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spk04: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Liberty Media Corporation 2021 Q4 earnings call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a Q&A session. At that time, if you have a question, please press star 1 on your telephone. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded February 25th. I would now like to turn the conference over to Courtney Chun, Chief portfolio officer, please go ahead.
spk00: Good morning. Before we begin, we'd like to remind everyone 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 Liberty Media's most recent form, 10-K and 10-Q, or Liberty Media Acquisitions Form S-1 Registration Statement filed with the SEC. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this call, and Liberty Media and Liberty Media Acquisition expressly disclaim any obligation or undertaking to disseminate any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statement contained herein to reflect any change in Liberty Media or Liberty Media Acquisition'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 certain non-GAAP financial measures for Liberty Media and SiriusXM, including adjusted OIDDA and adjusted EBITDA. The required definitions and reconciliations for Liberty Media and SiriusXM Schedules 1 and 2 can be found at the end of the earnings press release issued today, which is available on Liberty Media's website. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Greg Maffei, Liberty's President and CEO.
spk02: Thank you, Courtney, and good morning to all of you. Today, speaking on 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 beginning with Liberty Sirius Special Dividend, we expect our share of those to be about $770 million, net of a pass-through to bondholders. We did continue during the quarter repurchasing shares, buying back $189 million across LSXMA and LSXMK shares from November through January. As you know, the discount remains and we therefore were able to repurchase our shares at a look-through price on CERI of just over $4. We will continue to take advantage of the discount opportunity. We also settled the exchange of our two and a quarter live nation exchangeables in January for consideration of $664 million using cash and some margin loan draws. Looking at the underlying business CERI SXM, they recorded record results for the year, record high subs, revenue, and adjusted EBITDA. and I also experienced the fifth straight year of improving churn. New car penetration is up to 82% from 78% in the prior year, and we launched 360L in more than 30 new vehicle models across various OEMs in 2021. Now more than 25% of SiriusXM-equipped vehicles sold in the fourth quarter incorporated our new 360L opportunities. We also teamed up with Apple and Discovery during the quarter, adding 12-month subscriptions to Apple Music and Discovery Plus for new and existing Platinum VIP plan subscribers. We introduced Audio ID powered by AdsWiz, a listener identity solution enabling marketers to reach and connect with consumers at scale. Stitcher went live with distribution and monetization of popular Crime Junkie podcast in January. We launched new exclusive artist channels including Alicia Keys, David Bowie and Neil Young. And we had small stage series of intimate live performances, which featured premier artists spanning music generations, including Ed Sheeran, the Go-Go's, Her, J. Cole, and John Mayer and more. So a busy quarter. At Live Nation, a great quarter as well. Fan attendance at outdoor events in the U.S. and U.K. in the last five months of 2021 was up 25% versus the same period in 2019. On-site spend, the per cap continues to grow at a double-digit rate versus 2019. And ticket sales in October, November, and December were the top three months ever in terms of GDP. We have expanded our venue portfolio as well, adding 31 new venues in 2021, half through the assessor acquisition. Every leading indicator in the business points to a record 2022. Confirmed show count through February is up 30% versus 2019. We've sold 45 million tickets for shows this year already, and no show rates are back down to their 2019 levels. Live Nation is entering its strongest multi-year growth chapter in a concert history. Looking at the Formula One group, on the corporate side, we effectively repurchased 2.2 million FWANA and FWAN-K shares at an average per share price of 58.59. That included both FWANA share repurchases and an effective share repurchase of FWANC shares due to the purchase of the underlying 64 million of FWANC cash convert that we bought. And now let me turn to F1 and first address the circumstances in Russia. I'm sure you saw our statement this morning. As we said, we are watching the situation with sadness and shock. And it's impossible to hold the Russian GP in the current circumstances. Turning back now to 2021, what a cliffhanger ending to a thrilling season. And since then, we've had a month of announcements coming out of F1 with more to come. Fans are attending and tuning in. Even with COVID affecting a good chunk of the season, we saw very strong attendance. And tuning across many platforms, 1.55 billion of cumulative TV viewers, with the highest race viewership being 109 million in Abu Dhabi, which rivals that of the Super Bowl. Average attendance was up 14% on like-for-like races. And once again, we saw great growth in social media followers, making F1, once again, the fastest growing major sport on social media. We signed numerous race renewals at desirable locations, showing continued strength in our contracted revenue, and we continue to further our sustainability initiatives. F1 came in at number two of 102 global motorsport championships evaluated by the FIA on a sustainable championship index, ahead of many such as Xtreme, MotoGP, and NASCAR. We are ready to kick off our record-breaking 23 race, 22 season, and we hope to see you at some, if not all, of the races this year. Turning down to the Braves, we capped off an incredible 2021 with our World Series title. But in addition to that, we had 239 home runs, which ranked second in the National League. We had a 3.88 ERA, which was second best in the NLEs, and there are too many player accolades to even name. The World Series Trophy Tour will visit 151 stops celebrating the 151 seasons of Braves baseball. And we will start 2022 with the highest number of season ticket holders in 22 seasons since 2000. We are sold out of our premium seats for the first time in Truist Park history, including all the suites, the premium seats including all the suites. And Truist Park will hold five stadium concerts in 2022, its highest ever. TK Tower and Innovation Center grand opening took place on February 9th, and in 2021, the Battery had close to 9 million visitors, including 330,000 during the three World Series games. We also did close on the sale of the minor league teams in January. The geographic alignment of the teams is important, and the major league reorg of minor league last year ensured that this will continue. The teams do remain affiliates for future player development. Let me just address the CBA for one moment. We are certainly aware of the latest developments in our discussions with Braves management, but are obviously prohibited from commenting any further. We continue to review opportunities for LMAAC to SPAC. As I've said before, we do believe that turbulence in the SPAC market has made deals more difficult, but actually will benefit Liberty and our strength. And with that, let me turn it over to Brian for more financial results.
