Liberty Media Corp Q1 FY2022 Earnings Call

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Liberty Media Corporation’s First Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a Q&A session. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded May 6. I would now like to turn the conference over to Courtnee Chun, Chief Portfolio Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Before we begin, we'd like to remind everyone this call includes certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual events or results could differ materially due to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those mentioned in Liberty Media's most recent Forms 10-K and 10-Q or Liberty Media acquisitions most recent Form 10-K and 10-Q filed with the SEC. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this call and Liberty Media and Liberty Media Acquisition expressly disclaim any obligation or undertaking to disseminate any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statement contained herein to reflect any change in Liberty Media or Liberty Media Acquisitions expectations with regard there to or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based. On today's call, we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures for Liberty Media and SiriusXM, including adjusted OIBDA and adjusted EBITDA, the required definitions and reconciliations for Liberty Media and SiriusXM. Schedules one and two can be found at the end of the earnings press release issued today, which is available on Liberty Media's website. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Liberty President and CEO, Greg Maffei.

Thank you, Courtnee, and good morning to all of our listeners. Today, speaking on the call we'll also have Formula One's President and CEO, Stefano Domenicali, and Liberty's Chief Accounting and Principal Financial Officer, Brian Wendling. So I'll begin with Liberty SiriusXM. We received $872 million of gross dividends from SIRI tax free in the first quarter, including the special and regular dividend. Because of the nature of our convertible bonds, we had to pass through $30 million of that special dividend. We continued our share repurchases, repurchasing $182 million across LSXMA/K from February to April. We repurchased those at a look-through price on Siri of about $356 a share. We, of course, remain disappointed with the discount and attack it as much as we can. We are very focused on long-term value creation for our shareholders. Now looking at SiriusXM itself, solid start to the year, continued to perform well financially despite a challenging auto market. Revenue was up 6%, monthly churn was wonderful down at 1.6%. And we had record ARPU up 9%. New car penetration for SiriusXM is now at 83%, enabling a fleet of 146 million cars here in the US. As expected, self-pay net ads were down slightly due to challenges in the auto market. This was partially offset by strength in digital, and we had a 50% increase in the subscribers listening digitally to our on-demand content. I'd also note we launched our first-ever streaming channel Freakanomics dedicated to podcasting and available across all the SXM platforms. SXM media was named the number one podcast ad network according to Edison Research, and we represent four of the top 15 podcasts in the country with the addition of Crooked Media this month. Also beginning with this year's Masters, SiriusXM is the exclusive audio provider for the Masters, providing excellent programming across all four rounds. Turning to Live Nation, by Live’s first best quarter ever, including another record quarter at Ticketmaster and compared to 2019, AOI is up 2x, transacted GTV is up 39%, and sponsorship AOI is up 75%. We expect a record 2022; we've already sold 70 million concert tickets and expect double-digit fan growth versus 2019. Concert ticket pricing is up double digits over 2019 due to fan demand for the best seats. And over 90% of our planned sponsorship net revenue is already committed. Turning to Formula One Group, on the corporate side, we repurchased 348,000 FWONA shares for $20 million or $56.14 a share, and looking at F1 itself, a thrilling start to the 2022 season. So far, we've had battles back and forth on who will be on the podium each weekend. The event in Imola brought exciting qualifying results and the format is working well with the new regulations, producing strong viewership numbers. The sprint audience is up 28% versus the qualifying last year at Imola. We also see record demand in the US early in the season on ESPN with viewers for the Sunday race in both Saudi and Bahrain up 56% and that was the most viewed race since ESPN acquired the Formula One race in 2018. The momentum in the United States continues with this weekend's inaugural Miami GP. And of course you can't have missed the announcement of our Las Vegas GP for November 2023. As we've noted before, that'll be a night race down the strip. And notably, unlike most places, Formula One and Liberty Media are self-promoting the race in partnership with local stakeholders and Live Nation. The build-out for this track will require increased CapEx and OpEx to develop, and it’s too early to provide you with numbers, but we intend to update you later this year. I would note that Liberty Media did enter an agreement to acquire 39 acres east of the strip to lock in circuit design and create capacity for the pit and paddock, among other hospitality and race support venues. I expect that transaction will close in the second quarter, and the purchase price was $240 million, which will be funded by cash on hand at the Formula One Group level. We announced numerous commercial partnerships, including the media rights extension with the Foxtel Group in Australia and Canal+ in France. Sponsorship is off to an exciting start this year with several new deals including two new global partners, MSC and Salesforce, and we look forward to more announcements as the year progresses. We also look forward to seeing some of you this weekend in Miami. Turning to the Braves. We started the season with a week-long World Series Champion’s celebration, including delivering World Championship rings to the players. We've completed less than 27% of the season; it's a long way to go, and last season showed how far things can change throughout these 162 games. We are hovering at around the same record as last year, and we all know how that turned out. At least we managed a split with the Marlins over the last couple of days. We are excited about our roster. We signed a 27-year-old Atlanta native, we strengthened the bullpen with Janssens’ addition, and we're thrilled to welcome Ronald Acuna Jr. back in the lineup this week. While it's still early in the season, financial performance has already been incredible. Going into the season, we had the highest season ticket sales in more than two decades. We sold out all of our multi-year premium seats for the first time ever and opened our renovated Delta Club. Retail and concession sales have been strong for the first few home stands, including selling out most of our Gold program jerseys. As you undoubtedly know, a new CBA was signed in March, and there'll be minimal impact from the late start since the last games were away games, and we still expect a full 162-game season. In January, we also completed the sale of three minor league teams. And in the final exciting news, the Braves debuted the Digital Truist Park in April for future Metaverse fan engagement opportunities. Turning briefly to LMAC, nothing to report today. Obviously, we’ll announce when we have something, but I would note the environment which is very difficult, as many do, I think favors us. And we continue to look at some interesting opportunities. And with that, I'll turn it over to Brian Wendling for more on our financial results.

