Welcome to Liberty Media Corporation's 2026 Second Quarter Earnings Call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. At that time, if you have questions, please press star 1 on your telephone. As a reminder, this conference will be recorded August 6th. I would now like to turn the call over to Hopper Stevens, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you for joining us this morning. This call includes certain forward-looking statements within the meeting 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 the most recent forms 10-K and 10-Q, followed by Liberty Media with the SEC. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this call, and Liberty Media expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to disseminate any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statement contained herein to reflect any change in Liberty Media's expectations with regard thereto 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, including adjusted OIBITDA consecrancy for MotoGP. The required definitions and reconciliations for Liberty Media Schedule 1 and MotoGP Schedule 2 can be found at the end of the earnings press release issued today, which is available on Liberty Media's website. Speaking on today's call, we have Liberty's President and CEO, Derek Chang, Liberty's Chief Accounting and Principal Financial Officer, Brian Wembley, Formula One's President and CEO, Stefano Domenicali, MotoGP's CEO, Carmelo Espelera, and other members of management will be available for Q&A. With that, I'll turn it over to Derek.
Thank you, Hooper, and good morning, everyone. We are thrilled with the second-quarter performance at both F1 and MotoGP. Admits all the global uncertainty and credit to our operating teams in this challenging environment, our businesses are motoring along at a speedy pace. Our priorities for 2026 remain unchanged, which are to build upon Formula One's durable business model, establish the foundation for MotoGP's next phase of development, and allocate capital with discipline. Since May, we have made tangible progress against each priority while keeping the distinct identity of each sport at the center of our approach. Formula One continues to demonstrate the breadth and durability of its platform. New technical era is producing compelling competition on track. There is immense demand from fans, promoters, commercial partners, and media platforms. Meanwhile, our business continues to perform incredibly well with notable momentum across paddock club, licensing, and sponsorship. In the U.S., Formula One's momentum on Apple continues to build, with viewership up year-over-year, season-to-date, and total hours reached 13%. We could not be more pleased with this result. The digital product is great, and sponsors across the F1 ecosystem are very happy with our distribution on Apple. This season, F1 has attracted a much younger and more female audience in the U.S. on Apple TV. Our experience with Apple continues to reinforce the strategy of pairing premium live coverage with product innovation and broader ecosystem breadth without compromising reach. Through Apple's ecosystem, F1 is being amplified, discovered, and embraced by a new generation of fans, and we couldn't be more excited to see what this partnership will bring to our sport in the coming years. We are also creating more direct and frequent relationships with fans. Provisional content, licensing, and experiential activations are extending engagement beyond race weekends. For example, Passenger Princess, which in its first season generated close to 300 million views, returned for second season last month. The Las Vegas Grand Prix's 10-year extension through 2037 is a milestone that underscores F1's growing U.S. presence. At MotoGP, we are beginning to capitalize on the significant opportunities ahead, and we are very happy with our progress so far. Racing this season has been exceptional, with incredibly tight competition among the top five riders. More importantly for the long term, MotoGP completed agreements with all manufacturers and teams through 2031, together with new technical regulations beginning next year. This establishes a stable framework for investment, promotion, and commercial growth. We continue strengthening the organization, including progressing on key hires and building commercial capabilities, while pursuing growth in ways that are authentic to MotoGP. There is positive momentum in the business, with new media agreements signed in Spain and Portugal, and the extensions of the Malaysian and Silverstone Grand Prix. ban activations like the 20 000 person immersive watch party in london in june broaden excess access and visibility and underscore our priority of bringing the moto gp experience closer to city centers our capital priorities at the liberty level remain to support attractive organic growth maintain a prudent balance sheet and evaluate opportunities that complement our existing assets. Brian will cover the financial results in more detail and Stefano and Carmelo will discuss the operating businesses. Our confidence remains high in the durability of Formula One's growth and their increasingly direct and always-on-fan relationships. Likewise, we continue to feel very excited by MotoGP's long-term potential as its organizational and commercial foundation takes shape. Now I'll turn it over to Brian.