spk06: Thank you, Greg, and good morning, everyone. As Greg mentioned, in January, we settled exchanges on the 2.25% Live Nation exchangeable bonds for a total consideration of $664 million. This was funded with cash and margin loan draws, including drawing in part on our newly amended Live Nation margin loan which it upsized in Q4, reflecting appreciation in the underlying Live Nation share price. Pro forma for the exchanges, Liberty Series XM Group had attributed cash, liquid investments, and liquid public debt and equity securities of approximately $143 million, which excludes $191 million of cash held at Series XM. We also had $925 million of undrawn margin loan capacity at the parent level. As of yesterday's close, the value of the SiriusXM stock held at Liberty SiriusXM Group was $19.4 billion, and the value of the Live Nation stock held was $8.7 billion. We have $3.1 billion in principal amount of debt against these holdings pro forma for the exchanges of the Live Nation exchangeable bonds. Total pro forma Liberty SiriusXM Group attributed principal amount of debt is $13.1 billion, which includes $8.9 billion of debt held directly at SiriusXM. Formula One Group had attributed cash, liquid investments, and liquid public debt and equity securities at $1.6 billion at quarter end, which excludes $709 million of cash held at Formula One. Total Formula One Group attributed principal amount of debt was $3.4 billion, which includes $2.9 billion of debt at F1, leaving $455 million at the corporate level. As Greg mentioned, in the fourth quarter, we repurchased $64 million face value of 1% Fonk converts, effectively retiring 1.7 million of underlying Fonk shares. Formula One's $500 million revolver remains undrawn, and Formula One's leverage at the end of the quarter was 4.4 times. We are revising our target leverage range down to be less than five times on a go-forward basis. Note we are still in a period of covenant waiver until March of this year. As previously disclosed, beginning in January of 2021, F1 began reclassifying certain components previously reported in other F-1 revenue into primary F-1 revenue to better align with the way it currently evaluates the business. Components reclassified into primary F-1 revenue include F-1 TV subscriptions, F-2 and F-3 related fees, broadcast origination and support fees, as well as digital advertising, amongst other items. Additional detail including the impact of the revenue reclassification for the years ended 12, 31, 19, and 20 can be found in Schedule 4 of our earnings release posted on our website. At quarter end, the Braze Group had attributed cash and liquid investments of $142 million, which excludes $102 million of restricted cash that's on their balance sheet. The Braze Group had attributed principal amount of debt of $700 million. At the end of the year, Liberty and all of our consolidated subsidiaries are in compliance with their debt covenants. With that, I'll turn it over to Stefano to discuss Formula One.
