When Liberty Media acquired Formula 1 in 2017, revenue from sponsorship of the championship was around $272 million.

Eight years later, that figure seems like an echo of a bygone era. By 2025, according to Ampere Analysis, the total value of sponsorships-between championships and teams-will exceed $2.9 billion. This is quantitative growth, of course. But it is, above all, a sign of a qualitative mutation: that of a championship that has gone from a sporting discipline to a cultural system, from a media event to a strategic platform for the most advanced brands.

Today, Formula 1 does more than just offer visibility; it offers context, narrative, meaning. It is a place where brands not only show themselves, but take a stand, intertwine with global issues-from energy transition to artificial intelligence, from inclusion to digital transformation. The runway has become a theater where the language of performance meets the language of prestige, and where every turn, every partnership, every color choice contributes to building a next-generation business syntax.

A system with high value density

In 2024, the ten teams generated $2.04 billion in sponsorships, with an average per contract of $6.01 million: six times higher than that recorded in the major U.S. sports leagues. This is not just a matter of cost: it is the epitome of a low-volume, high-value model, where exclusivity becomes commercial leverage. Contracts are few, but they weigh heavily. The nerve points of liveries – sidepod, airbox, rear wing – sell for between $5.3 million and $7.5 million per season. In the United States, only the NFL generates a larger volume of sponsorship revenue, but this is the result of 32 teams and almost ten times as many deals. Pound for pound, as they say, there is no comparison.

Above all, it is a landscape where quantity is never divorced from quality, and where visibility is not enough: you need meaningful presence, narrative integration, symbolic precision. Sponsorship in Formula 1 has become, in this sense, an exercise in identity positioning. On these pages, some time ago, we argued that visibility is but the tip of the iceberg. Now this concept is taken to the extreme, into a galaxy of PR activations and opportunities capable of generating ten, a hundred times what the track produces.

Vertical strategies, divergent philosophies

Against this backdrop, teams move in distinct styles, almost sculpting their commercial approach as carefully as they design the aerodynamic appendages of their cars. McLaren has adopted an extensive logic: 51 active sponsors in the 2025 season, more than any other team. It is a strategy based on plurality and widespread presence, building a branded environment around the team. It is an exercise in schooling, first and foremost, effectively trying to circumvent the old concept of the principle of merchandise exclusivity by seeking new spaces where there should be no space, for reasons of pure real estate of available assets.

Red Bull prefers a few high-value deals: Oracle, Rokt, Tag Heuer are partners with whom it activates multilevel projects, straddling content, technology and lifestyle. Mercedes strengthens its stylistic signature with the entry of Adidas, in a narrative that focuses on identity rather than performance.

Everyone, in each case, is beginning to ask a big question of space availability and the value of certain commodity sectors. It is the question of the future of Formula 1: What happens when there is no more space? Can we reach a point of sponsorship saturation?

Technology, finance and crypto: the anatomy of investment

Driving the market are mainly high-transformation sectors. Technology, in 2024, generated $543 million in sponsorships to teams-26 percent of the total-followed by banking, fintech platforms, and financial services operators with $379 million.

The cryptocurrency sector is also back on the rise : after the freeze of 2022, with the collapse of FTX, investments have rebounded to a total of $565 million, of which $174 million is earmarked for Formula 1. Crypto.com continues to lead the industry, but OKX, Kraken, and Gate.io are also appearing strongly. Six exchanges are active in 2025, up from four in the previous season.

This is not just a comeback: it is a redefinition of crypto sponsorship, moving away from fireworks and closer to more structured, more institutional projects. Formula 1, in this, confirms itself as a ground for narrative legitimacy.

PepsiCo, Barilla and the hybridization of languages.

The strength of the circus as a place for building brand equity is also measured in its ability to accommodate-and make coherent-universes that are far apart. 2025 saw the entry of PepsiCo, with a global agreement through 2030 involving Sting Energy, Gatorade and Doritos, and Barilla, present with gastronomic activations in the paddock and hospitality areas.

It is a plurality that does not disorient, but enriches. Because in Formula 1, consistency is not built by similarity, but by convergence: very different brands can coexist if they are able to fit into the series’ narrative – one made up of excellence, innovation, precision and passion.

American strength

Another structural fact: 34 percent of new sponsorship for the 2025 season comes from U.S. companies. It is a reflection of a precise strategic orientation: Liberty Media has transformed the United States from a market to be conquered to a pivot of the F1 sponsorship system. Three races on the calendar (Miami, Austin, Las Vegas), maximum media exposure (thanks in part to ESPN and a possible future with Netflix), and a rapidly expanding audience: 52 million U.S. fans in 2024, up 10.5 percent year-on-year.

The U.S. brand thus becomes the protagonist not only of demand, but also of supply: in terms of investment, planning, and business vision.

Further reinforcing this trajectory comes F1: The Movie, the Hollywood superproduction starring Brad Pitt, directed by Joseph Kosinski and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. More than a sports movie, it is a Drive to Survive-style cultural operation that puts Formula 1 at the center of the global pop imagination. The release, planned for later in the season, is not just a cinematic event: it is a planetary marketing lever, capable of bringing the championship even further into America’s collective consciousness-and, with it, within the budgets of the brands that matter.

The public as an asset

Every sponsorship strategy is based on an essential prerequisite: the presence of a large, active, engaged audience. In 2024, the global fanbase reached 826.5 million people, with staggering growth in China (+39%), Canada (+31.5%), Argentina (+25.5%) and Saudi Arabia (+25.5%).

On the physical front, the event with the largest number of viewers was the Australian GP in Melbourne, with 465,498 in attendance. But it is also digital that offers confirmation: 233 million views on YouTube for F1 content in the past year, with peaks in the United States (31.5 million), the United Kingdom (25 million) and India (13 million).

Ticketing also reflects the trend: according to Viagogo, demand for GPs has grown by 20 percent, with purchases from 125 different countries. In this context, Formula 1 consolidates its status as the most globalized sport on the planet.

New Horizons

2025 is the championship’s 75th anniversary year. But more than a look at the past, it is a lunge into the present: the season that marks the full commercial maturity of Formula 1, its ability to be both sport and entertainment, cultural industry and value system.

With a $2.9 billion market, Formula 1 is configured as a complex and flexible grammar, where each brand is called upon not only to appear, but to say something. The speed is no longer just that of the single-seaters, but that with which the system knows how to interpret the changing world. And those who know how to read this code-between placements, activations and storytelling-do not just run to win: they run to last.