Thank you, Greg, and good morning, everyone. In January, we settled exchanges of the 2.25% Live Nation exchangeable bonds for total consideration of $664 million, funded with cash and margin loan draws. At quarter end, Liberty SiriusXM Group has attributed cash and liquid investments of approximately $634 million, which excludes $76 million of cash held at SiriusXM. There's also $1 billion of undrawn margin loan capacity at the parent level related to our SiriusXM and Live Nation margin loans. As of May 5th, the value of the SiriusXM stock held at Liberty SiriusXM Group was $19.7 billion, and the value of the Live Nation stock held was $6.6 billion. We have $3 billion in principal amount of debt against these holdings. Total Liberty SiriusXM Group attributed principal amount of debt is $13.9 billion, which includes $9.9 billion of debt at SiriusXM. Formula One Group had attributed cash liquid investments and monetizable public holdings of $1.6 billion at quarter end, which excludes $834 million of cash held directly at Formula One. Total Formula One Group attributed principal amount of debt was $3.4 billion, which includes $2.9 billion of debt at Formula One, leaving $454 million at the corporate level. F1’s $500 million revolver is undrawn, and Formula One's leverage at the end of the quarter was 3.7x meaningfully within our target leverage range of less than 5x. As of quarter end, we are no longer in a period of covenant waiver. Looking at a few cash items on Formula One, Formula One estimates its cash tax rate in 2022 to be a single-digit percentage of adjusted OIBDA, increasing modestly to low double-digits in 2023 due to the UK tax rate increase effective next year. Additionally, Formula One is currently undergoing a project to refurbish and upgrade its UK-based media and technology center at Biggins Hill, which handles broadcasting production and other technical activities. Formula One expects to incur about $40 million in incremental CapEx associated with this project, approximately half of which will be recognized in 2022 and the remainder next year. This elevated CapEx excludes any CapEx necessary just to support the launch of the Las Vegas Grand Prix in 2023. And as Greg mentioned, we'll provide updates on that later in the year. As a reminder, under the current Concorde Agreement, Team payments now take the form of an entirely variable price bond which is now calculated based on F1's adjusted EBIT rather than adjusted EBITDA, the adjusted EBITDA measure that was used in previous agreements such that the calculation now takes account CapEx incurred, including depreciation costs in the calculation. Finally, at the Braves Group, at quarter end, they had attributed cash and liquid investments of $311 million, which excludes $26 million of restricted cash. The Braves Group had attributed principal amount of debt of $678 million. As Greg mentioned, the Braves completed their sale of three minor league teams in January. Proceeds are included in our financial results as a disposition in the first quarter, and you can see additional details on that in our 10-Q, which will be filed later today. Liberty and our consolidated subsidiaries are in compliance with the debt covenants at quarter end. And with that, I'll turn it over to Stefano to discuss Formula One.