Thank you Derek and good morning everyone. We'll start with the Formula One business. The race count this quarter is especially challenging due to not holding the Saudi and Bahrain GPs in April and other differences in the calendar resulting in a 44% decline in the race count for the quarter and a 27% decline year-to-date. With that in mind I'll focus on year-to-date comparisons and as always it remains best to focus on our business on a full year basis. Absent the calendar variability, the business is performing incredibly well. Results reported year-to-date reflect a 22-race calendar, the number known at June 30. Subsequent to the end of the second quarter, we have rescheduled the Bahrain GP, which will be held in Malaysia in October, bringing our expected race count to 23 races for the We expect to start accruing season-based revenue, costs, and associated true-ups with respect to a 23-race calendar starting in the third quarter of this year. No additional 26 calendar changes may be necessary. We expect to return to a full 24-race calendar next season. The second quarter of 2026 held five races compared to nine races in the second quarter of last year. Year-to-date through the second quarter, F1 also had three fewer races, with eight races held in the current year-to-date period compared to 11 races held in the prior year. Year-to-date revenue declined 15%, an adjusted way, but it declined 30%, driven by the change in race count. The decline in primary revenue was driven by the calendar variance and its effect on recognition of season-based revenue, with 8 out of 22 assumed races staged year-to-date, with approximately 36% of season-based revenue recognized compared to the prior year period, when 11 out of 24 races had been staged and approximately 46% of season-based revenue had been recognized. During the second quarter, media rights revenue was also impacted by the one-time revenue associated with the release of the F1 movie last year. Offsetting the decline was underlying contractual fee increases at our three primary revenue streams and revenue generated from new and renewed sponsorship partners. Other revenue declined due to lower hospitality and freight revenue from three fewer events held year-to-date and lower F3 revenue due to the sale of cars at the beginning of the new F3 cycle last year partially offset a strong demand for the paddock club at recurring events continued growth in our licensing business and growth in the Grand Prix plaza activities in Las Vegas just in order to decrease year-to-date because of the lower event count revenue decline discussed above outpaced a decline in expenses decreased operating expenses included lower team payments and expenses related to the delivery of hospitality offerings travel freight and other costs due to the calendar variance. SG&A expenses increased driven by higher personnel and information technology costs, partially offset by lower marketing costs as we lapped the 75th season launch event last year. Team payments as a percent of pre-team share adjusted Oiveta were 61.7% year-to-date and were also accrued based on a 22 race calendar assumption. For the full year, we still expect to see roughly 200 basis points improvement in leverage in on this metric in line with the average that we've seen over the past four years after 2026 for the remainder of the term of the new concord agreement through 2030 we expect the payoff percentage to remain relatively stable team payments are best analyzed on a full year basis due to quarterly fluctuations in team payments as a percent of adjusted live it up now turning to moto gp a reminder that we closed the acquisition on july 3rd 2025 so our financial results prior to the date of the acquisition are presented on a pro forma basis, so the transaction occurred on January 1, 2024. The majority of MotoGP's revenue and costs are euro-denominated and as such are subject to translational impacts from foreign exchange fluctuations. I will focus on constant currency results here. Similar to F1, I'll also focus on year-to-date comparisons. Year-over-year comparisons are impacted by the mix of races, not just the number. And as a reminder, MotoGP flyaway races generally carry higher costs, including freight, travel, and IRTA fees. MotoGP race count itself was identical year-over-year for both the quarter and the year-to-date periods. Revenue increased at MotoGP year-to-date driven by growth and race promotion from event mix and sponsorship revenue due to new sponsors and underlying contractual growth. A reduction in contractual media rights and a decline in title sponsorship revenue related to event mix partially offset that revenue growth adjusted way but also grew year-to-date driven by both revenue growth and a decline in expenses cost of MotoGP motorsport revenue decreased due to the impact of lower freight expenses from the race mix as well as lower hospitality costs related to MotoGP's new hospitality agreement with Quint whereby MotoGP now recognizes revenue costs related to hospitality on a net basis looking briefly at corporate and other results here today revenue was $12 million, which relates to the rental income generated by Grand Prix Plaza in Las Vegas. Corporate and other adjusted way, but it was a loss of $16 million. It includes Grand Prix Plaza rental income and our corporate expenses. The quarter end, Liberty Media had cash and liquid investments of approximately $1.5 billion, which included $1 billion of cash at F1 and $142 million of cash at MotoGP. Our debt was approximately $5 billion at quarter end, which included 3.3 billion of debt at F1 and a billion of debt at MotoGP, with 497 million at the corporate level. F1's $500 million revolver and MotoGP's 100 million euro revolver both remain on draw. We did reprice MotoGP's debt in June, and we priced a 720 million euro term loan B, a 200 million USD term loan A, and a new 100 million multi-currency revolving credit facility, at attractive terms with future reductions in margin expected as the business de-levers. Additionally, we repaid a portion of MotoGP's debt funded with cash from MotoGP's balance sheet. Quarter end, Liberty Media's net leverage was 3.4 times. That is a slight uptick from the end of the first quarter, but it's largely driven by the F1 calendar variance. F1 and MotoGP are both in compliance with their debt covenants at quarter end. And with that, I'll turn it over to Stefano to discuss Formula One.
