Liberty Media won’t rush promises to improve F1

Liberty Media will not make promises about how it will improve Formula 1 until it has concrete announcements to make, according to Sean Bratches.

At the end of Liberty’s first year in charge of the sport, F1’s new owners have been coming under more scrutiny regarding plans for the future and how it will develop the business. As managing director of commercial operations, Bratches highlights a number of areas where progress is being made and changes have been confirmed, but says Liberty will not prematurely announce its long-term plans just to appease critics.

“I think if you look at this year, I think we’ve accomplished a significant amount in terms of building an organization and starting the process,” Sean Bratches said, as reported by the British media – “This is a journey and not a destination. We have great aspirations for this sport. It’s not something that you can just flick a switch and things happen, things need to be invested in and nourished and brought to market, and I think you will continue to see a case of announcements, of changes, the broadening of fan touchpoints in terms of how we are going.

“On the commercial side we will be launching, for the first time, a responsive web platform, social capabilities, a live and non-live OTT (over the top) service. We were [in Abu Dhabi] until one in the morning crowning the first champion in the Formula 1 eSports. By the way, it’s the first time in a while Toro Rosso has a won a championship!

“There is more to come and we are working on those plans, but we are not going to sit here and numerate what all our visions are for the sport. We are working hard and when we have something to announce, we will let all of you know, but I can assure you that we are going 24/7 and working to the end make the sport as great as it can be because we believe there is a huge opportunity.”

Liberty Media presented the teams with a multi-page document regarding its plans for the sport in the weeks before Christmas as a starting point for discussions about F1’s future direction.