmerica to improve the US talent pool and provide a better path to Moto3/2/GP for American riders. We’re a huge country with a huge motorcycle racing scene, but having only Joe Roberts and Garrett Gerloff  on the world stage feels wrong. 

I mean, MotoGP doesn't even pull riders from WSBK anymore. They almost treat it as a dumping ground. 

People always talk about how the current GP bikes are easy to ride, but it seems like the only people who can ride them come from within the GP world. Maybe one of the targets should be to make GP bikes easier for non GP riders to get up to speed on. As well as more money in Moto2 to entice talent from WSBK/MotoAmerica to make the jump to the GP grid without having to get a MotoGP seat.

Interesting comments. You reminded me of a podcast where Keith Huewen has a great chat with Ben Spies (you can also catch it here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uf6hVt5G6kw )

Ben points out the difference between growing up racing basically streetbikes and the difference to pure race bikes. His analogy was learning to race on an XR100 then being handed a CR80. Even the best young kid will take time to adapt.

Motogp especially has become much more specialised, with riders, generally, given little time to make the transition. The days of a wildcard WSBK rider being thrown the keys to a Motogp bike and doing well, as Spies, Bayliss, Rea etc have done in the past are no more.

Acosta is looking like a generational talent, but I’d love to know what his preparation for Motogp looked like. In these days of incredible F1 simulators I wonder if KTM prepared something similar: https://www.mototrainer.it/en/home

Or have they just bolted ride height, start devices and as much aero as they can fit onto a V4R and set him loose at a few trackdays? 😂 

I took the time to watch the Catalunya WSBK races at Motoshrink's suggestion and wow what fantastic racing - as was said on the Paddock Pass Podcast "11/10". However what had me most dumbstruck was the number of fans at the race. Unless my eyes deceived me it appeared to be only low thousands of people (not even tens of thousands). Surely they need to radically drop ticket prices to addres that, or perhaps they rely en irely on sponsorship for funding?

Thanks for the insight into the progress of this Liberty Media deal David, I found the slides surprisingly down-to-earth and plain English which I think also speaks well of Liberty Media. I have no doubt the hype machine is going to go into overdrive once/if they take over (I know an astounding amount about Lewis Hamilton considering I haven't ever watched an entire F1 race) but perhaps it isn't quite going to be as Disneyfied as I had been fearing. 

Nice to have some actual analysis and info rather than all the doom and gloom from the commentariat. This was about what I expected- Liberty would let Dorna focus on what it's good at (managing the sport) while helping with what it's not (promoting the sport/growing the audience and managing the financials). Seems like a pretty obvious win/win. Good to see that Dorna's financials are strong as well; I imagine most of their debt came from trying to survive the pandemic. Between this and the tech changes in 2027 I think the sport is positioned to do well.

I do hope WSBK also gets the attention it deserves; frankly I think the racing there is better than MotoGP at the moment, and Toprak is indeed a Rossi grade superstar.

Liberty Media has clearly raised F1's profile for all the good and ill that's brought. Like I said on the first announcement, at least they can't send us to a bunch of unwanted street circuits, and in turn use that to strong-arm "real" tracks into higher fees. It's happening now with Spa Francorchamps, one of the most historic tracks in the world. They've lost money a few years running even with higher ticket prices and Liberty said beatings will continue until morale improves.

I know it's all somewhat pessimistic but I just don't trust ANY large company. History has repeatedly justified that stance.

For me it's not large companies that are suspect, it's the ownership. In general (yes, there will be exceptions...), my observations are:

  • Privately held (also employee owned to some extent) = the owner(s) are responsible to the company and its employees. The owner(s) may have built the company themselves and they work to better the company so it remains a viable interest. Pride of ownership and product play prominently here and the sale of the company for a profit may not always be the goal. Profits may be plowed back into the company in the form of employee bonuses, expansion, and product development.
  • Publicly held = the owners are the share holders who may not even know they hold a piece of the pie if the company is part of a diversified portfolio (OMG, did I just say "diversified portfolio"? <facepalm>). This translates into the shareholder's agent(s) working to grow the value and operating profit of the company as much as possible so the yearly operating profit can be redistributed to the shareholders via dividends, and so the shareholder's portion of the company can be sold down the road for a profit to the shareholders. Product quality too often doesn't factor into this, just product profitability.

Yes, I'm a born cynic.

The FIM just released (late Tue, April 2) an official endorsement of the Liberty purchase of the majority shares in Dorna. The brevity and tone of the press release strikes me as odd - sort of "Let's not forget who really "owns" MotoGP, et al." I get that the FIM is the sanctioning body and controls the rights to use these titles, to set the regulations, and to award championships. It seems to emphasize that Dorna is really "just" the promoter; that Liberty didn't really purchase a controlling interest in MotoGP and related FIM series. Damning with faint praise? Just a clarification? Or just feeling a bit left out of the hoopla? 

Here's the statement (from the FIM site):

"FIM Statement re: Acquisition of Dorna Sports S.L. by Liberty Media Corporation"

Following the recent public announcement regarding the acquisition of Dorna Sports S.L. by Liberty Media Corporation, the FIM welcomes this agreement.

The FIM is the owner of the following championships and has entered into agreements with Dorna Sports S.L. for the promotion of:

•    The FIM MotoGP™ World Championship since 1992;
•    The MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship since 2015;
•    The FIM JuniorGP™ World Championship since 2016;
•    The FIM Enel MotoE™ World Championship since 2019 and
•    The FIM Women Circuit Racing World Championship since 2023.