Thanks, Brian. The 2026 season so far has delivered some incredible racing and amazing moments for all of our fans. There have been great battles for podiums among Kimi, George, Luis, Lando and Charles that have fueled excitement on track. The championship battle remains highly competitive and I expect the teams to converge more and more as the season progresses. The news I knew would become reality is that attendance is up, audience are up, digital numbers are growing, and the fans are enjoying what they are seeing. The fans are the heart of everything we do, and they are loving the season. As you know, the safety and security of everyone in the sport remains our first and foremost priority. We have closely monitored developments in the Middle East region, originally hoping to bring back one race to the region, but unfortunately, we were unable to do so as originally planned. Instead, we recently announced the great news that we will recover the Bahrain Grand Prix, but it will be hosted by the Malaysian, creating an exciting triple header alongside Baku and Singapore. I want to thank His Majesty the King of Bahrain, His Royal Highness Prince Salman of Bahrain and His Majesty the King of Malaysia, as well as their respected governments and of course the press of the FIA and the promoters for all their collaboration and the flexibility making this race possible. It once again shows that we can adapt, find solutions and deliver incredible results for the sport. Looking ahead, we continue to expect that Qatar and Abu Dhabi Grand Prix are to currently proceed as scheduled for a 23 races calendar this season and expect to return to a full 24 races calendar next season. Engagement trends continue to underscore the strength of our sport. We welcome 3.3 million attendees to date with all 10 races selling out through Belgium. Five races set new attendance records, including Silverstone, welcoming 564,000 fans, making it the most attendance race in the sport history. Our sprint format continues to drive higher Friday attendances and stronger daily attendances through our race weekend. The success of the sprint format continues to drive growing interest from promoters in Austria's sprint race, and we expect to expand the number of sprints for next year and to provide further details soon. Our hospitality offerings continue to benefit from huge demand for premium experiences. The Paddock Lab remains sold out for the rest of the season, and House 44, which is also sold out this season, has been a standout success. We plan to expand House 44 from 9 locations this year to 13 locations next year. At the Belgian Grand Prix, we launched our new premium experience, the Outflap, in partnership with LVMH. Early feedback from our partners and fans have been overwhelmingly positive, and we expect to operate this experience across Europe next season. Retail sales remain robust and highlight the underlying consumer demand on F1-branded merchandise. At Silverstone, we introduced a new flagship retail concept that offers fans of broader and more diverse product assortment. We plan to expand this flagship format to Monza, Madrid, and Austin later this year. Building on the success of the specialty F1 Disney Store in Asia, we launched another Disney retail hub at the Montreal race this quarter. Additionally, we also opened two new F1 hub locations in Montreal and London, further extending our retail footprint and following the success of the original concept in Las Vegas that returns in November. We continue working with our promoter partners to elevate our premium hospitality experience, including adding new capacity increases this season at Silverstone, Monza, Monaco, Austin, and Hungary. And we plan the expansion next year in Austria. In Monaco this season, we added a third floor to the Pado Club, in addition to diversifying our premium product mix with five different experience packages. At Silverstone, we open our Turn 1 Annex in our Paddle Club, taking our premium capacity to an all-time high this season. At Austin, we are excited to open our new structure at Turn 1 later this year, and we also have additional planned expansion in Austin next year. We also continue to see growth in our global TV audience, led by several key strategic markets, including Brazil, Italy, and China. In Brazil, the British Grand Prix reached a record of 18 million viewers across TV Global and Sport TV 3, generating the highest audience for the event in eight years and the largest audience for any F1 race globally since 2020. In Italy, TV audiences are up plus 27% through Silverstone versus last year, helping drive broader growth in fan engagement across our ecosystem. In China, the moment generated by the Chinese Grand Prix, where weekend audiences more than double year to year, has continued throughout the season, supported by increased coverage and growing audiences our social and digital platforms continue to play an important role in bringing our younger digital first audience closer to our sport we grew our social media follower 19 percent year over year with particularly strong engagement on tiktok our total youtube views surpassed 1 3 billion up plus 30 percent year over year while our YouTube highlights views have reached almost 200 million views with the over 15 minutes hour watched. While we continue to benchmark our sport engagement using traditional measures of viewership, we also recognize that our fan base continues to evolve. So true does the way our fans engage with us across a diverse range of platforms, channels and experience. For example, the LEGO Drivers Pareto Silverstone generated more than 70 million video views across multiple platforms, creating another culturally relevant moment that captured the attention far beyond the live race itself. To reflect this evolution, we're continuing to enhance how we measure and value fan engagement, building a more comprehensive view of how fans connect with Formula One across the entire ecosystem. Our partnership with Apple underscores this ability to interact with fans across multiple touch points, enabling a more holistic view of engaging with our sport. Since launching on Apple TV, F1 has attracted a younger audience while also expanding its reach among female fans. Our sport continues to build momentum on Apple TV, delivering strong viewership and engagement with fans this season. The strength of Apple ecosystem has already helped us reach and engage with new fans across the US. F1 isn't just being watched, it is being discovered, followed and embraced by a new generation of fans across every Apple platform and device. our growing fan engagement continues to translate into sustained interest from our commercial partners. With respect to our media rights, we remain active in our negotiation and renewals, recently renewing with the Servos TV in Austria in a multi-year agreement. Globally, our F1 TV product continues to perform well, with F1 TV revenue, not including in the US where the arrangement has changed, increasing 18% year-to-date. Our race promotion business has never been stronger. While our calendar is fully allocated through 2028, interest for new