(Photo credit: F!)
Formula One’s new chairman and chief executive, Chase Carey, has said that Bernie Ecclestone has been deposed as the figurehead of the sport as the motor-racing series requires a “fresh start” under the stewardship of its new owner, US mass-media company Liberty Media.
Carey yesterday (Monday) added the chief executive title to the chairman role he has held since Liberty Media first announced its takeover of F1 in September. Liberty Media on Monday evening confirmed that it had completed the deal, bringing an end to Ecclestone’s four-decade reign as the commercial supremo of the series.
Ecclestone will become ‘chairman emeritus’ and will remain “available as a source of advice for the board of F1,” Liberty Media said yesterday. Carey told UK broadcaster the BBC today (Tuesday) that while he had “tremendous respect” for Ecclestone, F1 “needs to be run differently than for the last four or five years”.
Carey said: “Bernie is a one-man team. It was not right in today’s world. The decision-making is not as effective as it needs to be. Clearly it has to be improved.”
He continued: “We needed a sport that while respecting what made it great has a sense of energy and innovation. In many ways, in a simplistic sense, the sport said ‘no’ too much and we have to start saying ‘yes’ – not gimmick it up but find ways to do new and exciting things to have the sport continue to grow and interest and excite people.”
Formula One has received criticism for not tapping into modern means of improving the presentation of the sport, both for those at the circuits and watching at home. “Bernie deserves enormous credit for the sport he built,” Carey said. “It just got sold for $8bn (€7.4bn) so the proof is in the numbers.
“But the reality is to be competitive in today’s world you need to continue to find ways to connect and excite fans and we need to use all the digital platforms available, have a marketing capability to tell the stories of the rivalries of the stars.
“They are larger-than-life personalities and you have to take advantage of all the rules to make that story everything it can be, have to make events larger than ever, music and entertainment with sport at the centre of it. I have talked about 21 Super Bowls and that is really what we should have. And then work with our partners – teams, sponsors, promoters, regulator – to ensure the race itself is everything it can be.”
Carey last week said several of the motor racing series’ teams had expressed interest in investing in the championship as Liberty Media divulged further information concerning the offer to let competitors buy a stake in the sport.
Liberty Media announced that it intended to allow teams to invest in the series when it confirmed in September that it had agreed a deal with a consortium led by private equity firm CVC Capital Partners to acquire Formula One.
Providing an update on the situation, Carey said: “We would like to be more aligned with the teams and those discussions are ongoing. We initially made a proposal that had too short a timeframe and we have found a way to have discussion that can have an appropriate level of exchange.
“Out of discussions of equity will be discussions of where do we want the sport to be. There is a great deal of interest in the equity but first and foremost it is about trying to create more of an alignment with the teams about the future of the business.”
The Formula One news cycle has featured multiple stories of late concerning race venues that are struggling to cope with the race fees demanded under the Ecclestone era, most notably Silverstone, home of the British Grand Prix. Carey said he hoped to find a way to make races more successful financially.
“I don’t think we will make them more affordable,” he said. “We will make them more successful. We want to be more of a partner. To be in the US we are not going to own tracks but we will be more of a partner in trying to figure it out. We think these events should be bigger and more profitable than they are and we think, properly run, these events should continue to grow and be even more successful.”
In a separate interview with the Associated Press news agency, Carey said Liberty is looking to add a race on the streets of New York, Los Angeles, Miami or Las Vegas on top of the existing annual United States Grand Prix in Austin, Texas.
Source: Sports Business International
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