Thanks, Brian. I'm thrilled to be in Miami this morning. As we have set for the inaugural Miami Grand Prix, the seat is buzzing with excitement, and we are looking forward to the weekend. The 2022 season is off to a phenomenal start. The many changes to the cars and regulations have resulted in improved racing. The cars now follow more closely, enabling greater opportunities for wheel-to-wheel racing with drivers trading positions multiple times, making them think more strategically about their moves. The sprint is back, and we held our first event of the season in Imola, which came down to the final few laps. It turned out to be a Grand Slam weekend for Red Bull, qualifying before winning both the race and the sprint and securing an extra point for the fastest lap. The first sprint of the season recorded a total audience of 8.4 million, up 28% versus qualifying at the same Grand Prix in 2021. With strong growth in Brazil and in the US, the Imola weekend on the Sky Sport Italy website recorded a 74% increase in unique users compared to the Emilia GP in 2021. On F1's social platforms, we saw 149 million video views, a 36% increase versus Imola in 2021, and 45 minutes of engagement, a 43% increase versus 2021. However, the start of the season so far has been dominated by Ferrari, which has shown real strength with the car and Charles Leclerc leading the Driver’s Championship by 27 points. Red Bull is catching up, and we expect the season to continue to create great racing and close battles at the front as the constructors refine the new cars. We anticipate more surprises during the season and opportunities for great racing across the grid. As confirmed on our last earnings call, we will not be racing in Russia in September. We are currently considering options for the slot and hope to announce more information soon. The action on the track is certainly drawing in the audience. During the Imola race, the average audience for the main Saturday and Sunday sessions was 23.8 million, up 10% versus the 2021 season average. In the US, the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix brought in over 1.4 million average viewers, the ninth highest of all time and second highest on cable. The fans are back in huge numbers. We had record attendance in Bahrain, and Saudi with 140,000 fans over the weekend at full capacity. Melbourne was the largest weekend ever in Australian sporting history with 420,000 fans. Strong advance ticket sales almost everywhere suggest we may continue to see sellouts of races for the remainder of the season, including here in Miami. We were thrilled with the response to season four of Drive to Survive, the series' most popular season yet. On the opening weekend, fans consumed 28 million hours of Drive to Survive, and the show was ranked number one in 33 countries. Looking towards the 2023 season, we announced the debut of the Las Vegas Grand Prix in November 2023. This will be a Saturday night race down the iconic strip; we cannot think of a more perfect marriage of speed and glamour. Staging in the US demonstrates the huge appeal and growth of our sport here. In fact, in the 24 hours following the official announcement, Wynn Las Vegas saw more requests for hotel room reservations than any other single day period in their history. We also saw the announcement generate four times more social media activity than the 2024 Vegas Super Bowl announcement. It is precisely these opportunities that lead us to take on the promoter role for this race. We believe acting as a promoter will provide us with valuable insights globally. As Greg mentioned, it will require investment on both the CapEx and OpEx side, and we plan to share more on this later this year. Additionally, on the race side, we announced that we extended the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix as they started to gain more traction through 2025. We are pleased with