Will Formula One Finally Come Back To Africa?

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F one could make a return to the African continent for the first time in more than thirty years, with the sport due to announce new host cities in the coming weeks.

One more race we need, and that's going to be Africa, you know, and all the other continents.

And one out there. Rwanda and Morocco are among those believed to be vying for the license, but South Africa has made no secret of its ambition to bring F one back to the country.

Lewis Hamilton, you said you had a dream to race in South Africa again. Understanding here to tell you we will not rest until your dream comes to realization that you will race again in South Africa.

On this week's Next Africa Podcast, we look at who's bidding to bring back Formula one to Africa and investors and governments are so desperate to become part of the global phenomenon that is F one. I'm Jennifer's Abasaja and this is the Next Africa Podcast, bringing you one story each week from the continent driving the future of global growth with the context only Bloomberg can provide. Joining us

Appreciate here.

Thank you.

So this is a fascinating story for I think people who are fans of Formula one, but even those who haven't been. But maybe we just start with the phenomenon that has been Formula one over the past few years.

Can you talk about how big of a.

Business it is in twenty twenty five and what you found in your reporting.

For NAT one went from a very niche type of sports where it was like a few petrol heads, very European, to what we are seeing today in twenty five.

As you ask, which is basically entertainment.

Strapagan, you are seeing people one hundred and twenty five thousand people at a time attend these races. Revenue is three point four billion dollars a year. You have one point six billion people watching every race. Entertainment on the side VIP lounges. You have these young drivers that have a new fan base which is younger women.

Hi guys and girls.

It's a land alogue.

A few days ago we put on socials for you to send us some questions today today that they answer all of those questions, So it's not just sort of like old guys watching the cause or small technicalities around the cause. It's really become more of an entertainment show. We've seen Badpa do, the New show if One. Netflix has quite a few Formula one shows running, So yeah, it went from a motorizing, sort of niche event to what we are seeing today, which is a big entertainment show.

Yeah, they've really sort of capitalized on the fan base, especially with some of the shows that you mentioned.

And when we think.

About the last time I was here in Africa nineteen ninety three, which is surprising and I think for many people, but there's serious contenders who want to bring it back, and that's really gets to.

The heart of your story. Can you talk about some of the people who you met and what they told you.

There's quite a few characters around trying to bring back Formula one to Africa. As you said, nineteen ninety three were the only populated continent that doesn't have a race, but we have a track. We even had a world champion. Jodie Schickter at one.

Point did not know that South African.

South African, Yes, but now really like forty years on, so where are we now. We have two sort of cities that people are trying to pitch for. The one is Johannesburg with the old track Kyle Laumi that needs

Of tracks that they build.

You know, street tears might be difficult in capet On because it will lock up the city for quite a few weeks.

But there is that proposal.

And then there's a stadium outside of Cape Town that's being proposed. A new track, the Guard's Zing that actually owned Kyle Lamie in the eighties when the race was here, still here, when Formula one is still here. So these there is Bobby Hartsleeve, here's some US backers called Bounces Racing, and they seem very serious about what they want to achieve and they have interesting ideas on what they want to do there, like an Amphi theater, condominiums, things like that.

So Lonie talk about maybe some of these proposals and the details you just said condominium. So they're looking to build an ecosystem around these.

Tracks is what it sounds like.

Yeah, one hundred percent.

So let's start with the old track, Ki Armie, as I said, from the sixties student nineties, we had the Formula one race here. So they still have the track. The track is well maintained, but it needs some upgrades. As we said, Formula one is now a show. You need one hundred and twenty five thousand seaters. Kyloms only fifty thousand seaters, so you need to expand. That is Johannesburg. But then we have Cape Town. Cape Town is seen as the more iconic venue. Liberty has said it wants

Recently Madrid that has come online.

So you want to sort of compete and show off what we have in Africa.

So they are planning a.

Track then outside of about eight or nineteen miles from his old track Kylomy. They are planning a track outside of Cape Town and worth that an ecosystem, as you said, so Amphi theater to have shows. You have condominiums where rich guys with nice cars can sort of buy a condominium and then race around on the track on the weekend if there's.

No sort of races normal weekend.

Yeah, so that's the plan for the track that's back by Bounder's race. And then this is the street race that is beautiful and goes around the mountain and all of that, but has its own sort of sets of challenges if you have to sort of lock up the city for a few weeks.

