MotoGP is “exciting product” for Liberty Media, says CEO Greg Maffei

• Liberty’s €4.2bn acquisition is expected to close by end of year
• ‘Growing MotoGP in US’ will be key priority 
• Maffei confirms Lewis Hamilton has shown interest in purchasing a team

Liberty Media chief executive Greg Maffei believes MotoGP is “an unbelievably exciting product” ahead of the firm’s impending acquisition of the global motorcycling series.

The US-based media company is expected to acquire the series by the end of this year in a €4.2 billion (US$4.6 billion) deal, which was first announced in April.

Last month, Liberty Media – which has owned Formula One since 2017 – sold 10.65 million shares in order to fund its acquisition of MotoGP, generating just over US$825 million for the company.

Maffei, speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference, revealed his excitement at getting to work with a new sporting property.

“I think MotoGP is … an unbelievably exciting product,” he said. “I don’t know if many of you have seen the racing, but to see people driving motorcycles, 220 miles an hour six inches from each other, it’s wild, and the overtaking there is incredibly impressive.

“It is unfortunately one that is too little known here in the United States and around the world. There’s interest in Asia and other places, but the real heart of it has been in Spain and Italy [and] to some degree France.

“We saw what we were able to do with Formula One by telling the stories, making them humanised, making the story larger than just about the car [and] the technology. But, also about what the drivers were doing, what was going on behind the scenes, telling those stories, making sure the world understood the breadth of what was going on.

“But also we did a lot to improve things like … improving what you can see on the screen, making our fans understand the story better. All of those are things that can be helped here.”

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MotoGP has already taken steps to grow in the US before Liberty Media’s interest. Nascar outfit Trackhouse Racing entered the series this season, while Dorna chief commercial officer Dan Rossomondo told BlackBook Motorsport last year that the US was a “very important” target to “cultivate new fanbases”.

These ambitions will be boosted by Liberty Media, which has overseen considerable growth in the US for Formula One through two new races in Miami and Las Vegas and a noticeable increase in viewership figures on ESPN.

“I think, frankly, growing in the US – [MotoGP] have one race in Austin for which they receive relatively modest revenues from TV and the like,” added Maffei.

“I think there’s an opportunity to improve that. The opportunity perhaps for a second race in the US. All of those … are interesting in ways that look familiar to us from Formula One and hope we can replicate here attractively.”

Maffei also confirmed previous reports that Liberty Media’s move to acquire MotoGP resulted in interest from Formula One’s most successful driver, Lewis Hamilton.

Maffei said: “When we announced [the acquisition] … we had immediately people call up and say, ‘I want to buy a team’, including people like Lewis Hamilton.”