The FIM is convinced that these World Championships will benefit from the strength and broadcast quality of Liberty Media Corporation and congratulates Greg Maffei and his team on these additions to their portfolio, which will undoubtedly help grow the sport for fans, teams, commercial partners and all related stakeholders.

The FIM is delighted to continue its excellent relationship with Dorna Sports S.L., especially with Carmelo Ezpeleta and his management team, and look forward to working together towards the growth of this exciting sport.

I'll just add that thanks to David's excellent reporting, and the content of Liberty Media's presentation, I'm actually getting enthused and feeling pretty upbeat about the future of MotoGP (and probably, related series — although I wonder if  WSBK/WSS/WSS300 will also benefit, or be seen as diverting resources from the premier series).

 

 

As motorcycling's principle representative body, representing all (well, most) of the national motorcycling federations of the world, the FIM sanction a grand prix world championship. 

The FIM doesn't want to actually run a world championship, because when they did that, it was not great. So they sell the rights to a promoter to run it.

Dorna purchased the rights to run and promote a world championship. They pay the FIM an annual fee for the privilege. They have a contract with the FIM which runs through 2036 (I believe, but I haven't double-checked).

Dorna sells the rights to organize and promote grand prix in individual countries and territories to local promoters and circuits, to host one race. 

Dorna sells the rights to broadcast the entire world championship to various broadcasters around the world.

In short, the FIM own the rights to the FIM Grand Prix World Championship. They sell that to Dorna, who have branded it MotoGP/Moto2/Moto3.

If the same people are going to continue to run Dorna, then Liberty Media is simply a stockholder. Seemed like a lot of words with nothing specifically said other than Dorna will continue to run their various series with the existing staff. About the most positive thing I read was that they see the USA as a place to expand. I hope that means Indy comes back and World Superbike returns to Laguna Seca. That they said MotoGP stays at 22 race weekends, another event would have to be dropped. Hopefully they can bring more money to the sport at least.  

At the risk of adding to news fatigue about the Liberty+Dorna story, I found this 4-minute CNBC interview with Liberty Media's CEO to be a pretty positive take on the potential future for the multiple Dorna-managed series (note: Youtube with short ad ("Skip Ad" button):

'Liberty Media CEO on $4.5B MotoGP deal: We want to show the world how exciting this sport is'

BTW, thanks David for the helpful clarification on the FIM-Dorna relationship and the superb reporting on the Liberty presentation. My brain always tries to understand these complex business deals with some analogy to the pipeline of a physical product ("widget') : 

  • FIM would be in the approximate role of the designer, with patent and brand ownership of the widgets.
  • Dorna has an exclusive contract/license to produce, market the brand, price, sell and distribute the widgets (broadcasters and track owners being the wholesale/retail outlets). 
  • Liberty is buying the majority share of the manufacturer with the goal of increasing revenue by expanding the marketing and distribution channels where they have beaucoup experience and far-reaching industry influence. As isoia pointed out, the Liberty Media Senior Leadership Team has world-class media and content distribution chops. Content is king in their world and they get that this content has a big upside. Just the fact that this is newsworthy on CNBC is evidence!
  • Liberty also understand the value of having bought the licensing rights (through Dorna) for at least the next dozen years or so = large enough window to make a decent profit. 12 years being something close to "forever" in the world of media and distribution technology.

Fingers crossed!

Of course if Liberty & Dorna don’t get this across the line with all the regulatory authorities this may yet turn out to be an unintentional April Fool’s Day classic! I’m sure they’re confident of getting this approved but just thought I’d highlight the irony in the timing.

Post-knee jerk superficial reaction, finding myself not pessimistic. There will be a few adjustments to get used to, but if we hang in there there may well be general improvements.

(Don't get me wrong, cars are dumb and f*$k F1, but not expecting adversity)

Leaving this here, I find it super(sport) interesting who is riding what in what order on the fookin bonkers Isle Of Man. Hint: big rise in Triumph 765's and Suzuki GSXR750's. Incl one built by sorely missed Guy Martin. I get to watch all the action this yr since I was gifted access by a wonderful reader here! You know who you are, thanks again mate!!

Cheers!

https://www.roadracingworld.com/news/isle-of-man-tt-supersport-starting…

Aleix pulled Martin into competing as a team pair last wknd in the Vuelta Ibiza "an extremely demanding three-day mountain bike race"...finishing 18th of 173! Really cool! Impressed.

David: The above stands glaringly out in your report. It is impossible to incur $1B in debt on $4m/yr in spending. Seems the only way Bridgeport could have left Dorna this must debt would be to have never paid someone for buying the series to begin with. And apparently Dorna haven't paid the note either? Can you explain?

^ Multinational corporations are never left holding the bag. When the big ones fail in America, bailouts are funded by the low to middle socio economic classes. Fookin nuts mates!

"The single biggest theft of public funds ever? Too big to fail bank bailout 2008"

Critize me for talking politics? Ok. Twice per yr mate. Doesn't mean I am not aware nor care.

Saving re-start? Marc Marquez has already won swervy linked COTA.It will change our Championship talk. Laugh all you want, I think this Championship is Marc's to lose. The dude has another blossom in him that was delayed physically and The Alien will burst through his own physicality just like the chest of that one scientist that felt fine.

Boom.