Business News: LVMH Announces A 10-Year Partnership With Formula 1
After months of rumors, we finally have the first wave of information regarding LVMH’s newly formed partnership with Formula 1. Kicking off next year for the 2025 season and Formula 1’s 75th anniversary, LVMH will start as a “Global Partner” with a 10-year agreement that will include involvement from several of the LVMH brands, including Louis Vuitton and Tag Heuer.
From left to right: Stefano Domenicali, President & CEO of Formula 1, Greg Maffei, President & CEO, Liberty Media, Bernard Arnault, Chairman & CEO, LVMH Group and Frédéric Arnault, CEO, LVMH Watches.
The announcement comes late in the 2024 season, as the news cycle for 2025 starts to heat up with driver changes and other news from within the world of the F1 World Championship. Furthermore, in recent years, and largely thanks to the continued success of Netflix’s Drive to Survive, F1’s pop culture profile has been on the rise, so much so that it seems to have pinged the Arnault radar.
While the key specifics of the partnership won’t be announced until early 2025, the crown-shaped elephant in the room is Rolex and the brand’s position as Formula 1’s official timekeeper since 2013. While one can only assume that this deal includes the ability to replace Rolex with – again, I’m only assuming – TAG Heuer, the official release from F1 and LVMH is light on anything approaching material details about what this partnership will entail.
To be clear, F1 has worked with LVMH in the past, and Tag Heuer has a watch literally called the Formula 1; the news here is that it’s now a global partnership and not an activation that will be connected to a single race. Furthermore, the sport remains a steadfast stage for watchmaking and the brands, with Tudor partnering with RB Visa Cash App, TAG Heuer with Red Bull Racing, Richard Mille with Ferrari and McLaren, IWC with Mercedes AMG Petronas, Girard-Perregaux with Aston Martin, Moser with Alpine, and Williams was teamed up with Bremont until 2023.
While we’ll certainly have more as this story develops, the fact remains that you cannot separate Formula 1 from watches, and while Rolex has had the bulk of the official limelight for more than a decade, it would appear that LVMH is looking to put a few of their brands on the podium.
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