F1: Plans to provide affordable General Admission tickets for Las Vegas GP (2nd Update)
Renee Wilm, who is also Liberty Media’s chief legal officer and chief administrative officer, said the tickets for the Las Vegas GP will likely go on sale in early 2023, but did not give exact ticket prices. Liberty Media acquired Formula 1 for $4.4 billion in a deal that closed in 2017.
William Hornbuckle, CEO and president of MGM Resorts International, said his company wants to buy $20 million to $25 million worth of tickets to the race to resell them with a hotel room bundle.
- Hornbuckle said on an earnings call last month that MGM would purchase the tickets, then “charge as we want and package as we want.”
- He added that some packages retail for $100,000.
Formula 1 expects ticket demand to “far exceed the 100,000-plus official spectator capacity” for the event.
September 18, 2022
According to Adam Stern of Sports Business Journal, Mercedes Benz wants to hold future U.S. dealership conventions at the new development that Liberty Media/F1 is to build in Vegas, an example of how Liberty Media plans to make the site a U.S. headquarters of sorts for the series.
Formula 1’s boom in the United States shows no signs of slowing down. Though the prospect of an American driver in the series is still not guaranteed, the 2023 race calendar has three races in the United States. To make the famously expensive and exclusive races more accessible to American fans, F1 plans to add an “affordable” general admission section to the 2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Sports Business Journal reports that Renee Wilm, Chief Legal Officer and Chief Administrative officer at Liberty Media, revealed plans to include the special general admission area for younger fans. This comes after reports that hotel and experience packages for the GP could total $100,000 or more. Liberty recognizes the need to include more casual fans that don’t want to spend thousands of dollars on spectating a race weekend.
The Las Vegas race will be unusual for many reasons. The race will take place on a Saturday instead of a Sunday. It will also start incredibly late, even for a night race, starting at 10:00 PM PT. This allows fans in Europe and Asia to watch the race early in the morning. This may turn away some viewers on the East Coast unless they want to stay up past 1:00am in the morning.