Rolex and LVMH have declined to comment on a rumour doing the rounds last week that TAG Heuer owner LVMH is going to take over the headline sponsorship of Formula 1 from Rolex.
Coronet, a blog about Rolex run out of Utah by Frenchman Danny Crivello, set the hares running quoting “sources in Geneva” that say LVMH will be the official timekeeper from January 2025.
The new annual contract will cost LVMH $150 million, Coronet reports.
The report does not name LVMH-owned TAG Heuer as the brand fronting the partnership, but it is the obvious choice given its history in motor racing timekeeping and current association with Red Bull and the team’s Formula 1 world champion driver Max Verstappen.
Rolex relinquishing its grip on Formula 1 would be a shock, but LVMH and TAG Heuer bidding for it would align with stated ambitions of Frédéric Arnault, who became CEO of TAG Heuer in 2020 before being promoted to CEO of a newly created LVMH Watches operation in charge of Hublot, TAG Heuer and Zenith in January this year.
In an interview with WatchPro last year, Mr Arnault placed Formula 1 at the heart of his revival plans at TAG Heuer, particularly since the sports surge in popularity among younger generations thanks to the Netflix series Drive to Survive.
“When I joined, Formula 1 motor sport was not any more at the core of TAG Heuer’s strategy. There was criticism of it being an old man’s sport; it had a huge issue to tackle around sustainability. But now the picture is very different,” Mr Arnault described.
With the success of Drive to Survive, the sport is not just about the race weekends, but about lifestyle stories of the drivers, the teams, the money, the mayhem, the comedy — the entire circus of billionaire owners and multi-millionaire drivers performing extraordinary feats of athleticism and bravery.
As a result, during his time at TAG Heuer, Mr Arnault decided to narrow its focus on F1.
“A lot of our investment was going into other sports and entertainment partnerships. We decided we would concentrate our investment into motor sports, and particularly Formula 1,” Mr Arnault said.
“Due to Netflix, it has a huge new audience. They are much younger. There are a lot of women who are really interested in the sport, in the dynamics and in the drivers. It has become more international. Rather than being focused too much on Europe, it has become much stronger in Asia and the United States,” Mr Arnault suggested.
Many watch brands are associated with Formula 1 teams and drivers — TAG Heuer, Richard Mille, Bremont (for now), Girard-Perregaux, IWC, H. Moser & Cie. and Tudor — but Rolex’s 13-year-long association is what 60-70 million racing fans worldwide see in almost every frame of television coverage.
Few sports have that sort of reach, and that is before the perfect alignment with precision engineering, split-second timekeeping, sporting excellence and almost infinite opportunities for corporate hospitality are factored in.