the progress made in other commercial areas, especially with our new sponsors, including several in the technology space; Salesforce has joined us as a global partner in a multi-year deal. In addition to growing and deepening engagement with our fan base, we will gain actionable insights around our carbon footprint as we march toward our goal of net zero emissions by 2030. Tata Communications has returned as the official broadcast connectivity provider of Formula One, facilitating the transfer of more than 100 video feeds and 250 audio channels between venues and the F1 Media and Technology Center in the UK in under 200 milliseconds, enabling us to reach over 500 million fans in 182 territories. We've already made great strides on the ESG front as our move to remote broadcast operations in 2020 allowed us to reduce our volumes of traveling freight and staffing at the racetrack. We've also worked with Lenovo as an official partner, and we will utilize their technology across our operations. We will leverage their extensive selection of premium hardware and innovative next-generation technology, such as augmented and virtual reality. Additionally, we will work together with Lenovo on projects around diversity and inclusion. We are pleased to announce the renewal and expansion of our partnership with Workday, a leader in enterprise cloud applications for finance and human resources. Outside of the global space, we announced a multi-year deal with MSC Cruises as a global partner, planning to bring cruise ships portside during selected Grand Prix weekends. Moreover, AlphaTauri, Red Bull’s premium fashion brand, has become the official premium fashion apparel supplier of Formula One. On the broadcast front, we renewed our partnership with Canal+ until 2029. We have seen significant viewership growth in France. The 2021 average viewership for each Grand Prix was up 18% over 2020 and up 50% compared to 2019, and the first two Grand Prix of the season already ranked among the top five racing events of all time for F1 events for Canal. As part of this partnership, Canal+ subscribers will now get access to F1 TV Pro through My Canal. We also renewed our partnership with the Foxtel Group in Australia in a multi-year deal. Every Grand Prix will be available in 4K, and Foxtel will integrate the F1 TV app into its set-top boxes. From 2023, the F1 TV app will be available free to Foxtel subscribers and will provide multiple live in-race feeds, comprehensive live timing data, and exclusive programming on and off the track. F1 TV continues to see significant growth, accelerating into 2022 from an already strong 2021, as the first race of the season in Bahrain gained 427k new users and concurrent viewers were up to 144% compared to 2021. We continue to evolve on the gaming front, and we are feeding into F1 Management 2022, the first management simulation game, as part of a long-term multi-title agreement that will be released this summer. The game allows players to be the team principal—choose your drivers and engineers and balance the budget as you manage your team to victory. Find out if you are Toto or Christian or maybe even Guenther. As you can see from our recent commercial announcements, our ESG goals are a major focus not only for us but also for our partners. We are moving towards our goal of being net zero carbon as a sport by 2030. For the Bahrain Grand Prix, we exceeded our target to offset our emissions. Our experienced promoter, the Bahrain International Circuit, demonstrated vision and speed by completing a major solar project that more than covered the energy requirements of the entire Grand Prix weekend. This success shows what we can do as a supporting community to make a positive contribution to reducing emissions and our carbon footprint. We hope you enjoy this weekend of racing as much as we plan to. And now I will turn the call back over to Greg. Thank you.