destinations to host a race remain robust, with many potential host cities seeking to develop long-term proposals that will drive tourism, investment, and broader economic activity around a potential race weekend. Our active pipeline, despite our calendar being full, underscored the strength of the sport commercial proposition in an era of expanding media reach, deepening partner engagement, and growing consumer demand globally. We are equally thrilled with the phenomenal progress we have made this year with the Las Vegas Grand Prix. We have added our very first F1 after-party concept, featuring the iconic Backstreet Boys at the Sphere, following the race on Saturday night. Our ticket sales are trending well ahead of the last year with respect to both volume and revenues. In fact, we are already at month-end September 25 levels as of the end of July, and on a life-for-life basis, excluding ticket sales for the Backstreet Boys. We have also recently announced our 10-year extension with the LVCVA, keeping the LVGP on the calendar through 2037. This extension reinforced the strategic importance of these rates to our local community, partners, and we now have greater certainty to invest in long-term infrastructure and operational improvements, reducing future build-out costs. The Grand Prix Plaza in Las Vegas also continues performing well, with private events, attractions, and watch parties performing really well, with attendance on track to surpass 2025 levels. Sponsorship activity remains strong during this quarter. We extended our agreement with Pirelli as our official tax supplier through 2028 and welcomed FlexJet as our official private division supplier in a multi-year partnership. Additionally, we also announced Fever as our new centralized technology platform for F1.com, starting new season, bringing the strength of their marketing platform to our sport and ensuring we continue showing up in the most culturally levelling location. By partnering with Fever, we will deliver a smoother fun journey with more sophisticated technology to improve discoverability and ticket purchases. Momentum around our licensing business continue to build. We recently announced a new multi-year global publishing partnership with the DK Books, bringing our storytelling to a new level for fans of all ages to experience F1. We have also renewed our partnership with Automobilist, which continues to print the Swiss F1 posters and calendars for us. And we also recently partnered with Hush Bro to launch a special F1 themed edition of Monopoly. In addition, we have signed multi-new agreement through our distance partnership, including Gentle Monster and Uniqlo, and have many additional product launches plans with and without Disney globally for the reminder of the year as we further the reach of our sport with iconic global brands. While we remain momentum across all parts of our business, we believe for one has an exciting growth journey ahead and we are excited by the opportunity. We are confident that the foundation we have built in today will drive enduring value for all our partners and stakeholders. Avanti tutta. Full speed ahead. And now I will turn the call to Carmelo to discuss MotoGP. Ciao.
Good morning and thank you, Stefano. It has been an understanding first year growing our sport with Liberty Media, and we look forward to building on this momentum with Liberty's continued support. Our season this year has been incredible. The competition has never been tighter across the week with only 24 points splitting the top five riders season to date with notable strength from aprilia to date 12 riders across seven teams and three manufacturers have made podium congrats to ayagura winning his first gp assassin our first japanese winner since 2004 and the first graduate of the Asian Talent Cup to win a Grand Prix. Consistent with our history, we have successfully signed the Manufacturers and Teams Agreement for the next five years. This renewal provides the necessary foundation to grow our sport collectively. The most important outcome from this agreement is the strong alignment across our parties on a shared vision, which is to evolve our sport while maintaining its unique heritage. Under the new agreement, we are collaborating on ways to optimize cost while preserving the competitive integrity of the sport, allowing teams and riders to reinvest back into their commercial efforts as we work collectively to valorize our reach. We will increase our investment into the sport with shared responsibility across manufacturers and teams to help drive the long-term commercial success of MotoGP, creating a strong framework to continue innovation and performance and reinforcing MotoGP as a premium global sport. We continue to grow MotoGP engagement both on and off track. Across the first 11 races, attendance is plus 4% with record attendance in Thailand and Germany. We also continue to see growth in our TV audiences with viewerships up 3% through Mugello. with notable strength in our US, Spanish and Austrian markets. We also recently hosted a watch party for the Dutch Grand Prix at the Alternet in London, growing over 20,000 visitors and look forward to running the same activation for Silverstone. As we broaden our reach, we see attractive opportunities to engage fans in creative, immersive experience in key markets around the world. We remain focused on extending MotoGP global footprint and are encouraged by the momentum across our digital and social footprints. We ended the quarter with 63 million social media followers, a plus 3% increase year over year. With particularity, a strong performance on TikTok, where engagement increases over 80%. Our Chinese social media platforms also delivered strong growth, with followers increasing plus 26% as we continue to deepen our presence in the key growth markets. VideoWiz, excluding VideoPass, increases over 30%. We have a productive quarter with several news and renewal partnerships across our business. In the media rates, we continue to strengthen our global footprint. We have recently renewed with SkyDash covering Austria, Germany and Switzerland, with a THON in Spain and Portugal, and with RTBF in Belgium, in multi-year agreements. We also continue building momentum in race promotion, extending agreements with several promoters' partners, including Malaysia to 2031 and Silverstone through 2028. Looking ahead to next year, we are excited to race again in Argentina, at Buenos Aires. And for the debut of Adelaide GP, we look forward to unveiling the first visual renderings of the new Adelaide circuit over the next few weeks. In our sponsorship business, we sign at CAA as our global sponsorship agency, further straining our commercial platform and capitalizing on our brand refresh and growth. In hospitality, we are encouraged by the early momentum with our expanded partnership with Quint, where we are working together to enhance the premium hospitality experience on our events. We are exacted by the path ahead and remain encouraged by our early momentum. We look forward to continue to update the investor community in our progress. Now I will turn the call back over to Derek.
