Disney Consumer Products extended its Formula 1 partnership to cover F1 Academy, the all-female driver development series, in a move announced ahead of this weekend's Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai. The deal adds merchandising and licensing rights for the junior category to Disney's existing F1 arrangement. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Tasia Filippatos, president of Disney Consumer Products, confirmed the expansion. The timing is deliberate. F1 Academy enters its third season with five race weekends on the F1 calendar in 2025, up from three in 2024. Disney now controls consumer product strategy across both the main series and the feeder category during a period when F1 is working to broaden its demographic reach beyond the core male 18-49 cohort that sponsors pay premiums to access.
The merchandising angle matters because Disney has spent two years stress-testing F1's consumer appetite in North America. The company launched an F1-themed retail collection in 2023 tied to the inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix, then expanded distribution through Target and Amazon in 2024. Adding F1 Academy creates a second product line aimed at female consumers and families—a segment that grew 37% year-over-year in F1's 2024 audience metrics, per Liberty Media's Q4 earnings call. Disney is layering a licensing play on top of a broadcast relationship it doesn't own: ESPN holds U.S. rights through 2025, with extension talks ongoing. The Academy deal gives Disney a fallback consumer revenue stream if ESPN's parent loses the main broadcast package.
What's less obvious: Disney operates hospitality assets at the Las Vegas Strip Circuit through a joint venture with Wynn Resorts. The second running of the Vegas race is scheduled for November 2025. If Disney can prove F1 Academy merchandise moves volume in Q2 and Q3, it has a built-in activation platform in its own Vegas suites when 300,000 fans return to the Strip. That's a closed-loop test—Disney product, Disney venue, Disney data—that Formula 1 has not offered any other consumer partner.
The Academy series itself is a political hedge. F1 Academy president Susie Wolff has spent 18 months courting blue-chip sponsors (Rolex, Amazon Web Services) and OEMs (Alpine runs a team). The series carries no prize money but offers a $250,000 scholarship to the champion for a step up to GB3 or Formula Regional. Disney's involvement signals that Liberty Media believes the category will survive long enough to justify multi-year merchandising commitments. That's not guaranteed. W Series, the previous attempt at an all-female open-wheel ladder, collapsed in 2022 after sponsors withdrew.
Disney's move also clarifies the broadcast strategy F1 is running in the U.S. market. ESPN's current deal expires after the 2025 season. Liberty Media has floated the idea of a direct-to-consumer streaming product or a split-rights package that carves out qualifying and practice sessions. Disney now has merchandising skin in the game for both F1 and F1 Academy, which creates leverage in any renewal negotiation. If ESPN walks, Disney still controls the consumer products pipeline and can monetize IP without paying rights fees. If ESPN renews, Disney owns the only integrated broadcast-and-merchandise package in the sport's U.S. footprint.
Watch three things. First, whether Disney places F1 Academy product in its 300+ store-within-a-store locations at Target before the Miami Grand Prix in May, which would indicate confidence in U.S. retail velocity. Second, which F1 Academy drivers appear in Disney's Q3 marketing campaigns—that tells you who Wolff and Liberty think will win the scholarship and therefore carry endorsement value. Third, the October earnings call from Disney's Experiences segment, which will include Vegas hospitality revenue from the November race. If F1-related consumer products and experiences show up as a line item, allocators will start modeling Formula 1 as a repeatable profit center, not a one-time activation. That shifts the calculus for anyone bidding on broadcast rights or franchise entries in 2026.
The takeaway
Disney's F1 Academy deal is a merchandising hedge that works whether ESPN renews U.S. broadcast rights or not.
formula 1disneyf1 academymedia rightsmerchandisinglas vegas
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