Gatar to buy the whole of F 1 ?

Qatar and Miami Dolphins owner tipped for F1 bid




Qatar and Miami Dolphins owner tipped for F1 bid | FORMULA 1 news | Motorsport.com



“ … the ultimate aim is for Qatar to own the whole of F1.”


That could be interesting.

 

"... Bernie Ecclestone, who still owns 5% ..."

I thought he was a majority owner?

 

Bernie sold more of the business to CVC years ago, they are the majority shareholders now.

He kept the managing role though.

But what's interesting is that CVC wishes to desinvest from F1; that shouuld tell us something.

Or the business doesn't bring enough income, or the US/Qatari bid was to good to ignore.

 

I believe he controls the commercial rights through formula one group, and his ownership of the sport is through Delta Topco, several other investment companies make up the ownership of formula 1

 

As a longtime fan of the Dolphins, I wish Ross would spend more money on his football team than getting involved in this.

 

They have already been whittling down their stake, though I'm not sure how much. From the article: "In 2012 CVC sold part of its F1 stake to Black Rock, Norges Bank and Waddell & Reed."

Also an interesting excerpt: "while intriguingly QIA also owns 17% of the VW Group – which has of course been eyeing an F1 involvement for years.

 

Correct, CVC has majority ownership and controls F1; Bernie likes to say he is only an employee, but he runs F1 for CVC and retains an ownership. He also owns separately marketing rights to trackside signage, and more.

But CVC pulled billions out of F1 after their initial purchase through debt financing; they've paid down most of their loans etc. through the F1 revenues over several years, but they've been wanting to divest for a while - remember the proposed stock market flotation a few years ago. Joe Saward likes to say CVC exists only to strip mine money and cash flow out of their assets, then selling them when they get a good enough offer. He's been expecting CVC to sell for a few years now.

Joe also correctly points out that CVC has no interest in F1 as a sport, only as a cash generating asset, and that they don't see any benefit in investing to promote or improve the product. A new owner who wants to run F1 for the sake of the sport, promotion of the sport, and less emphasis on stripping out huge profit, would be a godsend. CVC is 90% of the problem with current F1.

 

Thnx, that's the part that I guess I was confusing.

 

That anyone "owns" a sport is just plain wrong.

 

A significant number of multinationals work like this.
Gould certainly did this to a company I worked for long ago......

 

Do you think that Bill France owning NASCAR, or John Bishop owning IMSA was wrong?

Of course, you can't really own a sport, but surely you can own the organisation that runs it.

 

The business has to be "owned" in one fashion or another but the sport needs to be administered by an entity whose only alliegence is to the sport itself.
The whole serving two masters thing ya know.

NASCAR hasn't been a sport for a long long time and IMSA didn't survive.

 

On a "conceptual" level, very true.

But, lets be honest here - The IOC "owns" the Olympics, FIFA "own" international soccer (sorry to the purists ), and MLS, the NFL & MLB (etc) are all "owned" by their owners.

Few sports, and no professional serious money generating sports, exist without "ownership" at some level. In some sports, "ownership" is largely independent. In others, the team owners own it themselves via their appointed commish. Bernie (rightly or wrongly is another debate), took ownership (the commish?) of the sport and made many people very, very wealthy.

The "problem" (to me at least) is that Bernie ultimately works for CVC - He has a fiduciary responsibility to maximize his employers ROI. That CVC simply rapes the "sport" of many of the millions it generates is neither here nor there it seems.

Cheers,
Ian

 

They cant host the F1 in Qatar unless the F1 get the approval of Bahraini Crown Prince HRH Sheikh Salman Bin Hamad Al-Khalifa.

Copied from an Article online

Amid recent rumours about Qatar evaluating a grand prix, F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone suggested that the fate of the race rested on Bahrain, which could veto the plan if it wanted.

Bahrain GP chief Sheikh Salman bin Isa Al Khalifa at AUTOSPORT International 2015

Bahrain's F1 CEO Sheikh Salman bin Isa Al Khalifa has denied that there is any clause in its contract that would allow it to actually block a race in Qatar - although he suggested that Ecclestone would be unlikely to let it happen without Bahrain's support.

He told AUTOSPORT: "The thing with Mr Ecclestone is how he values friendship. He appreciates the step we took [in hosting F1] - as we were the first people to take a chance [in the Middle East]. But I wouldn't read too much into [reports of an official veto]."

Al Khalifa has made it clear, however, that he does not believe the Middle East region should host another grand prix just yet, so he would be against Qatar getting a race.

"I think F1's culture is growing [in the Middle East], and we can see it slowly coming about," he explained.

"But my personal opinion of having another race - wherever it is - I don't think we are ready for that."

 

Being owned by a collective of teams and admistered by a quasi-independant Commisioner is a fundementally different arrangement.
Bernie has made many rich but not everybody. Circuit owners and small team owners aren't sharing the windfall.

 

100% agreed!

I've said many times that the only "group" that could/can change this nonsense are the circuit owners/promoters.

Unfortunately, it seems they're even worse than the SWG on agreeing anything.

Cheers,
Ian

 

A group composed of all of the participant countries 'own' those international sports. That's nothing like Formula 1 at all. Which probably was the point. If Formula 1 were 'owned' like FIFA there'd be far more cash payments like Eddie Jordan got; Marussia would have regular cheques for wind tunnels.

 

F1 would be far healthier if the stake holders (teams) owned the series, and hired a commissioner, like Bernie, to run it for them. 10-14 franchises, with equal votes, deciding how the whole thing works. If the series were truly as valuable as everyone believes, franchises would be owned and occupied by legit entities.

 

Indeed. As does the FIA - Arguably one of the more "democratic" (& less corrupt!) ) sanctioning bodies.

I beg to differ.

?

Cheers,
Ian

 

blatter kept power by liberally dispensing cash to the smaller constituencies in FIFA; The mighty Faroe Islands received a million dollars ($20 per resident!) last year: Faroe Islands - FIFA Financial Assistance Programme - FIFA.com

this is completely opposite of F1 where the large teams receive the breaks and the small are bled.

 

I think that you're confusing the roles of the teams and that of the constituent nations.
Like FIFA the FIA consists of national clubs who are courted (and rewarded) by incumbent administrations come election time.
The teams get no vote in FIA elections.

 

For FIFA the constituent nations and teams are inseparable. For FIA they aren't particularly related; it wasn't my suggestion, I don't think they are at all comparable.

Formula 1 is pretty much run by one man (Bernie) and he's been heavily involved for it's modern existence - almost 40 years. Nothing else in modern sport is similar.

 

The con in F1 was when Bernie and the teams helped engineer the election of Max Mosley to the presidency of the FIA. Max turned around nearly immediately and sold the FIA's soul (the commercial rights to their F1 championship) to Bernie for 100 years for a paltry 100 million dollars. Bernie turned around and sold F1 for a few billion dollars several times over - Seriously! He sold it for a huge monstrous profit to Kirch, a TV media empire in Germany, then when they went bankrupt he engineered a buyback via several banks that assumed ownership, bribing a bank or two along the way, then was able to sell F1 to CVC for another couple of billion.

In the latest renegotiation of the F1 commercial rights, current FIA president Jean Todt recommitted the FIA to the abandonment of their commercial ownership of F1, for another paltry dozens of millions of dollars. Bernie has made fools of the FIA, especially with the direct involvement and complicity of Mosley, multiple times over. The FIA has been almost (almost) too stupid to be capable of fraud.

 

Just asking: how? Bernie is moving races to Singapore, Baku and places like that with tons of cash. What the poor guys of Silverstone, Spa or Monza can do about that?