Great. Thank you, everyone. We appreciate your continued interest in Liberty Media. That will open the call-up for Q&A. Operator?
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. And for participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. We ask that you please limit to one question and one follow-up question. Our first question is from Cutgun Maral with Evercore ISI. Please proceed.
Thanks for taking the questions, too, if I could. First, I wanted to dig into the underlying trends across meteorites. I think the Apple deal in the U.S. continues to get a lot of attention, but you think the number of other broadcast agreements since then, and we don't get as much visibility into the economics of those. I know every deal is different and the linear and digital media landscapes keep shifting, but could you give us a sense of how those conversations are generally evolving? And in broad strokes, is there a helpful way to think about the trajectory of Meteorite's revenue as these deals get renewed or extended? And then second of all, I wanted to ask about the Las Vegas Grand Prix. It's very encouraging to hear ticket sales are trending well. I know you don't break out the financials separately and discreetly for the race, but can you share any color on how profitability is trending year over year? Because if current ticket sales and revenue trends hold and you continue to evolve the vendor contracts, it seems like profitability should be positioned to improve as well. But I'd appreciate your thoughts on how we should be thinking about the financial impacts of the 10-year extension going forward as well. Thank you.
Sure. This is Derek. And I'll just start, I think, on the media rights. As you know, you know, media rights across the globe are sort of – they sort of ebb and flow depending on sort of who the players are, what rights are that are coming up, and, you know, other factors as it relates to dynamics of the different sort of subscription businesses or broadcast businesses in those markets. And so we are constantly sort of in discussion with folks, not only while we're in negotiation, but frankly, outside of that, because they're our partners and we're always trying to build and sort of generate as good a product as we can with them. But through those discussions, you're constantly sort of hearing about, you know, what's going on in these markets, you know, whether or not digital players are coming in, you know, globally and in other markets, what their expansion aspirations are. And I think more broadly than I would just say that it's, you know, we feel good that we have great products. We have products. We have content that people want. We obviously, to some degree, are subject to sort of some of those things that are outside of our control. And the things that we can control are continuing to make the sports that we own sort of as compelling as possible and as interesting for our partners as possible. And that's what we do sort of to put ourselves in the best position as we go to market every time. Now, we are, as I mentioned earlier, constantly, you know, having discussions with these guys. And so what you've seen from time to time is us also, you know, taking advantage of opportunities where we've renewed deals early because it makes sense. uh and we will continue to look for for ways to do that because what we are interested in is sort of the long-term stability of uh our product and making sure we're with the right partners and the the just like with the race promoters you know if we can find the right partners who will invest for the long term we think that builds um that builds our brand that builds value in our sports uh and and so you know as we come back to the specifics of the question And I think that we are very encouraged by sort of where the Apple deal has gone. I think we're encouraged certainly with F1, with the recent renewals with Sky, and then on the MotoGP side, also very encouraged by what we've just done recently, particularly with DAZN, which, you know, Spain and Portugal are important markets for us. I don't know if you guys want to add anything to that.
