F1 racing receives nearly $ 1.5 billion of restructuring

Liberty Media has made changes in its business strategy as well as “pouring money” into Formula 1 going through this extremely challenging period with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Orders must have revenue

Recently, Liberty Media, the current F1 management unit, “redistributed” its “assets” among its subsidiaries to bring money to Formula 1 during the COVID-19 pandemic. continue to have great impact on the tournament.

Liberty restructures to pour money for F1 support

The deal was made between FWON (F1’s holding company of Liberty) and SiriusXM, a communications company based in Manhattan, New York, USA, which is a subsidiary of Liberty. The main change for the deal is that the company promotes the organization of events – Live Nation, previously “in the same house” as F1, will now join SiriusXM.

In addition to the purpose of bringing more money to F1, the main reason for this decision of Liberty is because both F1 and Live Nation need to take place events to bring about revenue. However, given the current situation, both are becoming a big source of risk for the parent company. From there, Liberty was forced to “put one egg in another basket” to divide the risks evenly among its subsidiaries.

On the other hand, it is also a logical move to put a company promoting events (concerts) in conjunction with a media company, rather than on motorsport like F1.

Approximately USD 1.5 billion of assets were transferred from F1 Group to Liberty SiriusXM, totaling USD 2.8 billion assets and USD 1.3 billion outstanding loans. Of which, shares of Live Nation accounted for USD 2.6 billion in the above data.

That conversion is balanced by a net of $ 1.5 billion of net assets transferred from Liberty SiriusXM to F1 Group, including cash of $ 1.4 billion, of which 50% of which is considered as an inter-bank loan.

How to keep the racing team from bankruptcy?

Liberty expects this change will help them in the stock market related to F1 business. That brings liquidity to F1 in case the season continues to be delayed.

Racing in the world struggling because of COVID-19 pandemic (Part 2)

Another race at the Nevers Magny-Cours racetrack, France, is scheduled to take place by the end of September but has been pushed back a week to avoid conflicts with the new racing schedule from MotoGP.

Thus, according to the newly scheduled racing schedule, the second official stage of the year will take place after the opening stage to 1 and a half months, in Assen, Netherlands on April 17-19. However, with the complicated disease situation in Europe at present, the upcoming races will almost certainly be announced to be postponed or canceled.

Formula E 2019-20 pauses for the next 3 months

Next is Formula E, the tournament is “at the top” in the number of races that must be canceled in the current 2019-20 season. Initially, two races in Sanya, mainland China (held March 21) and Rome, Italy (April 4) were now two major outbreaks of the current COVID-19, so the organizers quickly announced the cancellation of the above two events. But recently, things have gotten worse and Formula E has announced the cancellation of events in the following months.

The tournament presented a system of green, yellow and red flag signals to determine each stage and time period to restart the season as well as evaluate the reorganization of postponed or canceled races.

That means the first race in Seoul, South Korea and the event in Paris, France will be excluded from this year’s schedule.

In addition, Jakarta ePrix (June 6) was supposed to be moved to a new venue after the Federal Secretary of Jakarta rejected an offer to organize around the National Monument historic site, but later. This decision is reversed and allows further organization. But, with the COVID-19 pandemic raging, this race will also suffer the same fate with the above 4 races.

IndyCar delayed/canceled the first 4 stages of the season 2020

Thus, the 14-race season of Formula E now has only 9 races and a 4-month break between the race just took place in Marrakesh, Morocco (February 29) and the upcoming Berlin ePrix (June 21). The tournament will then arrive in New York City on July 11 before the season is expected to end with two consecutive legs in London on 25-26 / 07 to.

In addition, the WEC endurance race season 8-20-20 season canceled the 1000-mile Sebring (USA) route on March 20 due to US entry restriction orders imposed on Europe due to COVID-19. The remaining two sections of the season, ‘6 am at Spa-Francorchamps’ on April 25 and 24h Le Mans (June 13-14) have also been officially delayed.

Racing in the world struggling because of COVID-19 pandemic (Part 1)

COVID-19 is heavily affecting all major sporting events in 2020, and racing is no exception. The world’s leading racing competitions in both 2-wheel and 4-wheel drive are in an emergency situation, forcing to constantly leave schedules and cancel races.

Up to the present time, MotoGP is the tournament making the fastest decisions about the status of its upcoming races. Specifically, after leaving the Thai GP schedule to early October, the FIM federation and the owner of the Dorna Sports tournament decided to leave two more races in April, the US and Argentina to mid-November next, before the evolutions. complex of COVID-19.

MotoGP will have to wait at least until May to start the fight

Italy has declared a “national closure”, meaning that the country will be unable to make it to the venue or if it can, if possible, as well. will immediately be isolated for at least 14 days upon arrival in that country.

Since then, the tournament is trying to find the most reasonable solution to “salvage” the season. They are trying to find a venue to replace the Qatar GP where the highest mode MotoGP cannot take place.

In addition, they do not exclude the ability to organize races without spectators watching the track and can extend the season to December if necessary. With that, the format of racing 2 races in the same weekend like what WorldSBK or other young leagues are doing.

Under a contract agreement between the FIM and MotoGP federation, the tournament must hold a minimum of 13 races in a season and they are still fully confident that they will do it this year.

The WSBK also faces turmoil on the 2020 schedule

So according to the scheduled race at this time, the riders, the team will have a busy schedule in the last two months of this year if things do not have new developments. In particular, the last 8 races from the 12th to the 19th stage will start at Aragon on September 27 to the season-ending stage in Valencia at the last week of November, exactly as the ‘sprint stage’ of the year.

After MotoGP, the lower level tournament of World SBK has also made adjustments to suit the upcoming events. The WSBK completed the first leg on Phillip Island, Australia in early March but canceled the second leg at Losail, Qatar on this weekend following the domino effect from MotoGP.

The third leg, scheduled for the weekend of March 27-29 in Jerez, Spain, was officially postponed and pushed down to become the curtain-cutting stage on October 23-25.