Formula One Group history

In 1978, Bernie Ecclestone became the executive of FOCA, and fought the Fédération Internationale du Sport Automobile (FISA) for control of the commercial rights of F1.

Disputes were settled by March 1981 when the Concorde Agreement gave FOCA the right to negotiate TV contracts.

When the second Concorde Agreement was agreed in 1987, Ecclestone ceased being a team owner and established the Formula One Promotions and Administration (FOPA) to manage TV rights for the teams.

It was initially created in 1991 by John Malone to house the non-US cable assets of Tele-Communications, Inc., a cable company where he was CEO, and was later spun-off as a separate publicly traded company.

The third Concorde Agreement was signed in 1992.

When the fourth Concorde Agreement was signed in 1995, the FIA decided to grant the commercial rights of F1 to Formula One Administration (managed by FOM) for a 14-year period.

ISC, owned by Ecclestone, had signed a 14-year agreement with the FIA in 1996 for the exclusive broadcasting rights for 18 FIA championships.

With FOM having exclusive rights to popular team names like McLaren, Williams, and Tyrrell, the aforementioned teams protested by rejecting the following Concorde Agreement in 1997.

A compromise was reached and a new Concorde Agreement was signed by all teams in 1998.

In June 1999, the European Commission announced it would investigate the FIA, FOA and International Sportsworld Communicators for abusing dominant position and restricting competition.

Alan Henry of The Guardian reported that the two companies also agreed to exercise EM.TV's option to purchase another 25% of SLEC for approximately £600 million in late-March 2001.

Due to the agreement associated with their shareholding, SLEC was controlled by Kirch, who controlled the board of Formula One Holdings (FOH). Due to huge losses and massive expenditure, Kirch's creditors put the company into receivership in 2002.

In November 2005, CVC Capital Partners announced it was to acquire the 25% and 48% shares of Bambino and Bayerische Landesbank in SLEC, and acquired the shares of JPMorgan Chase in December 2005.

The following day, at a meeting of team bosses at Heathrow Airport, Ecclestone offered the teams a total of £260 million over three years in return for unanimous renewal of the Concorde Agreement, which was due to expire in 2008.

The Formula One Group planned an initial public offering on the Singapore Stock Exchange in June 2012, valuing the company at $10 billion.

Formula 1, which was purchased by Liberty Media in 2017, is attributed to the Formula One Group tracking stock which trades on the NASDAQ under tickers FWONA, FWONK.

F1 Schedule – 2019 FIA Formula One World Championship® Race Calendar