Yeah. I mean, Derek, I think that's a couple of points on top of what Derek said. I just said, first of all, the beauty of what we are doing is that we control the content and we produce it. This is an incredible asset and opportunity to redefine what is now in the media world the redefinition of the rich. We don't have to forget that the rich is taken not only with the evolution of what we are having in terms of great deals with the great media partners, but we have other ways to produce content through other different ways to connect people. We don't have to forget, you know, that now there is so many platforms to reach people that are creating value for the media broadcaster to connect with us, either to, let's say, traditional products or other products that should be digital or other platforms. And that's why the beauty of what we are having today in the global world is that the partners that are working together with us want to renew earlier than what is the expiration date because they see the value of what they're doing. And on our side, making sure we take the right evaluation market by market, we're going to see if these new trends coming in can be monetized or helping us to get to a different dimension of reach, and otherwise it will be different. So I think we are in a great spot today. We are an incredible sport that, because of what we are producing, gives the leverage to make sure that, looking ahead, we are very positive and saying that we can be a sport that can be produced in all the different platforms around the world, making sure that we can monetize as much as we can every single contract, what we are doing on every single market. That's the point of media, in my opinion, to add on what Derek said absolutely very, very clearly. And Derek, of course, if we can answer to the second question, I will follow you. Otherwise, I could go ahead with that point as I prefer. But I think that what we don't have to forget is, I start once again for one factor. Vegas is becoming one of the most important events that has already shown since the beginning the potential of it. I don't want to forget that if we compare the economical impact that F1 did versus Super Bowl, with respect, we were bigger. That means the potential to keep growing, control even more the cost. Having now the opportunity of having agreed the 10-year extension, you know, with the LDCBA, means that can really build on even stronger the possibility for this Grand Prix to be even more profitable. That is already the case because this is something that, you know, we knew. that was a product that could have been fantastic. And this trend of growth in terms of profitability and also, not only ticketing-wise, but in terms of positioning as an F1 product that can have a great push to other promoters is becoming a relevant thing that is indicating to the world of a sport business the way to produce events around the world. And this is very, very good. We are very happy. Emily Fraser, you know, the CEO of the Vegas Grand Prix, is doing a tremendous job with the team there, focusing and making sure that all together, that one can produce even stronger products for the future. This year's event will be phenomenal. I don't want to anticipate there will be so new content that we're going to do on the racing because we don't forget. At the center of our product, Vegas, you know, Miami, Madrid, or wherever we are in the world, is what we're doing at the track. and then being able to extend the experience, that is the key factor of being so successful so far all around the world.
Great. Thanks, Stefano.
Operator, next question. Our next question is from Stephen Lecek with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed.
Great. Thanks for taking the questions. Brian, you called out that absent of the calendar variability at F1 this year, the business is performing exceedingly well. I was just curious if you could maybe speak a little bit more to the underlying performance you've seen year-to-date and if there's any particular parts in the business that are performing better than expectations heading into the year.
Yeah, thank you for the question, and I can certainly start, and I'll let Stefano add on. But obviously the calendar variability makes it very challenging because you have lower proportionate revenue recognition. But if you kind of look through that, we're seeing really good growth on sponsorship as we did last year. We're seeing really strong performances in licensing. The demand for the paddock club is very strong. Obviously, you have fewer races, so you don't necessarily see that come through the numbers. But those are three areas that I would very specifically call out. Stefano, anything you want to add to the underlying performance?
I think, Brian, you reached the most important point, for sure. Licensing is starting to be on the trajectory that, you know, we've been pushing for a couple of years. There is a tremendous effort to characterize this revenue stream even stronger in the future. I want to say stay tuned because something will happen because it's important that we keep growing that revenue stream, as we always said. And then I go back to the point that Brian was saying before is related to Pado Club. Pavo Club is related to experience, and this is something that will create even more the possibility of growing our revenues in the future because experiential opportunity is where we are focusing our future. We did an experiment, for example, in Spa, offering a very exclusive customer a possibility to have one of the best chefs in the world, a tour, having a unique way of having a food experience at the end of the Saturday night. This is another way to create things that money cannot buy. That's our approach to create even stronger that kind of possibility that will have an impact on our revenues. That's definitely very, very important. If I may, I do want to give for granted the fact that we were able to react in a very difficult situation because, of course, our way to embrace our way to work is to always try to find a solution, even if there are problems. The fact that with the Bahrain Grand Prix, we wanted to bring home a race there and find a place to be in Malaysia, not in Bahrain, shows our mentality. You know, we are racers inside. We want to make sure that our fans and our partners will rely on us to find solutions. That's what will happen in the future with regard to revenue streams that I see a great potential even in the next five years ahead of us.
Great. Thanks for that. And then maybe just on the expense side, for Stefano and Brian, and SG&A at F1 looks like it continues to pace up a good bit year over year. Just would be curious if you could talk more about the investments you're making in the business and then how we should be thinking about the pacing of SG&A as we look into the back half of the year and then maybe even into 2027. Thank you.
The biggest two factors are you have a marketing benefit because we had the 75th anniversary last year. We also have an FX impact where FX has negatively impacted SG&A for the first half of this year. Normally, we don't see something that large, but as our cost base in the UK changes, if you have changes in the British pound, obviously that could be an impact. Outside of those two items, you know, there's investment in personnel. So personnel costs are higher than they were in the prior year. SG&A is slightly higher at LBGP. The bulk of that is due to the fact that, as you recall, we took over the sales function from Quint last year, but that wasn't fully baked at the beginning of 2025. So it was being built up through 2025, and you have a full year of it now. So that shouldn't be an impact going forward.
And then we do have higher IT costs as we invest in the business. those are the those are the primary items great thank you very much our next question is from Matt Condon with Citizens Bank please proceed thank you so much for taking the questions Stefano you know you mentioned the commercial opportunity and I know you've talked about in the past this being a big future opportunity can you just talk about the key levers to make this a bigger part of the the business.
