F1 owner Liberty Media finally set to seal deal to take control of MotoGP after European approval

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F1 owner Liberty Media finally set to seal deal to take control of MotoGP after European approval

2025-06-23 23:45 Last Updated At：23:50

Liberty Media’s made a successful business of racing on four wheels. Now, it’s time for two wheels.

Formula 1 owner Liberty Media is finally set to complete a deal to take control of motorcycle racing series MotoGP after receiving approval from the European Commission.

Liberty Media said Monday the “unconditional” approval was the last step in completing the deal to buy 84% of Spain-based MotoGP rights holder Dorna Sports. It values Dorna at 4.3 billion euros ($4.97 billion), Liberty said.

“MotoGP is a highly attractive premium sports asset with incredible racing, a passionate fanbase and a strong cash flow profile," Liberty Media president and CEO Derek Chang said in a statement.

"We believe the sport and brand have significant growth potential, which we will look to realize through deepening the connection with the core fan base and expanding to a wider global audience.”

Liberty said the deal, which was first announced in April 2024, could go through by July 3.

The process was held up in December when the European Commission opened what it called an “in-depth investigation” into whether the agreement would hike the cost of broadcast rights for motorsports events.

The European Commission said its investigation found F1 and MotoGP are “not close competitors for the licensing of broadcasting rights for sports content” in national markets, and that broadcasters would be able to choose from other sports with similarly large audiences.

“Therefore, the transaction will not remove important competitive constraints between Formula 1 and MotoGP,” the commission said in a statement.

Liberty Media immediately transformed how F1 was run when it took over in 2017. The U.S. company installed its own people in key positions to end decades with Bernie Ecclestone in charge.

This time, it’s keeping key staff in place.

MotoGP management keeps a minority stake and long-time Dorna chief executive Carmelo Ezpeleta remains in charge of MotoGP. But Liberty said he will be joined on the Dorna board by Chase Carey and Sean Bratches, two veterans of Liberty's takeover of F1 in 2017. They were part of its efforts to grow and modernize F1 as a business, especially in the United States.

Since then, F1 has attracted a new audience through the Netflix docu-series “Drive To Survive” and expanded its calendar to a record 24 races, including lucrative new showpieces in locations like Miami, Las Vegas and Saudi Arabia.

MotoGP is running a 22-race calendar this year. It includes events in markets where F1 has either never raced, like Indonesia, the Czech Republic and Thailand, or hasn’t raced in years, like Argentina and Malaysia.

Four of the MotoGP races are in Spain, with only one in the U.S., at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas in March. The Circuit of the Americas is one of five tracks which host both F1 and MotoGP this year.

AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

Hennepin County prosecutor calls on the public to share Renee Good shooting evidence with her office

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty on Friday called on members of the public to send any video or other evidence in the fatal shooting of Renee Good directly to her office, challenging the Trump administration's decision to leave the investigation solely to the FBI.

Moriarty said that although her office has collaborated effectively with the FBI in past cases, she is concerned by the Trump administration's decision to bar state and local agencies from playing any role in the investigation into Wednesday's killing of Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis.

She also said that despite the Trump administration’s insistence that the officer who shot Good has complete legal immunity, that isn’t the case.

“We do have jurisdiction to make this decision with what happened in this case,” she said at a news conference. “It does not matter that it was a federal law enforcement agent.”

Moriarty said her office would post a link for the public to submit footage of the shooting, even though she acknowledged that she wasn't sure what legal outcome submissions might produce.

The prosecutor's announcement came on a third day of Minneapolis protests over Good's killing and a day after federal immigration officers shot and wounded two people in Portland, Oregon.

Good's wife, Becca Good, released a statement to Minnesota Public Radio on Friday saying, “kindness radiated out of her.”

"On Wednesday, January 7th, we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns," Becca Good said.

“I am now left to raise our son and to continue teaching him, as Renee believed, that there are people building a better world for him,” she wrote. “That the people who did this had fear and anger in their hearts, and we need to show them a better way.”

The reaction to the Good's shooting was immediate in the city where police killed George Floyd in 2020, with hundreds of protesters converging on the shooting scene and the school district canceling classes for the rest of the week as a precaution.

