While the world of F1 is focused on the changes Liberty Media is bringing to the sport, the financial news have gone a bit under the radar of many.
The news about the replacement of Grid Girls with Grid kids is perhaps the main news story of the past week. But at the same time, it has been revealed that the sport’s revenues fell significantly in the past year and F1 lost 15 million euros.
Liberty revealed with a letter to the F1’s shareholders:
Formula 1 revenue for the year ended December 31, 2017 is expected to be down approximately 1% as compared to the prior year period. Full financial statements for this period will be filed on or before March 1, 2018 and prior to such time Liberty will not provide any additional details
In 2016, the sport’s revenue was increased by 5.8%. But in 2015 was the second time in the last decade [alongside 2017] that the sport saw a loss in revenue by 3.7 million euros.
The main reason for the money loss in 2017 was the fact that F1 lost sponsorship from Allianz and UBS and did not replaced them. Another factor is the absence of the German GP.
Liberty brought to F1 a series of changes in the sport, with many off-track activities for fans and paddock pass guests. That resulted in a higher bill for the sport, and as Independent reports:
The letter to shareholders doesn’t reveal the impact of the decline in revenue but F1’s results for the nine months to the end of September showed that its operating loss doubled to £50m ($70m)
This resulted in a huge drop of the prize money, in which the teams were unhappy. The drop is estimated drop around 5.9% (460 million euros).
