Formula One’s dramatic growth has yet to fully reach a critical part of its operations: U.S. media rights.

The motorsports property is in the final year of its three-year extension with ESPN paying an estimated $75 million to $90 million annually, and has yet to reach a new pact with any U.S. entity to cover 2026 and beyond. A period of exclusivity for ESPN expired late last year, and though talks are ongoing, the situation remains decidedly unresolved.

The core issue at play, like many rights negotiations, is a difference of opinion on the value of F1’s content. F1, according to multiple reports, is looking to roughly double the rights fee, and that is conflicting with viewership that was flat in 2024 at an average of 1.1 million per viewer, and was down slightly compared to a peak of more than 1.2 million seen in 2022. 

F1 has been on a multi-year run of growth across multiple indicators, and the 2024 U.S. viewership was still twice the comparable audience in 2018. The question is whether that latest mark is closer to a relative ceiling for F1, or the base of something bigger. Early 2025 results so far suggest perhaps the latter, with ESPN showing increases for each of the first five races of the season. 

“There are still a lot of discussions to try to find the best solution,” F1 president and CEO Stefano Domenicali said in February at the last earnings call for its owner, Liberty Media. Liberty will next make a quarterly report on May 7, three days after the Miami Grand Prix. 

Also complicating the situation is a highly disparate mix of start times among various races, with some events beginning as early as 9 a.m. ET or as late as 1 a.m. ET, and at many points in between. Operating with a global audience, F1 has a particularly challenging dynamic of trying to manage the demands of local race hosts, U.S. viewership primarily spread across four time zones, and a European audience that remains core to its overall business.

F1’s contemplation of future rights partners has included a broad mix of linear networks and streamers, with nearly every major operator in sports media inquiring to some degree. 

ESPN, which has aired F1 since 2018, also has pushed back in other situations where it sees fairly static viewership, such as with Major League Baseball.

Five races into the 2025 Formula One season, Ferrari’s high-priced Lewis Hamilton experiment is not yet paying dividends. 

While it’s unclear exactly how much money the winningest manufacturer in F1 history has committed to the seven-time drivers’ champion, we know it’s a lot. On the low end, various reports estimate Ferrari is paying Hamilton a $60 million salary, with some speculating his deal is worth $100 million annually.

But Hamilton, 40, who became an international star on and off the grid while driving for Mercedes from 2013 to 2024, arrives at the Miami Grand Prix still searching for his first podium finish with Ferrari. His best result so far was fifth place in Bahrain. 

Hamilton is seventh in the driver standings, two spots behind his teammate Charles Leclerc. Ferrari sits fourth in the team standings, two spots below their second-place finish in 2024. Ferrari has won 16 constructors’ titles all-time, but none since 2008. 

F1’s New Era

McLaren appears to be the rising top dog, with Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris atop the driver standings, following McLaren’s 2024 team title. McLaren Racing is led by CEO Zak Brown, the only American team boss in F1.

Still lurking, though, is four-time defending drivers champion Max Verstappen, who is in third place. However, his Red Bull team does not figure to be a threat in the constructors’ fight, after replacing the struggling Liam Lawson with Yuki Tsunoda, who has suited up for Red Bull the past three races.

There is plenty of time for things to change, though. The season is barely one-fifth of the way done, as F1 once again has a record 24 races on its worldwide schedule.

Formula One has been a cornerstone holding of Liberty Media since the Colorado-based company acquired the motorsports property in 2017. Whether it stays that way is the subject of rising speculation. 

Liberty has already been in the midst of a significant transition in recent years, first spinning off MLB’s Braves and then beginning a process to place most of its assets outside of F1 in a separate entity called Liberty Live to “simplify its capital structure.” The latter move, targeted for completion later this year, also arrived with the departure of longtime Liberty president and CEO Greg Maffei at the end of 2024.

In that environment of change, rumors have increasingly swirled. A report last month by The Times in the U.K. said that an F1 sale process is developing, and it will likely hit the market next year. Part of the reasoning in the report was that after several years of impressive growth for F1, including a boom in popularity and awareness driven by the Drive to Survive series on Netflix, this is an optimal time for Liberty to cash out. 

That report follows a separate one more than two years ago in which the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund, the primary backer of LIV Golf and already holding various investment, event, and sponsorship ties to F1, tried to acquire F1 in a deal worth more than $20 billion. That suggestion was quickly dismissed by Saudi Arabia’s minister for sport as “purely speculation.” 

But even before Liberty’s latest corporate maneuvers, that furthered the suggestion that F1 was potentially in play. 

Regardless of the chatter, F1 remains in a strong financial position, with 2024 revenue rising 14% to $3.65 billion, operating income growing 26% last year to $492 million, and global race attendance increasing 9% to 6.5 million. 

Liberty is due to make its next quarterly earnings report on May 7, is already facing uncertainty regarding its U.S. media rights, and could see analyst and investor scrutiny on its long-term plans for F1.