Dorna expects Liberty Media takeover of MotoGP to gain EU approval on time

Liberty Media’s takeover of MotoGP is expected to be approved by the European Commission by the end of June as planned, according to Dorna Sports.

On 1 April last year, Dorna announced that Formula 1 owner Liberty Media had acquired MotoGP in a €4.2 billion deal.

Liberty was confident of gaining regulatory approval by the end of 2024, though its purchase was delayed in December until at least the end of June when the European Commission launched a probe into the acquisition.

In recent weeks, a report from Reuters claimed Liberty’s purchase of MotoGP was due to receive unconditional approval by the EU - though nothing official has been announced.

When the EU probe was launched, a long-stop agreement was put in place by Liberty on the sale to 30 June 2025.

In an exclusive interview with Crash.net, Dorna’s chief sporting officer Carlos Ezpeleta was confident that everything is on track for the Liberty takeover to happen on time.

“We continue to work with the European Commission and we’re hoping for the transaction to be closed as we said [earlier this year] before moth seven of the calendar year,” he said.

“And for now the work with the Commission is positive. We’re excited to start working with Liberty as soon as possible.”

He added: “I’d rather not comment - not my area of expertise - on the ongoing case with the EU.

“But I mean, it’s clear that they had to do, being such a high-profile case, all the work that is associated to such a case.”

While that has been going on in the background, MotoGP has pressed on with a number of new fan engagement initiatives - most notably the season launch event in Thailand.

On top of that, it has enjoyed record crowds at several events this season already, including an all-time high of 311,797 during the French Grand Prix weekend.

Commenting on MotoGP’s growth so far in 2025, Ezpeleta said: “We’re very happy with how the season has happened.

“We’re targeting a lot more growth and we’re ambitious in that sense.

“With everything that you want to do in terms of growth comes an investment and we’re making that investment in a number of areas of the championship, starting off with ourselves at Dorna.

“So, we’re really happy. The season launch was great, we’ve had a record number of crowds after that. I think there’s more coming.

“With the new brand, we have a lot of things we are working on to bring MotoGP to new audiences and transform that into people coming to our races. It’s a never ending cycle.”