How Liberty Media Turned Formula One Into the World’s Most Talked-About Sport

Formula One’s transformation under Liberty Media is one of the most successful branding stories in modern sport. By combining storytelling, digital media, and personality-driven marketing, the organization turned a niche motorsport into a mainstream global phenomenon. This case study explores how visibility elevated Max Verstappen from elite athlete to cultural icon and what founders can learn from it.

Formula One’s explosive global growth was not driven solely by faster cars or better racing. It was driven by storytelling. After acquiring Formula One in 2017, Liberty Media transformed the sport into a media-first entertainment brand through Netflix, social media, and personality-driven narratives.

How "Drive To Survive" on Netflix Revolutionized F1 For Me (Arpita)

I’ll be honest with you. For the first nine years of my marriage, Formula One was little more than background noise in my home. My husband would settle in for a Sunday race, and I would find somewhere else to be.

Then, in 2019, I watched the first season of Drive to Survive on Netflix.

Everything changed.

Suddenly, I wasn’t watching a motorsport. I was watching people. I was watching ambition, rivalry, pressure, ego, resilience, and redemption. I wasn’t learning lap times. I was learning who these drivers actually were.

Somewhere during that first season, I became a Formula One fan. The kind who no longer makes plans on race weekends.

That transformation wasn’t accidental.

It was the result of one of the most successful sports-marketing strategies of the modern era.

And at the centre of that strategy stood a young Dutch driver who became impossible to ignore: Max Verstappen.

The Formula One Liberty Media Inherited

When Liberty Media acquired Formula One from CVC Capital Partners in 2017 for approximately $8 billion, it inherited one of the world’s most prestigious sporting properties. It also inherited a challenge.

Formula One had enormous global recognition but limited cultural relevance outside its existing fan base. The audience skewed older, social media engagement lagged behind other major sports, and much of the sport remained hidden behind expensive broadcast deals.

Under Bernie Ecclestone, Formula One had become commercially successful but culturally exclusive. The sport was built around access, prestige, and scarcity.

Liberty Media saw something different.

They saw one of the world’s greatest untold stories.

Fast cars were only part of the product. The real assets were the personalities, rivalries, pressure, politics, and human drama happening behind the scenes.

The Netflix Effect That Changed Everything

The launch of Drive to Survive in 2019 became arguably the most important media decision in Formula One’s modern history.

For the first time, fans gained unprecedented access to team principals, drivers, strategy meetings, frustrations, and internal conflicts.

The sport became understandable to people who had never watched a Grand Prix. You didn’t need to understand tyre degradation or pit-stop strategy. You simply needed to care about the people.

The results were remarkable.

Formula One experienced significant audience growth between 2019 and 2022, particularly in the United States. New races were added in Miami and Las Vegas. The sport expanded from one U.S. Grand Prix to three.

At the same time, Formula One completely reinvented its digital presence. Instead of treating social media as a threat, Liberty Media used it as a growth engine. Drivers became personalities. Teams became brands. Race weekends became shareable cultural events.

Formula One stopped behaving like a traditional sports organisation. It started behaving like a modern media company.

The Real Strategy: Building Identity, Not Viewership

What Liberty Media understood is something every modern brand should understand.

People rarely become loyal because of products alone. They become loyal because they identify with a story.

Fans choose drivers the same way consumers choose brands. They connect emotionally.

A difficult season. A comeback story. A rivalry. A personality.

These narratives create belonging.

One of our realizations when working with personal branding and PR clients is that audiences almost never connect with achievements first. They connect with stories first. Achievements simply reinforce the story afterward.

Formula One’s growth demonstrates exactly that principle. Street races in Miami, Jeddah, and Las Vegas turned Grand Prix weekends into cultural events. Celebrity attendance increased. Social conversations expanded beyond motorsport circles.

The sport became part of mainstream culture.

Why Max Verstappen Became the Face of Formula One’s New Era

If Liberty Media built the stage, Max Verstappen became its most compelling lead character.

When Verstappen debuted in 2015, he was already extraordinary. At just 17 years old, he became the youngest driver ever to start a Formula One Grand Prix. He was aggressive, fearless, and relentlessly competitive.

But being exceptional isn’t enough.

People have to notice.

By the time Drive to Survive arrived, Verstappen had the perfect combination of ingredients: elite talent, a championship-calibre car at Red Bull Racing, and a rivalry with Lewis Hamilton that culminated in one of the most dramatic title battles in Formula One history during 2021.

But what truly separates Verstappen is not his speed. It’s his refusal to stop competing.

The Season That Changed How Many Fans Saw Verstappen

For me, that season was 2025.

After the Dutch Grand Prix, Verstappen found himself 104 points behind Oscar Piastri.

Most observers assumed the title fight was effectively over.

Verstappen disagreed.

Race after race, he clawed back the deficit. The pressure on McLaren intensified. The conversation shifted from whether Verstappen could catch them to whether they could hold him off.

Ahead of the Qatar Grand Prix, McLaren CEO Zak Brown compared Verstappen to a horror movie villain who keeps coming back when everyone assumes he’s gone.

Verstappen embraced the comparison, joking that Brown could call him “Chucky.”

The nickname stuck.

Although Lando Norris ultimately secured the championship by just two points in Abu Dhabi, Verstappen’s comeback became one of the defining stories of the season. People who had previously dismissed him as simply the beneficiary of dominant machinery suddenly saw something else.

Relentlessness.

The kind that changes opinions.

The kind that creates fans.

The Nürburgring Moment

Perhaps the clearest evidence of Verstappen’s cultural impact arrived away from Formula One.

When he turned his attention to endurance racing at the Nürburgring Nordschleife, the Nürburgring 24 Hours sold out for the first time in its history.

That wasn’t just motorsport interest.

That was star power.

And star power only exists when exceptional performance meets exceptional visibility.

What Businesses, Founders, and Brands Should Learn From Formula One

This is the lesson I keep returning to, both personally and professionally.

Max Verstappen was already a generational talent in 2015.

His ability didn’t suddenly appear.

What changed was visibility.

The world finally had a reason to pay attention.

The same principle applies to founders, companies, and personal brands.

In our PR agency’s experience, many of the most impressive founders operate in near-total obscurity. They build exceptional products, achieve meaningful growth, and create real value.

Yet outside their immediate industry, nobody knows who they are.

Not because they lack expertise.

Because nobody is telling their story.

Talent creates credibility.

Visibility creates influence.

The companies that dominate public conversations are not always the most capable. They are often the most visible.

The founders who become industry authorities are not always the smartest. They are often the ones consistently showing up where attention already exists.

Liberty Media did not make Max Verstappen a better driver.

They made the world notice him.

Once the spotlight arrived, his talent did the rest.

The same is true for every founder, executive, and business leader.

Being exceptional matters.

But being visible determines whether anyone knows it.

And in a world increasingly driven by attention, visibility is often the difference between expertise and influence, between a successful company and a category-defining brand.