Formula One Group

Welcome to Liberty Media Corporation's 2024 Third Quarter Earnings Call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. At that time, if you have a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference will be recorded November 7th. I would now like to turn the call over to Shane Kleinstein, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you and good morning. Before we begin, we'd like to remind everyone that this call includes certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual events or results could differ materially due to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those mentioned in the most recent Form 1010-Q filed by Liberty Media with the SEC. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this call. And Liberty Media expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to disseminate any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statement contained herein to reflect any change in Liberty Media's expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions, or circumstances on which any such statement is based. On today's call, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures for Liberty Media, including adjusted OIBDA. The required definition and reconciliation for Liberty Media Schedule 1 can be found at the end of the earnings press release issued today, which is available on our website. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Greg Maffei, Liberty's President and CEO.

Thank you. Good morning. Today, speaking in the call, we will also have Formula One's President and CEO, Stefano Domenicali, and Liberty's Chief Accounting and Principal Financial Officer, Brian Wendling. So, let me start with a couple of corporate updates. As you may recall, we completed the LSXM-Siri merger on the 9th of September. I look forward to remaining involved as board chair and a shareholder at Siri, but Liberty's ties are cut. We also announced updates to our voting and governance at the Atlanta Braves holdings, and we are transitioning services directly to the Atlanta team. They held their earnings call yesterday. This is the next step in their evolution as a standalone private company. And I want to thank all the Braves management team for their partnership over the years. It's been so fruitful. Now let me turn to the underlying businesses, beginning with the Formula One group and looking at it from some corporate update perspective. We refinanced the F1 date. The term loan B was refinanced at SOFR plus 200 bps. We expect to step down to SOFR plus 175 bps upon the deleveraging post the MotoGP transactions. We raised an incremental $850 million term loan B and $150 million term loan A commitments to fund that MotoGP transaction. All of that is deal contingent. We also issued $949 million of FWOC shares, replacing the equity consideration to the sellers in the transaction, so we'll directly pay them cash. We issued that stock at only a 4% discount to the market price, and it was placed with long-term holders. Okay. That completes, those transactions complete the necessary funding for a MotoGP acquisition, and we expect F1 leverage to be between three and a half to four times, assuming a year-end close on that MotoGP deal. The F1 season itself remains highly competitive. Both the Constructors' and Jivers' Championship are coming down to the final races. We've seen also similarly incredible financial performance in the form of the one year to date, with revenue up 15% and adjusted oil up 21%. We've seen double-digit growth across all of our revenue streams, boosted by two additional races. And we've benefited from new partners signed, contractual uplifts in our contracts and the performance F1 TV and our hospitality products. I know we've signed several new commercial agreements, which we begin next year. LVMH and Amex were introduced to F1 through LVGP in terms of their relationship, but now they've become broader partners with F1. We feel that partners continue to be attracted to the growth of the sport in the U.S. and our younger demographic, which has also grown. And correspondingly, we feel good about the pipeline for commercial activity in 2026. We all look forward to the LBGP in the coming weeks. We expect it will be another great spectacle for fans attending and watching at home. We will have a free daytime fan experience. which will bring energy and welcome local Las Vegas fans to F1, and we expect great entertainment including Ludacris, Alesso, and OneRepublic. Now let me turn briefly and give you a MotoGP transaction update. We are making progress with the European Commission, which is our only remaining regulatory jurisdictional hurdle, and we continue to expect a year-end close. And looking at the underlying MotoGP business, The Valencia race was canceled due to the tragic flooding in that region. Our thoughts were with the entire community. We give credit to Carmelo and the management team at MotoGP for their quick and thoughtful response. They will pivot since the final race will be in Barcelona. It will be hosted there in solidarity with Valencia. And that will be the final race of the season. Various initiatives are also underway there to support relief efforts for Valencia during that weekend. MotoGP racing has continued to be great, with only 24 points separating the title fight participants. Attendance is trending well, with 2.9 million attendees year-to-date, which is plus 9% on like-for-like races, and six races have set all-time attendance records this year. And looking at the business updates, MotoGP extended its rights agreement with FIM, their regulator, until 2060. They've announced their 2025 MotoGP calendar with 22 races across 18 countries, and they expect to release a new brand identity post-season. We look forward to more exciting racing and Liberty's involvement. Turning briefly to QUIT, as you may recall, Q3 is a seasonally-like quarter. We've seen strong F1 experiences during the quarter, and we are also seeing positive movement across MotoGP products that they are selling. Profitability in the quarter was partially offset by softness at a different sporting event, and there was an agreement with a rights holder, which was subsequently terminated by a mutual agreement, which impacted our third quarter results. And just touching on Live Nation, they've had strong performance through the first half, despite fewer stadium concerts. They are set up very well for 2025, which will be a monster stadium year. But I won't comment further on results because LYB did not release their earnings until Tuesday. And with that, I'll turn it over to Brian for more on our financial results.