Thank you, Stefano and Brian. We hope you'll tune into our inaugural Miami GP this weekend. We do appreciate your continued interest in Liberty Media and look forward to a healthy and productive 2022. And with that operator, I'd like to open the line for questions.

We'll go first to David Karnovsky with JPMorgan.

Hi, thank you. With the Las Vegas Grand Prix, I was hoping you could discuss a little bit more the decision to promote this yourself as opposed to a third party. This is primarily about capturing the financial upside beyond what you could get on a promoter fee. Would you look to apply this model elsewhere? And then Greg, I think at the start of the call, you mentioned a $240 million purchase for land adjacent to the site in Vegas. Just wondering if you could provide some incremental detail on what you're buying here and kind of how that ties into the race logistics. Thanks.

Well, I'll take a cut and let Stefano add. I think I indicated we're buying 39 acres for $240 million. And that'll be the site of the pit and paddock and some other hospitality. We don't have any other financial details yet to release on what else will be spent on that site. I think our decision to promote Vegas in conjunction with Live Nation and local partners is driven by a couple of things: one, proximity; it's fairly easy relative to being in Denver to get to Vegas for us to do the work. And we have some knowledge of the local US market relative to many other markets. But I think more importantly, we see the opportunity to be a promoter as a way to expand our understanding of the business, understand how to be the best Formula One product on the track for other promoters as well, to look at an opportunity to grow our knowledge and understanding, and potentially promote other races down the road. And lastly, I think Vegas is going to be large and unique; perhaps a unique opportunity. So from a financial perspective, we think this one sets up pretty well to be worth the time and extra focus to become the promoter. Stefano, I don't know what you would add.

No, thanks. Greg was very spot on with all the points. I would say that, as we remember, David, Vegas has always been a place where we believe that the association between the values of Formula One and the glamour and attractiveness, the possibilities to be in that community is crucial. But I would say on top of the financial considerations that we can see around that business, we can be seen as an enabler to maximize what potential Vegas could be for Formula One in terms of awareness, in terms of business creation, and in terms of activating an area of the world where we can bring international focus. I think that is a great win-win business also for those investing there. But for sure, our knowledge of the business and our opportunity to explore with our Live Nation partner is the best way to ensure that in next November, when we have to race, that event will be spectacular. That is as I would say we can feel here in Miami already.

We will take our next question from Bryan Kraft with Deutsche Bank.

Hi, good morning. I had a high-level question and one on Formula One, if you don't mind. I guess, Greg, first, what are your overall thoughts on the economy and the interest rate environment? And how are they impacting your decisions around capital allocation, capital structure, and potential new investments? Is now the time to deploy capital for new investments, given the decline in asset prices? Or are you more in the mindset that cash preservation is most important now? And then, on the Formula One side, I guess, Stefano or Greg, can you talk about how Formula One benefits from what appears to be really strong economics around the Miami Grand Prix? I think the terms there for Miami are a bit more variable than some of your other race promotion deals. So any color there would be great. And I guess, as a follow-up to David's question, was anything that you were seeing in Miami that helped inform your strategy to become the promoter for Vegas? Because you saw that things were going so well there and saw an opportunity to participate in a bigger way in the upside. And then I had one more just on the investment in Vegas and developing that; in terms of order of magnitude, how much bigger might the Vegas build-out get in terms of dollars versus what you've already laid out for this year? And how would you think about potential external financing there, whether it's debt specifically on the project or bringing in some of the creative stuff like you did, maybe with the Braves in Atlanta? Thanks.

So I'm going to parse those. On the last one, I don't think we're ready to talk any more about the outlays at Vegas; it will be bigger than a bread box but manageable. I don't think we'll need outside partners or any specific debt; we have quite a lot of cash at F1. I'll let Stefano talk a little bit more about what Miami informed us, and I'll talk more broadly about cash in the market. Thanks.

Thanks, Greg. Right. I mean, as you know, different forms of relation with the promoter relate to maximizing the opportunity that each place can bring to Formula One. And I think that it's clear that what we can see, I mean, just arriving two days ago in Miami, the vibes that we have created with Formula One are immense. The keen developer lets us see two strategies: one, how we can maximize the value that Formula One will bring to the community; but also how we can maximize the value of our partners that are coming here and investing, so that Formula One can be seen once again as an enabling factor of creating business opportunities for them. This is the direct value that Formula One is bringing very highly today because of the success of our international platform. And of course, the fact that here we invested together with our promoters, the Miami Dolphins, is because they know the community and they have the right expertise to maximize in the short term what we want to bring here for Formula One. As I said, the success is already high before this type of event, and of course, this is the first time we are here. We can see a different business model with a lot of corporate business that wants to develop data in a different way that is different from place to place. So this is something that, from our side, will be very important to learn in order to be even more effective when it comes to Las Vegas. And we're going to be directly able to promote it.

