“I’m not really worried about the balance sheet”- Liberty boss not worried about finances even with pandemic losses

“I’m not really worried about the balance sheet”- Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei claims to be not worried about the pandemic losses.

The COVID-19 definitely triggered a capitalistic crisis across the world, with all the industries (maybe except a few), took a miserable hit, especially the sports industry, which is still trying to recover from the losses of audiences’ absence at the venue and slashed TV revenue.

Formula 1 was one of the first sports to resume globally and cross the national boundaries to complete its calendar. In contrast, the majority of other sports remained in an isolated bubble stood up by one location.

Though F1 also faced losses, Liberty Media (which runs F1) CEO Greg Maffei claims that the balance sheet of 2020 doesn’t concern him, as the sport is trying to recover from its tough hit.

“I think one of the things about being part of the Liberty group is we have the ability to hopefully look ahead and be thoughtful with the benefit of our operating companies,” Maffei said in a call with Wall Street analysts, as per the Motorsport.

“The F1 balance sheet is very, very strong. I think the operating levels that we have in our agreements are fine. So I’m not really worried about the balance sheet.”

The end of COVID-19 restrictions will improve everything.

As mentioned above, the absence of fans inside the venues is a huge hit to any sport; additionally, it also affects the hospitality industry relying on it. Maffei says that once COVID-19 restrictions end, things will automatically improve.

“We’re going to have a variety of alternatives where fans will be to some degree there,” he said. “And I don’t think it will be binary, and we’re not necessarily going to see zero to 100.

“But we’ll be somewhere potentially in between. So I’m more optimistic as we go to the end of the year that we’re going to get to 100 percent of capacity.”

“I think promotion [income] will be still reduced in ‘21, certainly versus what we would have in a non-pandemic year. We will have restricted audiences and restricted fans at some of our events.

“We’re not here to make a forecast, in part because some of this is still up in the air, floating around. It’ll definitely be impacted, the amounts to which we’ll see.”

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

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