Netflix considered buying Formula One before Liberty Media sale

Netflix explored a potential acquisition of Formula One years before Drive to Survive debuted on the streaming service, but the racing league instead sold to cable television giant Liberty Media in 2016.

Former Goldman Sachs investment bank head Gregg Lemkau met with then-Netflix CEO Reed Hastings to gauge the streamer’s interest in buying F1, according to remarks Lemkau made on December 2 at an event hosted by Semafor inside the New York Stock Exchange. Goldman Sachs advised CVC Capital Partners during F1’s sale process, which concluded with Liberty Media’s $8 billion acquisition announced in September 2016.

“When I was at Goldman, we were advising CVC selling Formula 1, and everybody was kicking the tires,” Lemkau said. “Ultimately, Liberty ended up getting the deal. But as we were thinking about who could actually buy it and would have real vision, we went to go see Netflix. I went to California and sat down with Reed Hastings and talked about potentially buying Formula One.”

Any prospective deal for F1 ownership was dwarfed by Netflix’s move last week to buy Warner Bros. for $83 billion. The company’s portfolio of live sports includes upcoming Christmas Day NFL games and its three-year MLB deal to stream an Opening Night game, the Home Run Derby, and the Field of Dreams game. Netflix will also stream MLB’s World Baseball Classic in Japan. Longtime ESPN personality Elle Duncan joined Netflix last month as its first full-time sports hire.

“[Hastings] saw the vision, he thought that owning a sports league would be clearly a valuable thing to do,” said Lemkau. “And he said it’s not our near term. Our content budget is going, [I believe it was] from $1 to $2 to $5 billion, and we need to go generate original content and build our subscriber base, and sports will be down the road. I still think that roadmap is going to be the case, even though Reed’s no longer in charge.”

Lemkau left Goldman in 2020 to join BDT & MSD Partners, where he is now co-CEO. He also served as an advisor on the $6.1 billion sale of the Boston Celtics announced in March. Netflix co-founder Hastings became chairman in 2023 after his 25 years as CEO. “You can say I was ahead of my time, or Reed wasn’t quite ready,” Lemaku added, referencing his F1-Netflix meeting.

Drive to Survive debuted on Netflix in 2019 and wrapped its seventh season this year, with the series widely credited for driving F1’s popularity boom in the U.S. Netflix reportedly considered making a bid for Formula 1’s U.S. media rights earlier this year before fellow streaming giant Apple announced its five-year deal in October to replace ESPN as the new home for F1.

A Netflix spokesperson declined to comment on Lemkau’s remarks when reached by Awful Announcing.

At last week’s event in New York, Lemkau also addressed the broader sports media rights landscape.

“I think you’ll have many more bidders as they keep coming up. You see Amazon get involved and Netflix get involved. The ones with the deepest pockets will win. I think they all see the value of sports in a meaningful way,” said Lemkau. “Paramount made a very big bid for UFC rights. So I think the key players that are trying to build real streaming platforms are going to be the biggest bidders for sports rights.” 

Netflix’s rapidly growing sports slate also includes two FIFA Women’s World Cups starting in 2027, WWE events and major boxing cards such as Crawford-Canelo and the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson fight. Netflix also livestreamed a crossover golf event with F1 drivers in 2023. Its docuseries span the PGA Tour’s Full Swing, ATP/WTA’s Break Point, the NFL-partnered Quarterback and Receiver, Starting Five with NBA stars, and its Untold series. 

“Sports are a subcomponent of our live strategy but our live strategy goes beyond sports alone. Our live strategy and our sports strategy are unchanged. We remain focused on ownable big breakthrough events because our audiences really love them,” Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said during the firm’s Q2 2025 earnings call in July. 

While Netflix ultimately hit pause on Formula One ownership, its consideration of such a move foreshadowed the growing ties between sports leagues and their media partners. For example, ESPN announced this summer that it would become the new owner of NFL Network in exchange for the NFL gaining a 10% equity stake in ESPN.