So on the larger question about the market environment, it's scary to try and imagine investing, catching a falling knife in this industry environment and stocks. But I have seen generally, we try and take a longer view. There are opportunities that can create in these environments; some of the best deals we've done, like SiriusXM, were created in difficult economic times. We are lucky to have not only cash availability at the SPAC and F1, significant excess cash at both, and strong free cash flows at Sirius and Formula One. I think that creates opportunities for us exactly when that will be timed, and when we'll make a decision. We have a lot of benefits in our model. But we have some disadvantages. It's not like we can turn around and just say buy 5% of the company in the market; we think the bottom is. It's a longer cycle in finding deals. But I definitely think the environment will create opportunities for us, and we'll be on the lookout.

We'll take our next question from Vijay Jayant with Evercore.

Thanks, on Formula One, on the Las Vegas race for next year. Should we think about that as an incremental race? So are we going to 24 races assuming you get a replacement for Russia this year? And again, what is the policy to actually add more races? At least reading, some of the drivers keep complaining that there are already too many races. Is there a regulatory process you have to go through with the FIA or the teams? Anything on that would be appreciated. And then, on some of the new races coming back since COVID, really Japan and Singapore, they used to be reasonable sponsors for them. That's a pretty material one, I think. Is that an expectation we should have that they come back? I think Singapore Airlines and Honda. Thanks so much.

Thanks, Vijay. I mean, I can answer on the calendar. As you know, first of all, we will have not published the calendar for next year. In terms of process, there is an agreement between us, the FIA, and the teams to discuss, and it's on our side as the commercial rights holder to make sure that we find the right balance between the number of events, historical events, and new opportunities that can become because we are a world championship. I think, if you think back a couple of years ago, as always, the right value for having a good calendar is related to the demand and the offer that we can provide. Today, we are always talking about 23, 24 races, and that what we believe today is the right number, considering the success that we are living today. While we were talking about Las Vegas, that will be in the calendar. Of course, that's the only thing that we have asked for next year. And I will say, on the other hand, you will see soon what our strategy is. We have to respect the process as we discuss. And we're going to announce it no earlier than at the end of summer, because we want to prepare in the right way. Regarding the local promoters and sponsorship with Japan and Singapore, yesterday, we already announced that Singapore Airlines will be part of the promotional package for Singapore, because they are a very important partner for us. And we respect that. Regarding Japan, you will discover soon that, of course, for Honda, for example, because of their decision to officially quit Formula One, there could be something special that we want to recognize for them during that event. So this is part of the strategic discussions we are having with our promoters, and I think that the economic benefits will go into the system and, of course, also with us.

We'll take our next question from Stephen Laszczyk with Goldman Sachs.

Great, thank you. One on Formula One, revenue in the first quarter came in a little bit stronger than most of us expected. I was wondering if you could help us maybe unpack the drivers of that strength, maybe across media rights, sponsorship rates, commission, and other revenues, even at that high level?

I'm sorry, revenue beat expectations. Yes, Q1 was ahead. For Formula One, obviously, we had two races versus one last year, and we're really back to more normal activities than we've been over the past couple of years. So we had full crowds, and we had good sponsorship revenue as well. Also, freight costs have been up a bit, and some of those costs are obviously passed on to the teams. So there's incremental benefit there. But normal activities compared to the past couple of years is really where we've seen the benefit.

Yes, if I can just add, I think we've seen growth in almost every revenue category. But the way we recognize revenue randomly across races probably had the single largest impact, the fact that it was two versus one in the first quarter, recognizing that many of our revenue streams are recognized ratably that could tie to the particular race. Yes, I think it's a complicated topic. And partly where you sit is how you view it. And when I say that, I think there will be strains on the Braves, potentially over the long term as the RSNs become less included in the bundle on a regular basis; that'll put pressure on some of the RSN revenue streams. The Braves in particular have a very strong RSN revenue stream and a lot of demand. So we may be less impacted than many, but obviously that turmoil could be a negative. On the other hand, Formula One has seen increases in demand and increases in viewership, and we have the US media rights commonly known up for bid right now, beginning for the next year season. We have a lot of interest from traditional linear players as well as digital players, and the offset to some of the decline in cable subs is the increase in some of the digital subscriptions. So that opportunity is, I think in net, we're probably better off with more players bidding than the changing landscape; maybe a little plus or minus. And then regarding charter, which is not the focus of today's call, we have a whole other set of dynamics where in some cases we're helped, and in some cases, we may be hurt. So you really do either, lot changing, and a lot of it depends on which company we're talking about.

