The Energy drink giant Red Bull announced that they are trying to acquire Formula 1 broadcast rights in their home market of Austria.
Red Bull is already one of the biggest players in Formula 1. Red Bull currently operates two teams, Red Bull Racing and AlphaTauri. Now it has been reported that the brand is eyeing up Formula One rights for its free-to-air (FTA) TV channel Servus TV.
To acquire the Formula 1 broadcast rights they would need to compete with the current broadcaster ORF. ORF currently holds the rights until the end of the 2020 season. But they didn’t make a new rights deal with Formula One is yet. Hans Peter Trost, ORF’s director of sports, has confirmed to Austrian media will try to keep their contract.
When Red Bull can beat ORF to the rights from next season, it will add to Servus TV’s content portfolio, which already includes the MotoGP motorcycling series in Austria and Germany. The channel, according to Sportcal, also drew its highest ever audience in Austria of 738,000 viewers, giving it a market share of 45 percent, for local tennis star Dominic Thiem’s defeat to Novak Djokovic in the Australian Open final earlier this month.
“We are not a sports broadcaster. We have to think carefully about such an option. F1 rights are always interesting for a broadcaster, but we cannot say anything about them now,” Red Bull’s co-founder Dietrich Mateschitz told Speedweek.com in an earlier interview. “We have to wait and see what ORF decides and what Sky does. It depends on the market situation, it must always be interesting.”