spk03: Thanks, Brian. The 2021 season will be discussed for decades to come as one of the greatest. It came down to not just the final race, but to the final lap for Max Verstappen to edge past Lewis Hamilton and win his first world championship. We look forward to this continued rivalry in 2022 between Max and Lewis, who will be returning to pursue his eighth world championship. and we hope to see new drivers moving up the field to challenge for podiums more regularly. The action on and off the track brought in fans in person and across all platforms. We saw 2.6 million fans in Grandstand around the globe, even though we were limited in our capacity due to COVID. This includes three events with attendance of over 350,000 in the US, Great Britain and Mexico. Eleven events attracted crowds of over 100,000 people. Our total cumulative TV audience over the season was 1.55 billion, an increase of 4% over 2020. The average audience per race was 70.3 million, with our biggest audiences of 108.7 million tuning in for the season finale in Abu Dhabi. that saw significant growth in cumulative audiences were the Netherlands, Italy, the UK, Spain, and the US. Our sprint events proved to be a draw with the TV average audience uplift of 70% for the weekend. Looking only at markets where like-for-like broadcasting arrangements were maintained across 2020 and 21, the average audiences was 60.3 million, up to plus 13 year-on-year, and the best since 2013. Please note that in 2021, despite our broadcasting arrangement in Germany and Brazil changing significantly, we saw positive developments. In Brazil, we are now enjoying far more in-depth coverage and more hours of F1 being broadcasted than 2020. In Germany, Sky's cumulative audiences in 2021 have seen significant growth of plus 55% year-on-year. Our digital reach was very strong. In 2021, social media followers grew 40% to 49.1 million, once again making Formula 1 the fastest-growing major sport league in follower growth. We tallied 1.5 billion engagements with 7 billion video views. F1 web and app unique users, video views and page views were all up double digit. The digital share of video minutes consumed increased from 10% in 2020 to 16% in 2021. We look forward to the start of the season on March 20 in Bahrain. We have a record 23 races season planned and are scheduled to return to many tracks we could not visit in 2020 and 2021. We are extremely excited to welcome the Miami Grand Prix to the calendar in May, and again reached a unanimous agreement with the teams and the FIA to again have the sprint at three venues this year, Imola, Austria, and Brazil. On the driver front, we look forward to the new pairing of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, the return of Alex Albon, and we welcome a new driver for the grid with the Guangzhou Zoo, joining Alfa Romeo, who will provide excitement opportunity to engage and grow our fan base in China. Speaking of the 2022 season, there are many changes to the cars and regulation, all aimed at improving racing and increasing relevance to road car technology. The most visible change will be the switch from 13 inches to 18 inches tires with covers. This, along with the other changes to the regulation, have the goal of reducing the aerodynamic weight coming off the cars with the aim of allowing for closer racing and more overtaking. Safety is also a focus, and the new 2022 cars will be able to absorb more impact at the front and laterally. Additionally, more components of the car are now standardized, which should help keep cars down and promote closer racing. In addition, changes will also include the implementation of E10 fuel in the F1 cars, comprising 10% ethanol, which will reduce CO2 emission, and a free zone performance development for the power unit from March 1st. We have recently made many exciting announcements driving future growth for our sport. On the racing front, we extended race agreements in China through 2025, Singapore until 2028, Abu Dhabi until 2030, Spain through 2026, Bahrain until 2036, and Circuit of America through 2026. Each of these locations brings something unique to the calendar, and we appreciate this long-term partnership in which our sustainability goals will feature prominently. On the sponsorship front, it is a busy time with robust interest and a very strong pipeline of discussion ongoing. We expect to announce further details soon on a number of opportunities that have been progressing in the past few weeks. On media rights, due to the closure of Disney's Fox Sports channels in October 2021, we successfully concluded nine new partnerships across Southeast Asia, securing new broadcasts in Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei, Papua and New Guinea, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar. We also extended our existing partnership with Disney in Japan and India. In addition to this, We will also have a new partnership in the Netherlands for the start of 2022 championship season with the Viaplay, NEN's new streaming platform. The 2021 F1 eSports Series Pro Championship presented by Aramco also had a twinning season. Mercedes-Benz Jarno Opnemeyer clinched a second consecutive title and secured the team championship for Mercedes. The 2021 F1 season audiences and their tensest figures broke viewership and engagement records, building upon the huge momentum gathered in 2020. The full series, which ran throughout 2021, achieved over 23 million views across digital platforms, a 103% year-on-year increase. We are already on to the second step of qualifying for the 2022 Esports Series and look forward to another fantastic season ahead. We continue to invest in our ESG initiative to address the biggest issue facing our sport and global communities. Sustainability is a major focus for FOMO1, and many of our promoters partners target in areas where we can have greatest environmental and social impact. Our initiatives can take many forms, including 100% sustainable fuels in the 2026 hybrid engine, renewable energy sources, targets around net zero carbon emission, reducing the carbon footprint, increasing recycling efforts, significant savings on overall energy costs, and a large initiative working with our promoters partners on event sustainability. A comprehensive ESG briefing note is posted to our website. I encourage you to read it. We recently announced our extended funding commitment to the Formula One Engineering Scholarship Program for unrepresented group through 2025, part of our drive to increase diversity within the sport. This program was launched in 2021 with the selection of 10 scholars in the UK and in Italy, and the scholarship covers the full cost of a student's tuition and living expenses for the full duration of their degrees. As part of a wider program of diversity and inclusion initiatives, Formula One has also committed to creating apprenticeships and internships across our business. In advance of the Miami Grand Prix, we launched the F1 in School STEM program in Miami Gardens. F1 in School is the largest STEM program in the world, operating in over 50 countries and providing hands-on interactive experience to develop key engineering and social skills. We were proud to announce that the W Series will continue to join us at eight Formula One races in 2022. The series will visit five new venues in 2022, including making its depth in Asia. We believe in the importance of providing everyone the opportunity to reach the highest level of our sport, and our partnership with the W Series demonstrates our resolve to build greater diversity across Formula 1. It seems like we just concluded our thrilling 2021 season, but we are ready for the 2022 season. We believe in the new regulation and the changes to the cars, combined with old rivalries and new drivers, will provide more drama on and off the track. Get ready by watching season four of Drive to Survive, which airs on Netflix on March 11th. Avanti tuta. Full speed ahead. And now I will turn the call back over to Greg. Thank you. Bye-bye.