On Thursday night, hundreds marched in freezing rain down one of Minneapolis’ major thoroughfares, chanting “ICE out now!” and holding signs saying, “Killer ice off our streets." And on Friday, protesters were out again demonstrating outside of a federal facility that is serving as a hub for the immigration crackdown that began Tuesday in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Authorities erected barricades outside the facility Friday.

City workers, meanwhile, removed makeshift barricades made of old Christmas trees and other debris that had been blocking the streets near the scene of Good's shooting. Officials said they would leave up a shrine to the 37-year-old mother of three.

The Portland shootings happened outside a hospital Thursday afternoon. Federal immigration officers shot and wounded a man and woman, identified by the Department of Homeland Security as Venezuela nationals Luis David Nico Moncada and Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras, who were inside a vehicle, and their conditions weren't immediately known. The FBI and the Oregon Department of Justice were investigating.

Portland Mayor Keith Wilson and the city council called on ICE to end all operations in the city until a full investigation is completed. Hundreds protested Thursday night at a local ICE building. Early Friday, Portland police reported that officers had arrested several protesters after asking the to get out of a street to allow traffic to flow.

Just as it did following Good's shooting, DHS defended the actions of the officers in Portland, saying it occurred after a Venezuelan man with alleged gang ties and who was involved in a recent shooting tried to “weaponize” his vehicle to hit the officers. It wasn't immediately clear if the shootings were captured on video, as Good's was.

The Minneapolis shooting happened on the second day of the immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities, which Homeland Security said is the biggest immigration enforcement operation ever. More than 2,000 officers are taking part and Noem said they have made more than 1,500 arrests.

The government is also shifting immigration officers to Minneapolis from sweeps in Louisiana, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. This represents a pivot, as the Louisiana crackdown that began in December had been expected to last into February.

Good's death — at least the fifth tied to immigration sweeps since Trump took office — has resonated far beyond Minneapolis, as protests happening in other places, including Texas, California, Detroit and Missouri.

In Washington, D.C., on Thursday, a woman held a sign that said, “Stop Trump’s Gestapo,” as hundreds of people marched to the White House. Protesters in Pflugerville, Texas, north of Austin, banged on the walls of an ICE facility. And a man in Los Angeles burned an American flag in front of federal detention center.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, President Donald Trump and others in his administration have repeatedly characterized the Minneapolis shooting as an act of self-defense and cast Good as a villain, suggesting she used her vehicle as a weapon to attack the officer who shot her.

But state and local officials and protesters rejected that characterization, with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey saying videos show the self-defense argument is “garbage.”

Several bystanders captured footage of Good's killing, which happened in a neighborhood south of downtown.

The recordings show an officer approaching an SUV stopped across the middle of the road, demanding the driver open the door and grabbing the handle. The Honda Pilot begins to pull forward and a different ICE officer standing in front of it pulls his weapon and immediately fires at least two shots at close range, jumping back as the vehicle moves toward him.

It is not clear from the videos if the vehicle makes contact with the officer, and there is no indication of whether the woman had interactions with agents earlier. After the shooting, the SUV speeds into two cars parked on a curb before crashing to a stop.

The federal agent who fatally shot Good is an Iraq War veteran who has served for nearly two decades in the Border Patrol and ICE, according to records obtained by AP.

Noem has not publicly named him, but a Homeland Security spokesperson said her description of his injuries last summer refers to an incident in Bloomington, Minnesota, in which court documents identify him as Jonathan Ross.

Ross got his arm stuck in the window of a vehicle whose driver was fleeing arrest on an immigration violation. Ross was dragged and fired his Taser. A jury found the driver guilty of assaulting a federal officer with a dangerous weapon.

Attempts to reach Ross, 43, at phone numbers and email addresses associated with him were not successful.

Associated Press reporters Steve Karnowski and Mark Vancleave in Minneapolis; Ed White in Detroit; Valerie Gonzalez in Brownsville, Texas; Graham Lee Brewer in Norman, Oklahoma; Michael Biesecker in Washington; Jim Mustian and Safiyah Riddle in New York; Ryan Foley in Iowa City, Iowa; and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed to this report.