Marco Bezzecchi
Carmelo Ezpeleta is not happy with how MotoGP teams have handled their negotiations with Liberty Media.
MotoGP and their new owners, Liberty Media, are currently in a standstill over a new commercial agreement, as both sides are looking for certain conditions to be met.
MotoGP teams refuse to name their 2027 riders until a new agreement is in place, one that is more financially rewarding to the teams.
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Dorna Sports CEO, Carmelo Ezpeleta, has been confused by the teams’ approach in these negotiations, worried that it could affect his standing with Liberty Media.
But Ezpeleta is very frustrated with MotoGP teams and how they are currently demanding something in negotiations with Liberty Media that goes against one of his main selling points.
READ MORE: Christian Horner is now on Liberty Media’s ‘shortlist’ to become the CEO of MotoGP after F1 exit
Carmelo Ezpeleta is frustrated with teams making ‘unwritten demands’ from Liberty Media
Speaking on his YouTube channel, Nico Abad spoke about the current conflict between MotoGP teams and Liberty Media over the financial redistribution of revenue.
MotoGP teams want a greater share of the revenue, which annoys Carmelo Ezpeleta because he sold MotoGP to Liberty Media on the business model where there is a fixed value of distribution.
“As I understand it, Carmelo Ezpeleta (CEO of Dorna) sold Dorna to Liberty Media as a very successful business model. And within that business model, he distributes profits to the teams according to his own criteria…”
“With Liberty Media’s arrival, there’s an unwritten demand… Liberty Media is known to be demanding more from the teams, and the teams are saying, ‘Don’t ask us for anything because we’re putting the £50 million we have into the bike. We’re putting a tremendous amount of money into this.
“Before this, the sport was on free-to-air television, and it had enough exposure. There was tremendous publicity, but now it’s not like that anymore. So if you demand more from us and we have to keep using the same money, we want a more equitable distribution of funds, like in Formula 1.’
“This really gets to Carmelo, because he says he didn’t sell this model, he sold the idea of teams being worth a fixed amount. On the other side, the teams want a percentage of the profits… The profit that Carmelo said was there is at risk.
“Because there will be more lawsuits based on what the teams and factories are demanding. They want more attention because they’re investing a lot of money. They don’t want to be burdened with more demands… They want an equitable distribution of television rights…”
READ MORE: Davide Tardozzi disagrees with Liberty Media’s proposal to have reserve riders in MotoGP
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Liberty Media negotiations not impacting day-to-day MotoGP functioning
Speaking further, Abad claimed that the current negotiations are unlikely to affect the riders or the teams as things stand. It’s the higher-ups on both ends that are being affected.
“I don’t know if this affects the riders or not. It affects the market silence, where everyone is joking around, talking about what everyone already knows, but without saying it’s true.
“I don’t know if this affects the factories when it comes to giving it their all. The fact is that the negotiations are being delayed for the people involved.”
Liberty are open to giving teams a share of the revenue to try and expedite the financial agreement and ensure that future seasons are not jeopardised from an operational standpoint.
However, there is no word on how these negotiations are going as things stand, and it could be a while before both sides arrive on an agreement.
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