spk02: Thanks, Stefano and Brian. And to the listening audience, we appreciate your continued interest in Liberty Media and look forward to a productive 2022. And with that operator, I'd like to open the line for questions.
spk04: Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Again, press star one to ask a question. We will take our first question. from Vijay Jant. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
spk08: Thanks. Good morning. A couple of questions on sort of buybacks. First on Formula One, obviously you have new leverage targets that you talked about today, but you have $2 billion in cash, a lot of free cash flow generation, and obviously EBITDA growth, at least that's what we think in 2022 and onwards. Can you just talk about what how we should think about buybacks at Formula One going forward conceptually. Will you sort of run to your new leverage target, which is way below that right now? So that's my first one. And then sort of on serious, XM, obviously they announced a special dividend. Curious to understand why special dividend versus sort of a buyback philosophically, and you guys selling into the buyback. There's some leakage, as you called out. on a dividend. Does that really have to do with Live Nation exchangeable payment this time, and maybe you revert back to another strategy there on return on capital? Thank you.
spk02: Thank you, Vijay. Lots of questions. Okay, we'll try. On the buybacks on FWAN, you'd note, I'm sure, that we did execute on buybacks on FWAN effectively, and we're doing both liability management and buyback there where we repurchase those in the money converts. That's effectively both debt reduction and an equity buyback. You've seen that we have quite a lot of cash and free cash flow generation, and we do have an open to buy in terms of a board authorization of a purchase. I don't think we've ever said, you know, we're going to buy X and a quarter or we plan to buy X. But you can look at our history. You can look at what we've done, what we have for free cash flow and available cash, and assume that we will – act as we usually do in history. We are also looking, to be fair, at opportunities that Juan may help the ELMAC, the SPAC. So far, those have been difficult, but we do keep in mind that there may be opportunities that arise outside of just the share or purchase. But as you noted, we have quite a lot of cash and a lot of free cash flow. So I hope that's a round enough answer around our intentions and what other things might come and arise. On CERI, CIRA, I believe, has stated that they still intend to do buyback. Obviously, that's not entirely in our control. We are on the board, but there is an independent group of directors who also have a pint on where cash flow should go. They do have their own constraints around how much they want to shrink their available float, and there are triggers at things like 90% that they probably are fearful of crossing in a hurry. So they have their own issues around share or purchase. We have our issues around selling into the buyback because it is not actually not taxable to us unless we have a relationship directly with the company. That's complicated given some of the ongoing litigation. So if we were just to sell and maintain our equity position, that has the effect of looking like from a tax perspective, a dividend. So the special dividend was not taxable to us, and we found it attractive both to help address some of the liability management issues that you pointed out and to allow us to continue to share a purchase. I hope that helps answer some of your questions.
spk08: It does. Thanks, Greg.
spk04: We will now take our next question from Ben Swinburne. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
spk12: Thanks. Good morning. Maybe a couple on F1. And then if I could ask a Braves one as well. Stefano, what's the pipeline look like for race promotion or new host cities? Obviously, there's been a lot of news about Las Vegas. There seems like there's a ton of demand. Sounds like you guys are replacing Russia with something else. Can you just talk about the outlook there? And can Can you expand the count beyond 23 races realistically? Are the teams on board with that? That's my first one. And maybe for you or Greg, on the US media rights deal that's coming up, you've had this great success with ESPN. How are you thinking about reach versus monetization? You've seen deals like the UFC on a fairly limited platform like ESPN+. But, you know, a big fat check. What's your priority as you look forward? And then I'll ask my Braves one after that. Thank you.
