Key questions remain amid Las Vegas GP future uncertainty

The F1 2026 calendar contains an anomaly, at least for now, amid its 24 scheduled events.

As the sport continues to enjoy strong growth – it posted record Q2 financial results last week – it has moved to solidify its future with new long-term contracts for key events. Only Las Vegas is not among them. At least, not yet.

The curious case of Las Vegas’ Grand Prix race contact

In recent seasons, there has been a subtle change in the way Formula One Management (often referred to simply as ‘F1’) has moved into the race promotion space.

Where once it would simply sell off slots on the calendar to the highest bidder as a means of generating income, it has now become involved in organising events itself.

It is a partner in the Miami Grand Prix, but its crown jewel is the Las Vegas Grand Prix. The race down the famous Las Vegas Strip is promoted by Formula One Management, which invested heavily not just to stand up the high-profile street race, but to acquire land and construct facilities for it.

It’s estimated that around $600 million has been invested in an event which has, in its two iterations thus far, fallen short of FOM’s expectations.

“Race promotion revenue decreased due to lower ticketing revenue generated from the Las Vegas Grand Prix,” Liberty Media, which owns FOM, outlined in its full-year 2024 financial results.

“Growth in hospitality income at most events and higher freight and licensing revenue was offset by lower hospitality revenue generated from the Las Vegas Grand Prix.”

There were other impacts too, associated with the lease expenses of the Grand Prix Plaza, the pit complex constructed in Las Vegas at an estimated cost of $240 million.

“The economics for Vegas missed internal expectations on revenue and OIBDA,” said Liberty Media’s new CEO, Derek Chang, in March.

“The team has moved very quickly, however, to enact changes that will benefit 2025 and support a financially successful race for F1 and continued growth and positive impact for the Las Vegas community.

“We now have two years of real data to understand what tickets and products sold well, the demographics of the fanbase and the overall cost structure of the event. As a result, we are making further revisions to the ticket product and pricing strategy, leveraging this data, and as importantly, we are actively managing our cost structure. Given the halo effect to F1, we reorganised the structure of LVGP last month to integrate it fully into our London team and maximise those continued benefits.

“This change leverages the strong organisation we have in London today across commercial, finance, and more. At the same time, we are bolstering certain parts of the local Vegas team. This includes bringing the ticketing sales function back in-house and offering a high-touch, on-the-ground presence, which was a key learning from last year. We will continue our partnership with Quint and benefit from their expertise in VIP hospitality and F1 Experiences. Finally, we are also bolstering our partnership with local players.”

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There is a degree of irony in bringing the ‘ticketing sales function back in-house’, given Liberty Media owned 31 per cent of Ticketmaster before it spun off that business at the end of 2024 into the Liberty Live Group.

Reports in Las Vegas suggested last year’s event was attended by just 102,000 fans, a third of FOM’s own figure of 306,000. It is worth noting that it is standard practice at all events to count attendance at the gate, and not ticket holders, meaning a spectator with a three-day pass would be counted three times.

But as significant effort goes into reversing the Las Vegas event’s poor financials, there is an elephant in the room: beyond 2025, there is no contract for the event to continue.

It’s a curious situation given the race appears on the published F1 2026 calendar and that talk has consistently been framed such that it is assumed it is secure for the long-term.

Indeed, there were reports over the Canadian GP weekend that the Vegas event had inked a new contract, with Emily Prazer, president of the Las Vegas Grand Prix, stating that officials had “agreed collectively that we’re going to do a two-year extension for 2026 and ’27. We want to make sure that we’re continuing to evolve what we’re doing. But the intent is a much longer-term arrangement.”

The subtlety in the language is important; an agreement and intent to sign an extension is not the same as signing a contract. PlanetF1.com has confirmed that remains the case, with no contract in place beyond the 2025 event. Indeed, commercial discussions remain with a formal announcement expected once the deal is complete.

It’s understood there remains appetite from those involved, including from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA), Clark County, and local stakeholders to continue, and yet there has been no public movement since early June; before the publication of the F1 2026 calendar.

It begs the question: If the intent is there, and has been for a long time, and the race has been included on the F1 2026 calendar, why has the contract not been signed? Furthermore, why, if the intent is for a long-term agreement, is the intent for a two-year extension?

There seems little doubt the event will continue, with Chang speaking last week about Liberty’s desire to claw back its $600 million investment.

“Our goal is certainly to earn a return on that investment,” Chang confirmed. “We’ve pointed out a few times before, less and less are we looking at the standalone economics of Las Vegas, because as Vegas continues to grow and mature, and we continue to work with the partners in that market, you see benefits to the overall ecosystem, some intangible, and a lot of them very tangible. But overall, yes, we certainly aspire to earn a return on that investment.”

Clark County has voted to recognise the event until 2032, though county commissioner James Gibson added that “we anticipate a lifetime in partnership.”

With the rhetoric from the top about the long-term future of the event, and similar noises being made locally, a two-year extension appears particularly short, especially when viewed against the deals recently announced for the Miami (2041), Canadian (2035), and Austrian Grands Prix (2041).

There are a handful a plausible explanations.

While Clark County and other key bodies locally are in favour of the race, opinion among locals is still divided. A long-term deal in that climate is likely to antagonise that pocket of resistance and increase opposition to the race. A short-term deal is less confronting and affords F1 an opportunity to win that debate ahead of a longer deal in future.

An extension to that is that there is an appetite for increased investment from the casinos the circuit encircles, though with losses in its early years, selling that concept is difficult. A two-year deal could therefore be something of a bridge; a window in which the event has time to post positive returns at which point it becomes more appealing commercially.

However, it’s also possible it’s a means of share price protection. Locking in an event with a poor financial track record is unlikely to be well-received by the market. The share price of Formula One Group fell sharply following the release of its Q1 2025 numbers, which were well below expectations, and while it has recovered it has also not skyrocketed despite its best Q2 performance on record.

It’s also possible that the absence of a long-term contract could also point to a lack of confidence in the event and an unwillingness to sign the business up to prolonged losses.

Whatever the case for the delay, there is little doubt that a deal will be concluded and the event will go ahead in F1 2026. Nonetheless, it does stand out that a self-promoted event does not have the contractual certainty that other events might have.

“I can definitely say that Vegas is progressing very, very good, according to our plan,” FOM boss Stefano Domenicali insisted to investors last week. “Your question is definitely what we have done differently for us from the previous year, That has been the first year of that experience.

“We definitely feel that, of course, from this year onwards, the contribution of Las Vegas Grand Prix in terms of economic input will be definitely much more important than what has been seen so far in the first two years.”

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