What F1’s biggest partnership deal yet reveals about its progress

Back in 2019, two full years after Liberty Media acquired Formula 1, I received a call from a New York-based investment analyst asking if I thought the sport’s new owners stood a chance of growing the number of official sponsors of the world championship. Bernie Ecclestone had not fully exploited the opportunity, yet Liberty were making positive noises about the prospects for strong growth in that area.

“Give it time,” I said, pointing out that Liberty was rather busy with more pressing matters. This included finalising a new Concorde Agreement with the teams and developing a financial model for the sport that worked for all the key stakeholders.

Much has happened in the five years since, the new Concorde Agreement being signed in 2020 and quickly followed by the introduction of the budget cap just a few months later. Notwithstanding the effects of the global pandemic, now a fading memory but at the time a potentially existential crisis, F1’s popularity has soared, revenues have surged and, with that, the values of both the teams and the Formula One Group.

The cherry on Liberty’s cake, coming in the final quarter of 2024, is unquestionably the 10-year agreement which Formula 1 has signed with the LVMH Group, the Eurozone’s largest company whose market value reached the heady heights of £400billion in early 2023.

The deal, the financial details of which are known only to people inside the LVMH and Formula One Groups, is significant in both scale and term. A decade is a long time. In a world where most companies struggle with a three-year plan and five-year targets feel remote, it’s a sure sign of LVMH’s confidence in both itself and Liberty’s plans for F1 that such an agreement can be countenanced.

The LVMH Group was born from the merger in 1987 of the Louis Vuitton fashion house and Moët Hennessy wines and spirits business. While F1’s announcement of the deal revealed it would commence next season, when the championship celebrates its 75th anniversary, its new partner is used to rather more impressive milestones.

The Moët champagne brand will make a return to the F1 podium following the deal with LMVH

Photo by: LAT Photographic

The Moët & Chandon champagne house started life in 1743, Hennessy’s cognac distillery was founded by an Irish soldier in 1765, and Louis Vuitton is a relatively young arrival, having established his luxury luggage label in 1854.

Today the Group is headed by founder and CEO Bernard Arnault, the 75-year-old French entrepreneur who, depending on share values, dices with Tesla’s Elon Musk and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos for the title of the world’s richest person.

It was he, together with his 28-year-old son Frederic, who was photographed at the announcement of the deal with F1’s CEO Stefano Domenicali and Liberty Media’s President and CEO Greg Maffei. Frederic was made CEO of LVMH Watches in January, the division already known to F1 through the TAG Heuer and Hublot brands.

The cherry on Liberty’s cake, coming in the final quarter of 2024, is unquestionably the 10-year agreement which Formula 1 has signed with the LVMH Group

The wider Group includes far more than the Louis Vuitton, Moët and Hennessy brands, of course. So the next time you come across advertising for Tiffany, Bulgari and Dior, or shop at Sephora or Marc Jacobs, just remember that all of them come under the umbrella of F1’s new partnership.

Messaging contacts at Moët Hennessy and TAG Heuer, it’s clear the new deal has created a buzz across the LVMH Group. It also happens to be the 25th commercial partner for F1, underscoring the progress made by Liberty since 2017.

Bernard Arnault, Chairman & CEO of LVMH Group (second left) and his son Frederic, CEO of LVMH Watches (right), posed with F1 boss Domenicali and Liberty counterpart Maffei after inking the landmark deal

Photo by: Liberty Media