spk02: Stefano, do you want to comment on races first? Stefano, go ahead.
spk03: It's okay for you, Greg. I will go ahead on that. So good morning from London. Thanks, man, for the question. I mean, I just can reiterate one point. that is related to the fact that now, due to the great success that F1 Plateau is having, the possibility of having new races in the future is still very, very big. I mean, if you are talking specifically about the situation this year, because of the Russian situation, I just can confirm to you that we have already proven last year, in the last couple of years, to be very flexible and not to have any problem in finding possible solutions to that. So I can just confirm that could be an option for this year with no problem at all. With regard to other, you know, voices around possible venues for the future, yeah, I mean, we can just say that there are a lot of discussion going on. We need to make the right choices for the strategic market that we believe are the right one for Formula 1. But for sure, I mean, we can expand the calendar because technically speaking, as you know, we can go up to 25. That is written in our regulation and contract agreement. and the team will follow our vision on that. I would say that it's already something that we don't have to forget, that this year will be the 23 calendar races, the highest number of races in the history of Formula 1. So I think that we can watch that in the right way, taking the right decision. We are not in a rush for that. It's just a matter of tuning in on the different possibilities that we have in front of us.
spk02: Yeah, I'll add on that just to say I think Stefano and team and the FIA and the teams themselves have done a great job managing both through the flexibility of COVID but also increasing number of races. We understand there are constituents who are less enthused about that, and we have to add the races in a way that is logical and doesn't strain the resources of all involved. So we'll see how 23 goes, and as Stefano rightly noted, contractually we can go to 25, but we're going to do it in conjunction with our partners. On the media rights, I think you probably know, and credit Chase, and obviously, Stephanie, you can add any comments, that we took a perspective on taking a shorter, broader deal, meaning broader coverage over the money on the last deal, and I think that's paid off. We will weigh what's available to us, and I don't think, as you know, it's a complete tradeoff. There will be degrees of access, degrees of coverage, and there will be degrees of money. And obviously, having the benefit of more U.S. races and more potential U.S. sponsorship or more global sponsorship, which wants a U.S. presence, weighs into our thinking about that breadth as well and how long a deal we want to cut. We're very confident that our product will be more desirable in the coming years in the U.S. than it even is today. We continue to build enthusiasm and audience, et cetera. So, you know, it's not just breadth and money. It's also duration, and we'll weigh all those factors.
spk12: Got it. That's very helpful, Greg.
spk02: Do you want to add anything on that?
spk03: No, absolutely spot on, Greg. That's exactly the point. The ratio between awareness, growth, and return on that is a key point here. And also I have to say, you know, the content that they're developing, the new market, they're talking about Formula One, it's something that we are really focused on because we are having now the possibility of engaging with new fans that need to understand Formula One with a different cut. So it's up to us to provide the right quality and the right typology that will be different from the avid fans approach. So that's the beauty of this challenge that we have in front of us. But it's all great news, I have to say.
spk12: Yeah. And then... Greg, I'm sure you know there's a lot in the news also about direct-to-consumer sports networks and Diamond Sports in Bali. Can you just remind us, what are your rights at the Braves level in terms of either enabling or not enabling a Bali sports service in the Southeast? And then, obviously, you know the cable business well through Charter, etc., Do you think the market can bear a direct-to-consumer RSN without putting the full distribution benefits of pay TV in the region at risk? Obviously, that's a pretty tricky balancing act. But what's your perspective from a Braves point of view?
spk02: There are certain out-of-market rights that could get triggered. But frankly, the way it's structured, I don't think it's attractive for most teams to do that. So I don't think that will happen. And you've seen Rob Manfred's comments recently. I'm sure you have, about that those are not owned by Diamond, Sinclair Valley, whatever we want to call it, and there's not really an incentive the way it's structured to trigger those. How a DTC offering will play an over-the-top offering against the RSN seems pretty self-evident. If you can get it on DTC, you're going to put more pressure on the negotiation between the MVPDs, traditional MVPDs, and any suppliers of an RSN-type product. Again, it's a little like that discussion around reach, breadth, and money, and time. There's probably not an absolute relationship in any of those, but obviously competitive offerings makes the bundled product that much harder to push.
spk12: Thank you.
spk04: We will now take our next question. from David Karnofsky. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
spk10: Thank you. Question for Greg or Stefano. With Drive to Survive set to release in a few weeks on Netflix, we'd be interested to get your thoughts on how you view the importance of this series, the Formula One, and its growth. Obviously, it's been a notable success, especially here in the United States, in terms of widening the fan base. Do you see F1 continuing this for the long term, and is that something where Do you think there's buy-in from the teams?