So all of these plans sound like they will require a lot of funds, a lot of capital in order to get things going. Clearly, people who pay attention to you know, the coverage that we have. It's not a great time economically for the continent, for the globe, but even for South Africa.

So how would these funds be raised? Where would the capital actually come from?

So talking to the different people around this, most of the funds will be privately raised. When we spoke to for instance, the bounds is raising people. The attraction is the sort of yields that the returns that you can get on your investment in Cape Town versus more developed markets like a Europe or so you returns.

Are quite good.

The government, the South African government sports minister, he's really keen on this.

He's a new sports minister and he's very keen.

He's been talking to sponsors trying to raise the money for a licensing fee. It's anything from about twenty million dollars to about fifty million dollars. So he's trying to raise that initial funding around just getting the licensing fee to the bidders. But there's lots to go with it, including roach. You need public links, transport, most of the people are saying minimal direct investment from government, but you do need some investment from government.

So the government is supportive of this.

They want very supportive.

In fact, the minister said he would have failed in his sort of portfolio if he doesn't bring Fortuna one back.

That is the South African case that you just presented there. Let's take a quick break and come back and talk about some of the.

Other bidders from the continent. We'll be right back. Welcome back.

Today we're talking about hopes for Formula one to return to the continent of Africa. We have our Bloomberg Senior Africa reporter here, Loni Prince Lou who has just reported.

On this story for Bloomberg.

So LONEI we talked about the South African bids just before the break. If you can share some of the other bidders from across the continent that we know who are trying to also bid for this license.

So there's been some talk about interest from Rocco. When we spoke to sources the Morocco interests, they doesn't seem as far advanced as what South Africa and Randa is trying. So then let's talk about Rwanda Rivana has hosted a recent event for Formula one in Kigali, so they look very as that the president has said several times. You know, they are interested in getting into the bidding for Formula one.

Currently, the bits or eyed for twenty twenty seven.

More realistically, it could be actually twenty twenty eight, just because of the time it'll take to if you have a proposal that seems like it could work, the time to put in everything that you would need and you take that backwards is about two years.

So then learning maybe you can share what actually comes into the final decision.

What is it that the FIA. What is it that they're looking for.

Is it what you said, you know, an iconic backdrop like Caketown. Is it something where you know they can build an ecosystem around it. What will be factored into the final decision?

What goes into it is a bit of sort of political role from them. They did say quite a few times that they are willing to bring the Rise back to Africa, but it comes with these challenges. As we said, there's a lot of infrastructure that needs to come with us. You need the track, you need one hundred and twenty five thousand siters.

You need to manage.

The traffic that comes with all of that, You need to manage the security. It comes with all these famous drivers, and you know it's just catering fabric transport. Having an airport thirty minutes that's one of their requirements as well, having an airport thirty minutes from your track.

So the list is quite extensive. I think it's more than three pages.

Wow.

So it's a massive list of requirements that you need. And as we know Africa, you know we have some issues with limited infrastructure, but we've hosted the World Cup soccer before.

Sold is away I think that's what many many people are hoping for, at least on the government side. We've talked for a while, and I think you mentioned this. F one has talked about coming back to the continent for a while. Lewis Hamilton is one of those who's been a big proponent of that. Actually he pitched it to former President Nelson Mandela and it didn't happen, right for various reasons. Does this actually seem like it could realistically happen?

Realistically, it does look like it could potentially happen, But there's so many other interested parties.

There's talent that sounds a good chance.

I mean, and there's also limited races, only twenty four races, limited slots, lots lots of interest in hosting eras. South Africa has tried before quite recently, so there was twenty twenty in twenty twenty three that tried again and there was some sort of financial issues around renting the track. So hopefully everyone has sort of gone through the snacks that there is around it and this time around.

You can make quite a serious proposal and get it back with it.

That's like twenty twenty seven eight, but yoll get it ultimately have a raised.

It's a spectacular show.

It brings a lot of you know twitters to that hasn't seen many of our sides before.

And that's our Bloomberg senior Africa reporter Lonely PRINCELYU there. Thanks so much, Lonie for joining us, and you can read Loney's coverage right now across Bloomberg platforms. Here's some of the other stories we're watching in the region this week. African countries are concerned that the US may withdraw military cooperation and aid, which has helped them fight against terrorists