Sorry, Matt, can you repeat this? Because the line was a little bit disturbed on my side. Sorry.
Sorry, no, I was just asking about the commercial licensing opportunity, and you've talked about this being a big future opportunity. Just wanted to know the key levers to getting this to be a bigger part of the business over time.
Okay, Dan, sorry, now I understand. No, I think that the beauty of what we are doing is that every time we meet, you know, there is always what's next. What's next is finding opportunities that our market is presenting to ourselves. We have for sure done already an incredible step with regard to what, you know, in all the categories we can offer to our customer. The investment on digitalization that Brian was mentioning before will allow us to grow this opportunity even further. Different market, different visibility, different opportunity, and therefore, this will allow us, you know, to maximize that everything connected to that. In terms of other commercial opportunity, I think definitely one thing that we are very focused on trying to, not trying, working on very hard to renew the, let's say, the actual big partners to be extended now without waiting the expiration of the content. And one area that we want to protect, because it's an area where everyone wants to be totally involved, is the area of AI. We will never give to anyone or a single partner that area because it's too big. Therefore, our ability to divide that area of business is creating us a lot of other opportunities. And the other thing is that it's related to the key licensing partners that is growing year by year. We see that through different propositions that we are doing, we are creating capsules. We are creating content that enables us to have a bigger issue with our fans. Now we are really, I would say, in a good position to monetize as much as we can the possibility of moving our customers through our partners too also. But that will give us a great visibility of a great trajectory of future revenue that will continue in the next future.
Great. That's very helpful. And I just wanted to ask about the new agreement with the manufacturers and teams from MotoGP. Can you maybe just give us an overview, and what are the key points that we should really know as you think about this going forward? Thank you so much.
This is Derek. I think that the key points are that we've got another five-year deal with the teams and the manufacturers, and I think we've got everyone sort of moving in the right direction in terms of sort of outlining what the technical aspects of the sport will be. I think the other key components are, and some of this is in the deal, some of this is not, but just sort of how we're going to build this sport together. This process has been, you know, a bit long, and as you might imagine in any sort of discussion like this, I think there's some gives and takes. But I think that we're coming out of it in a way where everyone on both sides, in terms of the teams and sort of us, are trying to figure out and work together to build the sport, both as a product, but also from a commercial standpoint, that will benefit all of us. Carlos, I don't know if you want to go into that a little bit more.
Thank you, Derek, and thank you for the question. Yeah, I think it's a very positive outcome for us, and evidently after the deal with Liberty Media closed and the acquisition closed, that was really the time that we could, you know, really start the conversation with the manufacturers and teams. as there has been a real alignment in terms of how we want to build this together as derek was saying and really you know what what is the vision and the strategy behind building motor gp and how the manufacturers and the teams um have have to be a part of that i think that you know high high tides raise all boats and you know putting together uh the the investment that is going in towards the teams for them to also be able to invest into their own resources to grow their brands. The sport is an amazing place from the racing point of view, and 2027 and the new regulations will only improve that. So this is really a great conversation with the teams and the manufacturers to really get everybody aligned on the commercial side and the strategy behind building the sport.
Thanks very much, Matt. Operator, next question, please.
Our next question is from David Joyce with Seaport Research Partners. Please proceed.
Thank you. More on MotoGP, please. Can you help us understand how much of the cost base in the quarter was allocated to incremental growth initiatives as that sport aims to apply the Formula One playbook? And separately, on the sponsorship side there for MotoGP, How much of that is expiring in the next year that could result in either upgrading the sponsors or expanding relationships or just getting step-ups based on the continued fan engagement growth there?
Why don't we start with Brian on the cost side?
Yeah, David. It's, you know, I would say the investment phase is, you know, not that pronounced in the quarter. specifically, I'll look at the year-to-date results, but year-to-date, you know, we've got higher marketing expenses as we try to grow the brand. There are some incremental investments in personnel, but those are really not that material. I mean, you can see in our reported results that SG&A is relatively flat for the quarter. And then on cost of revenue, there certainly are investments there, but those are offset by, you know, changes in the schedule where you have higher payments to the teams due to the change in the schedule and increased flyaways – actually, I'm sorry, a lower flyaway, lower freight cost because of the change in Qatar. So, so far you're not seeing material increases in the cost base through the investment other than some personnel and marketing costs.
And on the sponsorship question, I think the way to think about it is less about sort of what's expiring as you might imagine we have a regular flow of deals that sort of come up but they're probably three to five years in in nature and so periodically you have these coming up but i think it's actually more about what what sponsorships are going to be available with a focus on the business and bringing this to a much wider audience and i think something that we've been pitting on uh from day one and we've historically had a fairly endemic sponsorship And I think as we look much further afield, this starts to open up much bigger opportunities for us well beyond sort of what a normal renewal rate paradigm will give us. So I think that's how I'd frame it, how I'd think about it, if I would do.