spk02: Stefano, I'll let you go first.
spk03: Okay, thanks, Greg. There's no doubt, David, that the drive to survive has an incredible effect, mainly on the new audiences and also in other new markets, like U.S., for sure. And this will continue, and I can anticipate to you that you have to stay tuned on your series because I just had the possibility to see, and it will be fantastic. with the right tone, and as you can imagine with what has happened last year, there will be a lot of action on. So that's good. But I think that what we have shown as Formula One has been always to be in front of the step change, that everything has to happen. So I think that it's important for us to be, we try to survive with our Netflix friends up to the moment where we believe that will make sure that it's a differentiating factor. If it's becoming just a different way to speak about Formula One without having or giving to Formula One platform any added value, maybe I think it's better to renegotiate and see with Netflix or with the other pilots what could be. a possibility to do something different in the future. But for sure, you know, this platform has been a vital point on the growth of awareness, mainly with the young generation and with newcomers of Formula One. And for that, we need to thank that vision and the product, the quality of that, that has been really very, very good.
spk02: I agree with Stefano's comments. If I could just add a couple more. I think it's a great partnership. while it clearly has helped us, and you've seen growth in our TV audience, for example, in the U.S., grow, as we noted, 58% this year, and our average age over the last few years has come down four years in terms of who are our fan base. That contrasts dramatically with how many other sports have both aging fan bases and declining TV viewership. That having been said, it's a win product for Netflix, too. It was the number one at some point during the year in 27 countries. It is relatively cost-effective programming for them. So I think it's an absolute win. As much as Netflix has done for us, I'd like to think we've done well for Netflix. And when I've talked to Reed and Ted, I know they're very enthused about the product. We've clearly seen a change in the mentality of the teams. I love to tease Toto about how he hated that drive to survive and the first season wouldn't participate. Had a host of reasons, and now I would describe him as a pretty enthusiastic fan. And I think he's representative the way most of the teams feel. So it's been a win all the way around. Clearly grown our sport not only in the U.S. but around the world. But it is a great thing for Netflix as well. So I hope the marriage continues for a long time.
spk10: And then maybe just one more for Stefano. Would be interested to get your thoughts on the Kindred Concepts partnership. what's the opportunity in terms of broadening the fan reach here, and can you say what F1's long-term financial commitment is? Thanks.
spk03: Sorry, David. Can you repeat the question? Because I had a cutoff of the line. Sorry.
spk10: Sure. I just wanted to get your high-level view on the Kindred Concepts partnership you guys announced a few weeks ago, what's the opportunity to broaden the fan reach, and if it's possible to frame the financial commitment on their side.
spk03: Hello? David, sorry for that, but I really couldn't hear the question.
spk10: Hi, yeah, no, I hope I'm coming through. We just wanted to get your high-level thoughts on your concept, the opportunity to broaden the fan reach, any way to frame the financial commitment.
spk02: It's about the podcasting, Stefano.
spk03: Okay, sorry, because the line is not very clear to us. And I mean, it is something for sure that is an opportunity to increase, as I said, the possibility for our fans to be connected in a different way of life. talking about Formula One. So, potential is great, and I think that together we can do really good stuff, because at the end of the day, it's something that is going to be very important to increase, once again, the level of awardees in Formula One, because I know that the podcasting is getting and having bigger uses for the future.
spk01: Thank you.
spk04: We will now take our next question from Jason Bazinet. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
spk09: I have sort of a dumb question. Perhaps erroneously, I was operating under the assumption that if Siri did a buyback and you participated in that buyback, that those proceeds were tax-free to you because of the tax sharing agreement. But I think at the beginning of the call in response to Vijay's question, you hinted at some potential complexities related to that. So do you mind just circling back to that and elaborating a bit, Mr. Maffei?
spk02: Happy to do that, Jason. If you look at the deal, for example, where Liberty Broadband sells in an agreement we have directly with Charter, back to Charter, that is one kind of a relationship. We do not have that current tax deal with SiriusXM. We have a tax sharing arrangement related to the fact that we now are an 80% owner, but we do not have a deal to sell a certain percentage of our stock or commensurate percentage or hold our percentage with SiriusXM. If we sell into the marketplace, that is taxable. If we sell back to the company being over 80, that would not be taxable, but we do not currently have that agreement with SiriusXM.
spk09: That makes sense. Okay. Thank you.
