The fortunes of a Formula One race can change in a split second. When Sebastian Vettel, the 23-year-old star of the Red Bull Racing team, slipped up on the last lap of the Canadian Grand Prix earlier this month, he allowed Jenson Button of McLaren to snatch away the victor?s Jeroboam of Champagne.
The business of Formula One could be set for a similarly drastic swing. Much more than a trophy and a big cheque is at stake: The future ownership of the world?s most widely followed auto racing series ? and, perhaps, the way in which hundreds of millions of fans watch it on television ? is ultimately up for grabs.
The starting gun in this contest was fired this spring when News Corporation, controlled by Rupert Murdoch, and an investment company owned by the Agnelli family of Italy, overlords of the storied Ferrari racing team, expressed interest in taking over Formula One Management, which organises the races.
Since then, in trackside chats and informal conversations, officials of the two companies have been trying to convince sceptical team owners and other interested parties that they are the best future stewards of Formula One.
People with knowledge of the talks say the pitch goes something like this: News Corporation could do for Formula One what it did for English soccer, which was transformed by an infusion of billions of pounds of television rights fees from a News Corporation pay-television affiliate in Britain. News Corporation?s global reach and considerable financial resources could generate interest in markets where Formula One has lagged, particularly the US.
Meanwhile, by aligning themselves with the Agnelli company called Exor and Ferrari, the team owners might be able to extract a larger portion of the commercial proceeds of the races, rather than handing over half to the central organisation, as they do now.
Still, questions abound. Would team owners agree to part ownership by another team? Would regulators allow Formula One to move from free television, as stipulated in its current operating agreement, to pay-television outlets in Europe and Asia owned by News Corporation? If so, would fans and sponsors stick with the sport?
And perhaps most important, would this marriage of a media company and a sports organisation work better than other recent examples, most of which have broken down after failing to deliver the expected benefits?
?I can?t see how a media group could take over without changing fundamentally how the sport is run,? said Nigel Currie, the director of BrandRapport, a sponsorship agency. ?Media companies are now one spoke in the wheel of Formula One, but in this case, a media company would become the hub.?
The hurdles are so high that some analysts say they think News Corporation and Exor do not intend to make an actual bid for Formula One, which is majority-owned by CVC Capital Partners, a private equity firm. Instead, they may be trying to persuade key teams to peel away and create a new race series ? a threat that has been dangled several times in the past.
Bernie Ecclestone, the 80-year-old impresario who has been the driving force behind the race series for four decades, said that officials of News Corporation and Exor had not made any formal presentations to CVC or to him.