"F1 is like a barber that offers just one hairstyle": Three F1 priorities for Liberty

So after one day as Formula 1's new owners, what does Liberty Media's (LM) agenda look like for revamping the sport and growing the F1 business? And what does the fine print of the investors' presentation tell us about what lies ahead in LM's plans for Bernie Ecclestone, previous owners CVC and the F1 teams?

JA on F1 has been on the phone today speaking to many people inside F1, from the world of finance and a digital media specialist and here is our considered mash-up of all the information and insight we've been able to gather.

What does the digital strategy look like?

"F1 is like a barber that offers just one hairstyle," is the opinion of Joe Brown, editor in chief of Wired US in Silicon Valley, who is about to transfer to a similar role at Popular Science magazine in New York. Brown is also an avid F1 fan, who has attended races, spoke at the FIA Sports Conference 2015 and been forced to wake up early on Sundays to watch Grands Prix, or sometimes not.

"Bernie misses the point about how people watch things now," he continues. "We are at an inflection point.

"When was the last time Monza was a snooze? There was one lap of excitement in that race, the start. After that the drivers have nothing to do with making that race exciting, it was all the world feed director. One of the toughest jobs in TV. He is trying to find a way to present the most exciting story to multiple nations represented on the field.

"Focussing on how that race is presented is really important now. It's too 'one size fits all'. It's like going to a restaurant with a set menu and they don't care if you have a shrimp allergy. The presentation of F1 is its greatest adversary, especially when you try to expand to different markets."

According to Brown, another major challenge for new chairman Chase Carey is how to make F1 work across multiple time zones and to generate regular opportunities between races for fans to be entertained and engaged by F1. Here Carey can lean on his extensive knowledge of NFL (American football), which has mastered the time zone quandary, according to Brown.

"The effort required to be an F1 fan in the wrong time zone, i.e. outside Europe, is huge," he says. "F1 is only accessible to me live at certain times of the year as as a live event. That's a great frustration to me as a fan; the races in Austin, Montreal, Mexico I watch live. The rest of the time I spool through it on my DVR and skip the commercials; not good for the revenue. And if you see a Tweet from Lewis Hamilton saying "Feeling blessed today," there's no point watching the race, because you know the result and the races are so boring right now.

The NFL is also a master of keeping fans engaged between events with millions of minutes of content and Brown believe that F1 is missing a massive opportunity by only presenting itself 21 times a year at race weekends.

"Because the events are really big, there is so much riding on each one. One of the things the NFL has done well is to realise that you need to have lots of smaller events, interspersed between the larger events, in order to engage with fans.

"Obviously you don't ship 11 teams and cars around between events, but you can do smaller stuff in between to keep people entertained and engaged. That is the key; de-prioritise the races themselves.

"Okay, it's race weekend-based, but Qualifying is a good example; it's more exciting than the race. That's another event, it's well done. I can watch all three parts if I'm up for lots of F1 or I can just watch Q3.

"Realising that it's not just the race day that matters, that there are lots more content opportunities, that's key. The NFL has done a very good job of event-izing aspects of its world that are *not* the games. Like the NFL draft. They've also been one of the most sophisticated users of social media to reach new fans. Hopefully some of that will have rubbed off on Carey, and he can bring that to F1.

"F1 is good at getting obsessive people to join a live conversation. So if you can add in the skill the NFL has at making live work across different time zones and between events and couple that with the stuff that F1 is already doing well, then you have a powerful thing. It's exciting."

Joe Brown's Top 3 Priorities for Chase Carey, new F1 chairman

1. Think really carefully about the race times and find the model that makes them watchable by more people in more places around the world. Then fill in the gaps between races with lots more entertaining happenings with teams and drivers for fans to engage with and stay connected.

2. Find distribution channels beyond television. That is so key. If you want to keep the 'old man viewer' keep only prioritising TV. If you want to get the young viewer, get that app working. So I can watch the race when I want, I can switch cameras, customise my experience by watching Kimi's onboards. So I can replay the start 10 times if I want. Put more control in the viewer's hand.

