Liberty Media director Chase Carey believes MotoGP “can’t just copy” Netflix’s Formula 1 docuseries Drive to Survive to gain widespread recognition.
Liberty acquired F1 in January 2017, and one of the major events under the American company was the release of the Netflix show’s opening season two years later, which substantially contributed to the world championship’s increased popularity.
Liberty then bought 84% of Dorna Sports (now known as MotoGP Sports Entertainment Group) in July 2025. The group is seeking to make motorcycle grands prix more diverse – 11 of the top 12 riders in the 2026 MotoGP championship are Spanish or Italian – while increasing its presence in the United States.
“Certainly there are elements of what teams need to do in MotoGP that will have similarities to Formula 1,” Carey said in a conference at Autosport Business Exchange in New York. “Obviously, it is a global franchise.
“In some ways, MotoGP is even crazier. When you look at these guys, they look like they're lying on the pavement riding the motorcycles around. But it is a sport that also has its unique characteristics. And I think you can't just cookie-cutter [the approach].
“It's early days. They're working on it, developing the strategies, the opportunities of how you take that sport and grow it in the way we've tried to with Formula 1.”
Drive to Survive has been credited with introducing F1 to a brand-new audience, boosted by the COVID-19 pandemic’s lockdowns, which first occurred a couple of weeks after season two was released.
“Drive to Survive is probably the most obvious example,” Carey acknowledged. “We recognised we needed to have the personalities that make up the sport, give them a bigger platform and let fans engage.
“The digital world today is a 24/7 world. The premium experience is still that live race, but at the end of the day people are connecting with the race, following the race and clips of the race, clips of what people are doing, things going on behind the scenes.
“They're following that 24/7. So we need to continue to find ways to feed that appetite and that desire to connect with their sport, provide the vehicles that enable fans to connect with the sport in that way.
Liz Claman and Chase Carey
Photo by: Bryan Bedder / Getty Images
“Right now the US is the biggest YouTube market for our sport. So it tells you about the connection we're having through [those] vehicles.
“Drive to Survive has become a centerpiece in the digital efforts. A lot of efforts are going on with digital, but that certainly is the centerpiece. It has been an incredibly important, valuable franchise for us.”
Many competitions, in motorsport and beyond, have attempted to emulate this success, but Carey doesn’t believe that would be right for MotoGP.
“You should look for opportunities,” the American insisted. “Realistically, everybody saw Drive to Survive and then everybody tried to do it. Golf tried to do their Full Swing, tennis tried to do Break Point – everybody.
“Usually, you can't just copy something. I think we learned that at Fox with American Idol. American Idol sort of captured the world's imagination, and there were shows that came behind and did well, but there was only one American Idol that really did that.
“I think generally you can't go out and do the same thing. You've got to find ways to use opportunities, use personalities, use digital platforms, develop great partners.
“A partner in Formula 1 like Apple, I think this is where Apple has brought a whole new perspective to how you broadcast and connect with fans. So I think that type of opportunity, you've got to then see what you can do with it, how you develop it.
“They have to follow their own path and find their own opportunities. The Formula 1 movie was a great opportunity for that, but you can't just go out and do a MotoGP movie. That may not be the right opportunity.
“But there may be something else – there will be something else. It's probably not just doing the same things you did, it's finding those opportunities, finding those personalities.”
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