We'll take our next question from Barton Crockett with Rosenblatt securities.

Great, thanks for taking the question. I wanted to put one question out, which comes from an investor, but I thought it was a good question, which is looking at the Braves; they're trading right now at market value of maybe 3.5x or so kind of sales. And you've seen private market transactions for baseball teams close to the 7x kind of sales range. And so the question is why won't you guys take some more steps to try and achieve that value right now for the Braves? One of the things that would seem to be open to you is that you now have a second ATB with Formula One and the Braves. So it would be possible to split maybe the Braves offers an actual stock, which might help the value process, and get people thinking about private market transactions, maybe down the road. So kind of curious what your thought process there is, and why you haven't pursued those types of opportunities to date?

Great question. Even if it's not yours, Barton, from the investor, still a good question. I think we are looking at all options and considering what we might do; some of these things are more recent about when our ATB flexibility has occurred. There are some issues also we're still looking at around Sirius and what we might do there. As you know, we just crossed over the $80 there, we've just had Formula One become an ATB. So there are some moving targets, and we evaluate all opportunities. I think your investor is probably right. I’m not sure 7x we'll see. But certainly, the multiple we're trading at is lower than that multiple, which has been in private transactions. Whether it would still trade to that level of what's a private sale transaction versus a public market transaction is an open question. But I do agree that having the flexibility to do that would probably improve trading over time. Well, I think that's evolving, Barton, as well, and where Charter is kind of similar to the answer I gave before where you sit defines what you want to see happen. We have a good RSN deal that runs out till ‘27. I still think that's probably more valuable than any digital deal. And they are incremental kind of digital deals that are around that potentially. And there, you've seen growth in lots of kind of digital around baseball now with people like Apple entering to buy rights. So I think it's evolving. I don't know if Valley is going to be the lead player. They've got their challenges, but we're certainly open to watching how the market evolves.

We'll take our final question from David Joyce with Barclays.

Thank you. Another question on Formula One, please. Conceptually, how should we be thinking about the principal versus agency relationship on self-promoting this? Not looking for any financial specifics but just accounting wise, whether it be something where Live Nation is the promoter and is taking all the top line, but then they have the operating expenses, and therefore Formula One would get at least something along the lines of a race promotion fee plus a margin? Or is this something that is all going to be reflected directly on Formula One's financials? And how are our partners reflected in that?

I'll start and let Brian give the really accurate answers. In general, we're the primary partner; Live Nation is, from a financial perspective, a secondary partner. They have a role, and it's very important. But most of the capital investment and most of the outlays will come from us, not from Live Nation. And we don't anticipate that this is going to be called out separately on our income statements; it won't be material in that sense. So the lines will generally be folded into promoter fees and the like, sponsorship, hospitality, et cetera. But Brian, you might want to correct me on that.

No, that's very accurate. We'll consolidate, as Greg said. So the revenue and CapEx will be on our books, as well as the costs. And also, as Greg said, we would expect that we need to ultimately fine-tune this once we have the race. But our expectation right now is that you would see the revenues go into their traditional buckets, so the paddock club would go into other revenue and then sponsorship would go where sponsorship currently goes. And then to the extent we're selling tickets, we would expect that probably goes into our promoter revenues. So it'll look very similar except for the fact that we're consolidating the costs, which normally in a standard promoter relationship would just be fees.

We'll go next to Jason Bazinet with Citi.

