Gary C
06-20-2005, 08:13 AM
GPWC turns up the heat on Ecclestone
FORMULA ONE’S biggest threat has appointed its own Bernie Ecclestone figure and made Silverstone a prime target in its race to set up a rival grand-prix series. The GPWC group — made up of the sport’s four leading car manufacturers — yesterday announced that it has hired a company to find circuits and teams that will form a breakaway championship that could put the skids under Formula One within three years.
The company — comprising Ferrari, Renault, Mercedes and BMW — handed the commercial rights to Zurich-based International Sports and Entertainment (iSe), one of the world’s biggest sports marketing and management companies. The company portfolio is enormous and of the highest quality, with a client list that includes Fifa and the IAAF as well as the contract to market football’s 2006 World Cup.
The man who will be the counterpart and rival to Ecclestone, Formula One’s all-powerful promoter, is George Taylor, a Dutchman whose career has spanned almost every area of sports marketing, from working on McDonald’s sports sponsorship deals to negotiating contracts for football’s Champions League and European Championship. Now president and chief executive of iSe, Taylor’s first job will be to draw up a list of potential venues for the Grand Prix World Championship series to make up a 17-date calendar for a start-up date no later than 2008.
Silverstone, which has been knocked off the Formula One calendar by Ecclestone after he refused to agree a $13.5 million (about £7.3 million) deal for the rights to the British Grand Prix, is top of the list of recruits wanted by the GPWC.
Ecclestone has dismissed the idea of a rival series and Max Mosley, president of the FIA, motor sport’s governing body, added that the GPWC threat was no more than “a bargaining position” to lever more cash from Ecclestone’s coffers for the ten Formula One teams and their engine manufacturers. But a cornerstone of the GPWC’s case is that about 80 per cent of all revenues will be paid to the teams; the ten teams now get only 23 per cent of the estimated £500 million generated annually by Formula One, with Ecclestone’s companies taking the rest.
The GPWC emphasised last night that its negotiations with Ecclestone were over and it seems the only path to a reconciliation between the two factions would be the dismissal of the 74-year-old impresario by the three German banks — Bayerische Landesbank, J P Morgan and Lehman Brothers — that are Formula One’s majority shareholders.
It also emerged yesterday that plans for the new series have been building rapidly for some months. A GPWC spokesman said: “Since it became clear we could not negotiate with Mr Ecclestone, we have been very busy putting things in place so that we will be in a position to run our own World Championship.”
Sponsors nervous of the unrest in Formula One are already starting to align themselves with GPWC and the last brick in the wall will be to convince the teams to defect from Ecclestone. Ferrari are the key and there seems little doubt, given the team’s public pronouncements of intense dissatisfaction with the way that Ecclestone runs the business, that they will spearhead the escape.
Silverstone will also have little reason to stay at the negotiating table with Ecclestone if the GPWC series is to become a reality. The main sticking point between the two was the length of the contract: Ecclestone wanted one year with an option for six more, which would lock the British Grand Prix into his control beyond 2007 when the Concorde Agreement, the commercial deal that binds the teams to his championship, runs out; Silverstone, knowing that the GPWC could wreck the official championship, has been sensibly cautious of leaping into a long-term deal without cast-iron assurances. While details of the GPWC’s progress were being released last night, Ecclestone was in Mexico signing a five-year deal for a grand prix with Cancún, another venue prepared to spend millions on a new circuit, but with none of the tradition of the British race.
The GPWC will undoubtedly go after other disaffected circuits: in Germany, Hockenheim, where millions of pounds have been spent upgrading the circuit for the German Grand Prix, and the Nürburgring, which stages the European Grand Prix, are up in arms because they have been told by Ecclestone they may have to alternate a grand prix; at least one historic Italian circuit — Imola or Monza — will have to make way for the plethora of new tracks, while there will be many others, such as Dubai, that will look askance at Ecclestone’s asking price to stage a Formula One race, which can be as high as $25 million (about £13.6 million).