Great. Thank you very much.
Our next question is from Brent Navon with Bank of America. Please proceed.
Thank you. We've seen Formula One, I guess, increasingly add sprint races to the calendar. I mean, how many more can realistically be added here? And I guess, can you explain how this filters through the business? Is this just extra race promotion revenues? I mean, is there media rights or sponsorship opportunities that come with it as well, or even, you know, hospitality? Thank you.
Stephan, why don't you just go ahead and take that one?
Yeah, sure. I mean, sprint races is an opportunity that, first of all, started because we wanted to produce something that could create action on the track, creating leverage for the promoter and ourselves to create action on the tracks starting for the weekend. We're going to have more sprint races next year, yes. We'll inform when we will announce the calendar how many. The principle is very simple. This is also an opportunity to increment the revenue stream, for sure. This is an opportunity for us to have new deals, as we have already seen. And moving in this direction will be our future. We want to do it in the right way because, of course, this will allow us also to make sure that the scarcity is a value. So if commercially we would go everywhere, of course, that is not anymore a value that we can really embrace from the commercial point of view. But definitely, we're going to move further up in terms of what will be the number in the future. That's 1,000% what will happen already next year.
Great. That's helpful. And maybe just a follow-up to some of the media rights discussion earlier. A few months ago, when you announced the Sky extension, Germany was noticeably abstinent from that agreement. And, you know, there's been a few recent press reports suggesting you may look to be adding a race back to the calendar in Germany. And so I guess should we interpret that as potentially, you know, Germany, you guys viewing that as an untapped growth market and, you know, maybe help kind of help us think through how bringing a race back potentially could help with the media right discussions there. Thank you so much.
I'll start on this one.
Okay. Jake?
Yeah, look, I think I'll let Stefano talk about a race in Germany, but I think that broadly speaking, this is sort of what I was alluding to earlier, like Germany is a market in flux, you know, with the RTL Sky merger. I think also you've got some of the digital players, the streaming platforms that are coming into Germany. So it's a market that, you know, probably a few years ago was, you know, not as robust and it's looking now more robust. And And then you layer on to that what we continue to do from a product standpoint, which I'll let Stefano talk about more, and any sort of sense of races in Germany and such. But that's solely dependent on having races, having the content. It is, you know, part of it is what the macro dynamics are happening in that particular marketplace.
Well, if I may add on what Derek said, definitely, RTL was an important step in our need to have more reach in that market. I'm pretty sure that in the future, one will be the right negotiation. The market of Germany will be different, for example, from what we have now in Italy or in the UK. A, there will be a digital platform or other streamer that will apply for the tender because that's a market that possibly will have that opportunity to put us in a situation that we need to make the right opportunity for the future. But with regard to the potential, I would say that we don't have to forget that we have Audi that's stepping into the business. We have Mercedes. We have big partners that have their home base in Germany. And I think now Germany wants us to think in the medium term if they can come back into the calendar, or even more important, being as it was 20 years ago, one of the most important markets for Formula One. I think that is the base for this discussion. I think that we know very well the dynamic in Germany. I'm not really the fastest one, but definitely the new situation in Germany starts to move in the direction where I see Germany potentially in the future being a very interesting market that will have a positive effect both on the media side but also maybe on the promoter side. It will not, in that case, a short-term call, but definitely will happen. And this is very, very important to remember. Thank you so much.
Our next question is from Ian Moore with Bernstein Research. Please proceed.
Thanks for taking the question. Everything you shared on, like, premium hospitality, paddock club, really, you know, encouraging today. What are you learning, I guess, about, you know, supply versus demand dynamics there? You've had a lot of capacity there over the past couple seasons. What are the signals that are giving you confidence that demand, you know, for these experiences continues to outpace supply? Well, you can take me.
Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Derek. Thanks, Ian. I mean, today, I can tell you that today we are talking about the fact that already next year, 2028, we have already allocated for the teams all the public club hospitality that we have. So it's a sign that today we need to see how we can extend, not only in terms of quality, but in terms of pricing, the other offers that the promoters are doing as a joint activity. So the signals are all positive, all great. We see our market in a full-strength mode, also because we don't have to forget that now also the team have solid partners, very important brands that want to invest in Formula One to what we are offering on the commercial side. So today are all good. We have new products that are very, very innovative. The good thing that I think personally, not personally as Stefano, but as a team and F1, as a good thing is because everyone is watching at us on what we are preparing for the future of sports entertainment. And our team is focused on creating even more initiatives to try to be always at the top edge because today is not only pricing, is really how we can involve our team and our people, sorry, to leverage what we are today. So the signals are super positive and we will not give up in making sure that this positivity will be extended for a longer period as much as we can. Appreciate that.
Thank you. Thank you, Stefano. Thank you, Ian, and everybody else for participating today. We look forward to speaking to you more offline and seeing you in the coming weeks.