Liberty Media on Monday introduced plans to amass premier bike racing sequence MotoGP in a deal valued at 4.2 billion euros (roughly $4.53 billion).

It means the U.S. media big will quickly personal the best echelon of motorsports on each two and 4 wheels. Liberty Media is identical firm that acquired System 1 in 2016, in a deal that was valued on the time at about $8 billion.

For its newest deal, Liberty Media will purchase the present rights holder of MotoGP, Madrid-based Dorna Sports activities. Following the acquisition, which is anticipated to shut by the top of the yr, Dorna Sports activities will stay an independently run firm underneath Liberty Media’s System One Group, which oversees a variety of Liberty Media’s belongings, together with F1.

Liberty Media will purchase roughly 86% of Dorna, and Dorna’s present administration will retain the remaining. Carmelo Ezpeleta, who has been Dorna’s CEO since 1994, will stay in his place and proceed to run the operation at its present Madrid location.

In a press release, Ezpeleta mentioned he and his workforce intend to develop MotoGP with the backing of Liberty Media. Since taking up the rights to F1, Liberty Media has managed to considerably develop F1’s reputation, particularly within the U.S. the place development had eluded the game for years. There are three U.S. races on the 2024 F1 calendar, and 5 for all of North America. MotoGP has a single U.S. race on its 2024 calendar.

Liberty Media’s deal additionally contains the rights to different bike racing sequence owned by Dorna. The listing contains MotoGP feeder sequence Moto2 and Moto3, in addition to the Superbike World Championship and new Girls’s Circuit Racing World Championship.

MotoGP, sanctioned by the FIM, held its inaugural season in 1949, a yr earlier than F1’s begin. That first season staged six rounds throughout Europe, and since then the game has grown to comprise round 20 races per season spanning 5 continents. The present tv broadcast reaches lots of of tens of millions world wide, in line with the organizers.