Liberty Media acquired Formula 1 in 2017, buying it from then Delta Topco. Over the last six years, the sport has seen a growth in both viewership and revenue that it has never seen in it’s history, with 2024 seeing an increase of over $500 million just in it’s first quarter.
This has been helped by an increasing level of online interaction by Formula 1 and it’s teams, along with it’s drivers, and an effort to push the sport into the mainstream with reality series Drive to Survive being a success on Netflix, as well as a myriad of projects related to motorsports, such as Brad Pitt’s new incoming F1 movie and Netflix’s Senna documentary.
However, though some would say that the recent growth in popularity of the sport has been a net positive, some would argue against. Older fans of Formula 1 have long been voicing that the efforts to make it more popular has lead to a complete sanitazation of the sport that has stripped it of it’s original identity, citing that newer fans care more about the drivers and their personality rather than the thrill of the sport itself. A plethora of parasocial relationships forming along with unrealistic expecttions of the driver’s personalities and attitudes inside and outside of the track.
So, will the same discourse occur next year, now that MotoGP has been acquired by Liberty Media?
MotoGP has for a long time remained one of the last bastions of what one could call old-school motorsport traditions. Particularly, MotoGP kept the Paddock girls after Formula 1 banned them, citing that they were objetification of women in the sport, something that the FIM (International Motorcycling Federation) has denied.
MotoGP has also faced minor backlash online due to their apparent lack of inclusion in the sport, which has been dominated for the last 30 decades by Europeans and Australians, althought some efforts have been made to bring Asian talent with Idemitsu’s Asia Talent Cup, no such championship has been made in other continents such as South America or Africa.
Based on some of these factors one must wonder what MotoGP’s “identity” is, as Liberty Media assures that they will take steps into what they call modernizing the sport, why are some people so afraid?
Well, if we look into MotoGP’s recent history, we can already see a trend of modernization, with the sport attempting 
to imitate the Drive to Survive with their own series, MotoGP unlimited, as well as making various other “copies” of F1’s modernized structure, with the introduction of Sprint Races, further online interaction and media scrums. The series has already passed it’s harshest years yet, with the Covid pandemic bringing viewership down, summed to the retirement of arguably the sport’s biggest legend Valentino Rossi, 2023’s audience increased by 20% along with revenue, so the series’ attempts at diversifying have not lessened viewership.
Changes will be made, that is inevitable, but to say that the reputation and legacy of the sport will be ruined is an exageration that many make because they’re opposed to the new. MotoGP is in a great place at the moment, and a resurgence in fame from new markets such as the United States will only serve to benefit the sports and it’s fans.