3. Make the organisation more transparent, for the drivers, the teams, the fans. It's way too opaque now. Carey's already said he wants the teams to have shares, to have skin in the game. It's really important to deliver on that. The veil of secrecy is just not an option in the new digital world, and it's offputting to younger audiences because it represents the old stodgy establishment. One of the war-cries of the digital age is Stewart Brand's: "Information wants to be free." Like it or not, this has created a sense of entitlement in younger, digitally savvy consumers. Those people see F1 and it's the opposite of everything they're striving for everywhere else.

The fine print of the deal - what does it mean for the key players?

There is a video of a SKY interview with Bernie Ecclestone and Chase Carey in London today (Thursday) in which the rather awkward body language belies the messages of consensus-seeking and Carey's multiple references to 'working together'.

Ecclestone has never 'worked together' with someone on his own level. Carey has been Rupert Murdoch's right hand man for decades and clearly has steely nerves. He would not put any time frame on how long their relationship will last, but whatever has been mentioned in terms of Ecclestone's tenure as CEO is irrelevant, according to our M&A experts, as long as Liberty and Carey gain control of the F1 board from early 2017, when the second part of the deal completes. This 'closing' is subject to approval from the FIA, Liberty shareholders and the US stock market regulators.

The LM/F1 investor presentation puts it like this: "For up to 30 months following second closing, F1 Board to consist of: 3 directors nominated by Liberty Media, 3 directors nominated by holders of Subordinated Exchangeable Notes, 3 directors nominated by F1 racing teams, 3 representatives of Executive Management (Note: one of these likely to be Ecclestone), 2 independent directors and Chase Carey."

We are likely to see some activity and attention around that board composition as well as the approval process as 2016 draws to a close and that second decisive closure of the deal looms.

Because once Liberty has control of the board, they will be able to remove Ecclestone whenever they want. This is why many people are predicting that he will exit F1 some time next year. Sources close to Ecclestone say he has it all under control.

The deal is relatively complex, which is typical of John Malone (Liberty boss), according to Merger and Acquisition specialists we contacted in London's financial district.

The CVC role is also interesting. Donald Mackenzie has said that this deal is great for CVC as it keeps them involved, but means that they don't have to run the business. But how long will they stay involved?

The private equity model is about driving growth and value through taking over companies and managing them better, then selling out. It's highly unusual for a PE firm to sit as a passive investor. Slide 17 in the Investors' presentation of the Liberty F1 takeover says "Liberty Media will seek to raise funds from outside investors on best efforts basis between first and second closing to reduce equity to Sellers". This means that they will bring in investors to progressively buy out CVC.

CVC holds 65%, along with the other investors, but the shares are non-voting and Liberty is in control. Normally there are clauses which prevent the seller from exiting its remaining stake within 6-12 months, to avoid destabilising the company. Observers in the City therefore expect CVC to exit by the end of 2017.

Raising the funds from new investors could be a challenge, finance experts suggest, as there is some uncertainty around key areas of F1. Although Carey says this is a low risk investment because there are $9bn of contracted revenues through to 2025, there is the question mark over Ecclestone, how long he will stay in the CEO role and what he might do. There is the fact that profits have not really grown for the last few years. But there is also uncertainty over the teams' contracts to race.

This is a high priority for the new owners as the current deals run out in 2020, except Renault which goes beyond that date as they were the last to sign. Liberty will have held informal talks with all the big teams like Ferrari, Mercedes, McLaren and Red Bull to ensure that they plan to continue beyond 2020. They will not waste too much time before locking them in long term.

But getting them to sign on the dotted line will be tough and shifting to a franchise model, that adds value to team ownership will help. It could go smoothly if Carey is able to drive that transition and lock in F1's star teams. That will give reassurance to investors.

However the negotiations over those deals last time was divisive and famously ended up with an unfair distribution of revenues, slanted heavily towards the top teams. There is acceptance that needs to be rebalanced somewhat next time, but expect Ferrari in particular to drive a very hard bargain over its post 2020 participation.

In the past Ecclestone would have been able to work the angles; would have corralled Ron Dennis, Frank Williams and Flavio Briatore and got them to do what he wanted. Today men like Ferrari's Sergio Marchionne, Daimler boss Dr Zetche and Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn march to a different tune.

The profitability of F1 is directly linked to how much the teams are paid. Last year they received $880m of the $1.67bn revenues, leaving just 27% of the gross incomes as post teams-share profit.