F1 to rival NBA and NFL teams valuations, predicts Aston Martin chief
Formula 1 teams are on course to rival top US sports franchises as the most expensive in the world following a boom in valuations, says Aston Martin F1’s commercial chief Jefferson Slack.
This month’s sale of a minority stake in Mercedes F1 valued the team at $6bn (£4.6bn), while McLaren were valued at around $5bn (£3.8bn) following an investor reshuffle in September.
Those numbers are dwarfed by valuations of the biggest NFL and NBA teams, such as the Dallas Cowboys and Golden State Warriors, but the gap is closing and Slack believes it is a matter of time before the sports achieve parity.
“There’s still a revenue multiple arbitrage for F1 teams at five, six, seven [times], but NBA teams are 10 or 12 wide,” he told BlackBook Motorsport.
“There shouldn’t be big differences in that, so I think we can get more to that multiple. There’s no reason why we can’t be worth [as much as] an NFL team. I think Mercedes now is worth more than a few NFL teams, but that should be where we’re going.”
Liberty credited with soaring F1 valuations
Industry observers have predicted that the Mercedes and McLaren stake sales will lift the valuations of all teams on the grid and trigger more partial sell-offs.
Ferrari’s brand prestige makes it the most valuable F1 team, according to a recent ranking by Forbes, which estimated its worth $6.5bn (£4.9bn). The same outlet puts the top NFL and NBA teams at in excess of $10bn (£7.6bn).
F1’s growth follows years of global expansion married with strict cost controls under the ownership of Liberty Media.
“This is a sport where, 20 years ago, you’d pay $1 and then you’d lose a lot of money,” SLack added.
“It’s a testament to lots of things. Liberty has done an incredible job – the budget cap, Drive to Survive – all of these things that have come together that have made the sport valuable.”