spk04: We will now take our next question from David Joyce. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
spk01: Thank you. Two questions, please. First, on sponsorship for Formula One, a lot of investors have been wondering why there possibly hasn't been more sponsorship generation since you acquired Formula One, given that it looks like there would still be room in some categories for some global sponsorship deals, and also in light of the large Oracle deal for one of the F1 teams. So what does the sponsorship success at the F1 teams do to your efforts for potentially growing that revenue line some more? And then secondly, just a technicality on LMAIC, do you have to have an acquisition deal planned announced or fully closed by the end of the two-year period early next year? Thank you.
spk03: Well, David, with regard to the sponsorship in FOMO1, as I stated before in my speech, there are very important negotiations that are in place. So we cannot anticipate the outcome of it yet, otherwise we would have done it. It's clear that the world of Formula One is really capable of attracting new sponsorship both for the commercial rights holder and also for the teams. That means that we are really doing a good job and there is a lot of interest around that platform. With regard to us, as I said, I think that in the coming weeks, we're going to see some good news that we can share together.
spk02: Great. And on ALMAC, the SPAC, the basic agreement is to get a deal done in two years, but there is an opportunity for us to pay a little more money and extend for another year. So I think we have – and there's three months past that. And then we could extend for another year by paying for some more money. So I think we have a fair amount of runway left if we found something attractive.
spk01: Great. Thank you very much.
spk04: We will now take our next question from Stephen Lasik. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
spk11: Great. Thank you. A question on F1 ticket prices. We've seen some pretty strong demand tailwinds in the live event space coming out of the pandemic. I was wondering if you can maybe talk a little bit more about how you work with promoters on their ticket pricing strategy and maybe the opportunity you see over the next couple of years to benefit alongside these partners on ticket pricing, perhaps as these deals are now.
spk03: Thanks, Stephen, for the question. You know, with regards to ticket pricing, the promoters have the right and not the right, even more, he knows the market better than anyone else. So he is able to prepare the different offer that he can offer to the different customer and client. And of course, we know that and we are informed about the strategy because it's important that we give our position on that. But the structure we have so far with our promoter is that this is the business on which we want to give our input because we believe that we can add some values. But they know better than anyone else what is the local market, the local interest. And of course, if you just look what has happened in the last couple of events and because of the success, you know, there was a new way of dynamic pricing that we see that we saw growing. And this is something that could be interesting for the future. But so far, with regard to the model, this is a dimension that belongs to the promoter. If you're talking about the PadoClub experience, of course, that's a different story. This is something that we manage. And this is something related to the fact that we know the market and we believe to present to our customers the right pricing versus the level and the quality of the service that we want to provide to them. And as always, this is something that we are working on the other way around with the promoters because they know that market. But on that, this is a business that, you know, depending from place to place is managed by us.
spk11: Great. Thanks for that. And then one for Greg. Not to belabor the Siri buyback question too much here, but I think you alluded to to potential legal complications for why you might not have that arrangement with Siri or might not be able to have that arrangement. Did I hear that correctly? And if so, is there a possibility you could elaborate on that?
spk02: Sure. You know, we would have to go, to get a tax-free deal, we would have to go and negotiate an arrangement with SiriusXM for that buyback. And, you know, you might do something where A typical arrangement might be something where you bought back at the average weighted price that they bought back during the quarter, something like that. But to have that kind of relationship would probably put pressure on the independent directors of Sirius at a time when we've seen other litigation. It's probably a bridge too far at the moment. Perhaps down the road we'll have something like that, but we have no deal signed and really have done no negotiation about trying to negotiate, have an arrangement like that with the SiriusXM. independence.
spk11: Got it. Thanks for that.
spk04: We will take our next question from Doug Mitchelson. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
spk07: Oh, thanks so much, Greg. I actually would love to belabor the Siri buyback question. So my question, Greg, is... Doug, you're way too good to do this.
spk02: Keep going.
spk07: Well, the question is, to the extent special dividends continue, and I know that's uncertain, but to the extent they did, is the Liberty bias to use that cash sort of dollar for dollar for share purchases at Liberty, Siri, or would the increased cash on hand give you the comfort to lever up those Siri shares, you know, amplifying your ability to repurchase stock, but also sort of increasing the beta of that position? And I do have a second one I'll just ask right away on Formula One, not to look too long term, but...
spk02: Okay, we'll come back to that one. Doug, I don't understand that question because are you saying, okay, we get the special dividend, we can repurchase our own shares, and what was your second alternative?
spk07: Well, the second alternative is you have enough cash on hand now that you should have some comfort to be able to pay interest expense for a long period of time. So you could issue an exchangeable or have a margin loan, and with interest rates still as low as they are, you could have a substantial amount of capital.
