{"id":654776,"date":"2026-05-07T23:42:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T23:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/654776\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T23:42:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T23:42:11","slug":"liberty-calls-miami-a-logical-place-for-new-motogp-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/654776\/","title":{"rendered":"Liberty calls Miami a &#8216;logical&#8217; place for new MotoGP race"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The CEO of new MotoGP owner Liberty Media has acknowledged that the series is in talks about holding a round of the motorcycle racing championship at the Miami circuit that already hosts Formula 1.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on an investor call on Thursday, Liberty CEO Derek Chang admitted that the company was speaking to Miami event organiser South Florida Motorsports about what the future could hold for MotoGP in the US.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMiami would seem to be a logical spot,\u201d he explained when asked about rumours started by MotoGP boss Carlos Ezpeleta\u2019s presence at last weekend\u2019s F1 race, \u201cbecause there\u2019s already a track there.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of things that have to get worked out, whether it\u2019s Miami or any other track, in terms of whether or not it works for MotoGP &#8211; and sort of the safety concerns and stuff like that, where you\u2019ve got different requirements than Formula 1 as well as what markets, frankly, make sense from a commercial standpoint.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut those are conversations that we will have with Miami, with other folks also, trying to scope out what the right locations would be for US expansion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The current USA MotoGP round at Texas\u2019 Circuit of the Americas is believed to be one of the worst-attended races of the year following significant contraction of the American market in recent seasons. It is the only round on the 22-race calendar which does not routinely publish attendance figures.<\/p>\n<p>Adding a second US race would, according to Chang, therefore become a long-term project rather than something likely to happen in the near future, with Liberty keen to instead first focus on growing the sport in its home market.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe said it &#8211; and we\u2019re going to continue to say &#8211; that the US is an important market for MotoGP, and so we are looking at all avenues to grow our business here,&#8221; Chang said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s going to take time, just like it did with F1, but we do see that there\u2019s an appetite, and that there\u2019s going to be a market here. We do have interest in adding races in the US.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A Miami race would  mark a second step in a pivot away from traditional circuits and towards street races for MotoGP &#8211; following the controversial decision to move the Australian Grand Prix away from its iconic Phillip Island venue and onto a modified version of the Adelaide street circuit, used by Australian Supercars, for 2027.<\/p>\n<p>Chief to any such plans is a desire to move races closer to the paying audience &#8211; something Liberty has already heavily pursued since taking over F1, with street tracks in cities like Las Vegas, Miami, and Madrid superseding traditional venues and forcing some of them into rotational slots.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I do think that our stated objective is to get some of these races closer to cities where we can leverage off of the infrastructure,&#8221; said Chang.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhether it\u2019s the airport and long-distance travel, or for both ourselves as well as for the fans who are coming in internationally, and the hotels and the restaurants and sort of ease of access, I think it&#8217;s important &#8211; and you\u2019re seeing this with sort of the races we announced for next year, both in Buenos Aires [at a permanent facility under renovation] and Adelaide.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo we\u2019re already starting to make progress on that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Despite a not-insignificant pushback from sections of its hardcore fanbase, such moves have by most accounts paid off for F1 as part of the championship\u2019s meteoric success since Liberty\u2019s takeover.<\/p>\n<p>For MotoGP, however, a prioritisation of street circuits would appear to be deeply at odds with its safety culture &#8211; given safety was the reason why the series abandoned street and road circuits in the 1970s and 1980s.<\/p>\n<p>It had prior raced at venues like Imatra (pictured below), Brno, the N\u00fcrburgring, and, most famously, the Isle of Man TT. But those events were phased out due the the deaths and serious injuries caused by fallen riders striking trackside structures and fixtures &#8211; a hurdle that grand prix racing will once again need to think about if races like Miami do come on the schedule.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GnG_252541_HiRes.jpg\" class=\"kg-image\" alt=\"Giacomo Agostini\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1586\" height=\"1080\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>While it is true the Miami circuit is less of a street circuit and more of a purpose-built temporary facility located on the grounds of the city\u2019s Hard Rock Stadium, it\u2019s far from clear how organisers propose making it safe enough for MotoGP use, given the extensive concrete walls lining the track and very limited run-off areas.<\/p>\n<p>Buildings and bridges around the track offer limited opportunities to push the walls further back, so at first glance it presents an even more significant challenge than modifying the Adelaide circuit to meet safety standards (a project that has also not yet been fully explained by MotoGP bosses).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Chang stressed, meanwhile, that Liberty is not pursuing &#8220;a wholesale change-out&#8221; of the calendar.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have a long heritage here of races and in many compelling locations where it makes a lot of sense to keep them there, and they\u2019ve been fixtures on the race calendar and they bring a lot to the sport and a lot to the identity of the sport.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have been, you know, this year already in Austin, I\u2019ve been to Jerez, heading to Mugello and Assen later this year. I really want to get a good sense of what it feels like in the different locations, because what we want to do is create a fan experience that is engaging, exciting, entertaining, accessible wherever we do it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo there\u2019s a lot to be learned even on locations where we may not move [away from] but how to improve those. So it\u2019s a mix of all of that as we think about our calendar moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The CEO of new MotoGP owner Liberty Media has acknowledged that the series is in talks about holding&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-654776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}