Another question on Formula One. You mentioned that you may over time promote other races. And I guess if you look at the 24-ish races or whatever, some of those obviously are in iconic places where you probably won't self-promote. But if you were going to blue sky it, how many of the 23 other races that you wouldn't be self-promoting would be in the bucket where you might self-promote?

I don't think we've announced any plans; we're going to start and see how we do this. Hopefully, make the success of it. We believe we can make it. I would only cautiously say, don't be so certain that places which are iconic or places where we will not eventually become self-promoters. I wouldn't cast aside that opportunity. Stefano, what might you add?

No, absolutely, Greg. I think that the beauty, if I may say that, of this moment is because the new promoters are really putting new energy and new vibes into the system. I think it's something that has a collateral effect on the traditional promoter that needs to keep up the pace with respect to – and we do respect a lot our promoters because they are the ones that really work with us to ensure we have a great race show around the world. But this effect is giving us an incredible boost to make sure that the whole system is very active to maximize what we're bringing into the platform. And as Greg said, never say never. But with this in mind, I would say we are very happy with the promoters that are working with us. They're very, very loyal and reliable partners on which we're going to build up an even stronger future together.

We'll take our final question from Matthew Harrigan with Benchmark.

Thank you. Clearly, you have a takeoff in the US for Formula One, which is really going to help with ESPN. At the same time, you've got a lot of geopolitical changes—Sochi going away, whac-a-mole zero COVID, and China hopefully Shanghai comes back, in particular with the desirability of getting more better times in the US if it really becomes even more appealing for ESPN. Would you be more inclined to look at bringing back something like Nurburgring and maybe even promoting it yourself and some of the classic venues and kind of going more US and Europe versus a lot of the expense in the second place in Asia and the Middle East? I know some of the Middle East races are hugely successful, and they're going to stay around. But the world is changing so much. It looks like Formula One's a winner, but just how complex is your life after everything going on in the world in geopolitics? Thanks.

Well, what I can say, Matthew, is that Formula One has proven to be as flexible as possible, also in the COVID situation to maximize the fact that we wanted to have a great championship. Our duty is to ensure we are, first of all, a world championship. And we are investing either with partners or either directly in that to ensure that the strategic market becomes crucial for Formula One. You correctly point out that the US has seen an incredible boom in the last couple of years. Our duty is to maximize the effect even more. But we have other areas of the world that need to develop and deserve respect because of the tradition. But tradition doesn't mean that it's something given for granted; tradition is a great base on which we are going to build up a better future. Europe has to stay with a good number of races on our calendar. They will stay. And you were talking about Nurburgring. I mean, the German landscape is certainly a very interesting landscape on which, no matter who will be the promoter, we need to see what action can be taken if we need to recover that in the calendar. I'm sure if you want to be specific on that, something could happen soon, and it will be very important to be back on the calendar. But we don't have to forget that we want to invest in the Far East world because we have been affected by COVID. But there is a great potential to grow there. We have to have, on the other end of the world, Africa, on which we may develop business. So, this is a great moment for us to maximize opportunities to see what would be the right catalog for the future of Formula One. We will not take out of the equation having some places with rotational principles, because that will give leverage to be in multiple markets. So as I said, that is our strategic thinking regarding our future calendar. As you can imagine, Matthew, we cannot be specific on that. The good news is that we can say what we read. We know we're working with all the manufacturers, if I may, on that specific point. Without saying anything related to that we cannot say, the great and incredible news is that today Formula One is really showing leadership in the technological landscape of the automotive business in motorsport, of course, and our choices related to sustainability in the future. Our strong path that we want to prove to the world that we are serious about net zero carbon by 2030 is something that gives us credibility. And this is the reason why everyone, not only those you read about, are really interested in talking with us.

Operator, I think that we're done. To our listening audience, again, thank you for your interest in Liberty Media. As we said, we hope to see some of you here in Miami. And for those who are not able to get to Miami, we encourage you to watch and hope to speak to you again next quarter.

Thank you. Now we'll conclude today's call. We appreciate your participation.