spk02: Yeah, look, first of all, there are probably some constraints on how many more exchangeables we can do just given liquidity in the market. It's a little bit of the same problem that Siri has on the share repurchase, how much you have availability. But it would seem easier, Doug, just to use the cash we are getting if there are special dividends to buy back the stock directly. So that would probably be our first inclination rather than to double down with another exchangeable and use that cash we're getting to pay the interest on the exchangeable.
spk07: And I think you've sort of suggested this with your comments on this call, but I'll still ask directly, Greg, are there any other options for Liberty to close the discount versus Siri that investors should be thinking about at this point?
spk02: Well, you know, there are a lot of choices out there about closing that. If they continue to repurchase stock, We continue to repurchase stock. Maybe we close out and eventually become the 100% owner. That seems like at some point that's the natural situation. How we get there remains to be seen, but I think all of those will move forward. To the degree that we have special dividends and that capital moves up to LSXM, I think that allows us to go attack that discount with more vigor, and that's been our hope.
spk07: All right, understood. On Formula One, given our Disney coverage, not to look too long-term, but is there a pathway to take experiencing Formula One from a 2D experience to a 3D experience? And is that practical given the races cover so much geography? And the reason I'm sort of going there is you touched on this a bit in the comments, but I wanted to ask this more directly as well. How much does technology innovation matter with regard to choosing your broadcast partners when you're going through these distribution renewal processes?
spk02: I'll take a cut and let Stefano answer as well. I can imagine few kind of experiences, few kind of sporting events that are better suited to the idea of the metaverse and, you know, for example, choosing your camera angle, which driver you wish to watch the race through, what angle you want to see. Are you looking at the driver, from the driver, across, sideways? around the whole track. I think the opportunities are limitless. And your point about thinking how technology innovation will enter into that, and you can imagine as we have the potential for new digital partners who have expressed an interest in getting into sports programming, who have capabilities there, all of that opens up a host of new, interesting ideas. So I think we're well-situated and well-suited to have that going forward. Frankly, even the fact that we've had somebody like Electronic Arts come by our distribution partner, our video game partner. You know, electronics obviously having more depth and strength probably than Codemasters did on a standalone basis. All those lead up to, I think, more opportunities for us in the future in that idea.
spk03: Yeah, absolutely. No, no, absolutely great. What I can say is that the value of our content is the differentiation factor of what we can offer to our customer, no matter how avid or new or whatever, whoever they are. And on that respect, I think that, you know, the mix between technology, graphic, music, language is what we are looking for for the future, because we are already studying It's a new technology that we can use already in the short term because we see the interest of that. And we see the request, the avidity from our fans to see something new. And this is something that we're going to do because that is a topic that is related to who we are that's been always very important for Formula 1. And what I can say with proudness is that F1 has been always the leading edge of how we can sell the experience through different channels to our customers. And this is really what we're going to do even stronger in the future. All right. Thank you both.
spk04: We will take our final question. Yes, we will take our final question from Matthew Harrigan. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
spk05: Thank you. I'll self-identify this as a potentially stupid question like Jason just did, because that's an admirable approach. But we've had a number of busted TMT SPACs that may have had pretty good prospects, but some of it's been in sectors like space that are fairly meme-ish. Is there any way to take advantage of that through your own SPAC or through some other you know, financial engineering angles, because you're probably better at sorting through the debtors, if that's a word, than some other people out there. Thanks.
spk02: Thank you, Matthew. Well, I think while TMT has had a bunch, as you rightly described, of busted SPACs, they're probably not alone. When we looked recently, a couple of weeks back, of the last 20 SPACs that had been done, 18 were trading below the $10 price. Now, to be fair, Most of those SPACs, this is probably looking at the results in November, December, most of those SPACs have probably been, the deals have been cut back in the summer. And I think they're, to your point about finding, looking in the detritus, I think when you see the wreck and the deals, if you try and cut deals that are being done now, effectively six and eight months later, there are maybe more opportunities out there. We'd also like to think that we have tried to be clever with some of our investment banking partners and the like to think about ways to look at things which are just different than the traditional ways SPACs have been utilized. So hopefully between the somewhat tech wreck, the challenges that have gone on in the SPAC market, and some cleverness around structuring, and the fact that we really have an unparalleled group of investors in our SPAC who hopefully would be interested, and I think the reason they came in was to back us with pipe money, we can find something. It is a difficult market. It's one that is challenging for everybody, including us, but hopefully there's an opportunity that resides in that challenge.
spk05: Thanks, Greg. Now I know how to pronounce detritus correctly.
spk02: Happy to help. With that, operator, I think we're done for today. Thank you, everyone, for your interest in Liberty Media, and we hope to see you next quarter, if not sooner.
spk04: This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
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