FORMULA ONE’S biggest threat has appointed its own Bernie Ecclestone figure and made Silverstone a prime target in its race to set up a rival grand-prix series. The GPWC group — made up of the sport’s four leading car manufacturers — yesterday announced that it has hired a company to find circuits and teams that will form a breakaway championship that could put the skids under Formula One within three years.
The company — comprising Ferrari, Renault, Mercedes and BMW — handed the commercial rights to Zurich-based International Sports and Entertainment (iSe), one of the world’s biggest sports marketing and management companies. The company portfolio is enormous and of the highest quality, with a client list that includes Fifa and the IAAF as well as the contract to market football’s 2006 World Cup.
The man who will be the counterpart and rival to Ecclestone, Formula One’s all-powerful promoter, is George Taylor, a Dutchman whose career has spanned almost every area of sports marketing, from working on McDonald’s sports sponsorship deals to negotiating contracts for football’s Champions League and European Championship. Now president and chief executive of iSe, Taylor’s first job will be to draw up a list of potential venues for the Grand Prix World Championship series to make up a 17-date calendar for a start-up date no later than 2008.
Silverstone, which has been knocked off the Formula One calendar by Ecclestone after he refused to agree a $13.5 million (about £7.3 million) deal for the rights to the British Grand Prix, is top of the list of recruits wanted by the GPWC.
Ecclestone has dismissed the idea of a rival series and Max Mosley, president of the FIA, motor sport’s governing body, added that the GPWC threat was no more than “a bargaining position” to lever more cash from Ecclestone’s coffers for the ten Formula One teams and their engine manufacturers. But a cornerstone of the GPWC’s case is that about 80 per cent of all revenues will be paid to the teams; the ten teams now get only 23 per cent of the estimated £500 million generated annually by Formula One, with Ecclestone’s companies taking the rest.
The GPWC emphasised last night that its negotiations with Ecclestone were over and it seems the only path to a reconciliation between the two factions would be the dismissal of the 74-year-old impresario by the three German banks — Bayerische Landesbank, J P Morgan and Lehman Brothers — that are Formula One’s majority shareholders.
It also emerged yesterday that plans for the new series have been building rapidly for some months. A GPWC spokesman said: “Since it became clear we could not negotiate with Mr Ecclestone, we have been very busy putting things in place so that we will be in a position to run our own World Championship.”
Sponsors nervous of the unrest in Formula One are already starting to align themselves with GPWC and the last brick in the wall will be to convince the teams to defect from Ecclestone. Ferrari are the key and there seems little doubt, given the team’s public pronouncements of intense dissatisfaction with the way that Ecclestone runs the business, that they will spearhead the escape.
Silverstone will also have little reason to stay at the negotiating table with Ecclestone if the GPWC series is to become a reality. The main sticking point between the two was the length of the contract: Ecclestone wanted one year with an option for six more, which would lock the British Grand Prix into his control beyond 2007 when the Concorde Agreement, the commercial deal that binds the teams to his championship, runs out; Silverstone, knowing that the GPWC could wreck the official championship, has been sensibly cautious of leaping into a long-term deal without cast-iron assurances. While details of the GPWC’s progress were being released last night, Ecclestone was in Mexico signing a five-year deal for a grand prix with Cancún, another venue prepared to spend millions on a new circuit, but with none of the tradition of the British race.
The GPWC will undoubtedly go after other disaffected circuits: in Germany, Hockenheim, where millions of pounds have been spent upgrading the circuit for the German Grand Prix, and the Nürburgring, which stages the European Grand Prix, are up in arms because they have been told by Ecclestone they may have to alternate a grand prix; at least one historic Italian circuit — Imola or Monza — will have to make way for the plethora of new tracks, while there will be many others, such as Dubai, that will look askance at Ecclestone’s asking price to stage a Formula One race, which can be as high as $25 million (about £13.6 million).