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The world number one luxury brand LVMH announced on Wednesday jointly with Formula 1 a global partnership from 2025 for a period of 10 years, a financial commitment amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. The current Rolex timekeeper will thus leave the circuits in favor of a brand of the French group.
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October 7, 2024 – 11:15
In the race since 2013, the Geneva brand Rolex could be replaced by Tag Heuer as official timekeeper of F1, a role that the La Chaux-de-Fonds brand was the first to take on in 1950 under the name Heuer.
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Millions of dollars on the table
Press reports had mentioned a future sponsorship investment in Formula 1 of around $150 million per year, but the amount of this partnership, in which several LVMH brands will be involved (Louis Vuitton, Moët Hennessy and Tag Heuer ) is “less than 100 million” dollars, a source close to the matter told AFP.
The group of French billionaire Bernard Arnault thus joins Formula 1 sponsors such as DHL, Heineken, MSC Cruises, Pirelli and Qatar Airways.
Formula One and Swiss watchmaking: the great love
Formula 1 and its gigantic audience (Liberty Media announced a record figure of 1.5 billion viewers in 2023) has always attracted Swiss brands. Behind the pioneer Tag Heuer, today a partner of the Red Bull team, multiple brands are displayed on the circuits or on the drivers’ cars.
Hublot was official timekeeper of F1 from 2010 to 2013, before being ousted by Rolex. A few years earlier, from 1982 to 1992, Longines sponsored F1. The Swatch Group brand had been ousted by… Tag Heuer.
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As for Formula 1 teams, there are countless partnerships. Among the most recent, we can cite IWC with Mercedes – AMG, or even Richard Mille which took the place of Hublot.
A growing market
Liberty Media, owner of the Formula 1 franchise since 2017, has popularized this sport by targeting a more feminine and younger audience in particular thanks to the “Drive to survive” series, underlines the Wall Street Journal, according to which in three years F1 went from a single race in the United States to three, plus two Grands Prix.
For LVMH, the interest is very concrete: the United States is one of the main luxury markets globally.
Interviewed by the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, Frédéric Arnault, son of CEO Bernard Arnault, who heads LVMH’s Watches division, explains: “We are only at the beginning of our journey in the United States” with F1 where ” there is a very young audience.” “I think that’s reassuring. And that’s also what convinced us. Ten years ago, it was an aging audience.”
If the group’s brands (Louis Vuitton, Tiffany, Tag Heuer, etc.) are already present in sports competitions, this is only the second time, with the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, that LVMH has signed a sports partnership in its name. proper name.
In 2023, LVMH achieved a turnover of more than 86 billion euros and a net profit of more than 15 billion euros.
