Croft believes Liberty Media will do more to market the sport.
Thursday 8 September 2016 13:28, UK
Sky F1's David Croft hopes to see Liberty Media's £6bn takeover of F1 benefit the fans of the sport.
The deal means that CVC Capital Partners is handing over its ownership after taking a controlling stake in 2005, with Bernie Ecclestone remaining in his role for a transitional period of at least a few years.
While Croft admitted no one was sure what the takeover would mean for the future of F1, he believes Liberty Media's desire to market the sport will bring many positives, particularly for the fans.
"It's kind of a blank canvas," Croft told Sky Sports News HQ's Craig Slater. "They are a global enterprise that see F1, they say, as a 'low-risk' business opportunity because of the contracts in place. Because of the sponsorship there already, they know they can get a good return.
"But I think the main difference for F1, unlike the years of CVC ownership, is that we have a new owner for the sport that wants to promote it and market it.
"[Liberty Media chairman] Chase Carey is saying: 'I want to develop the sport for the benefit of the fans, the teams and the sponsors', but has put the fans at the very heart of that.
"It looks like they want to say to the world: 'F1 is great, come and watch it', because they know it's good business sense to do that. No one knows how they're going to do that, or how things will change."
Croft also reserved praise for the job Bernie Ecclestone has done at F1, and believes it will be interesting to see how the relationship between him and Carey plays out over the next few years.
"Bernie is not a man for whom the word committee has held much importance in his business life so far," said Croft. "But only he knows how the relationship is going to work.
"I would hope that Chase Carey will come in and listen to what Bernie has to say and then will formulate through his own mind and ideas.
"Bernie has taken F1 from this rag-tag sport of great excitement but with no real cohesion or proper structure and turned it into this amazing sport we see today.
"For years he's kept his hand very much on the tiller and kept the ship sailing through, he can give great advice and I'm sure he will give great advice.
"Chase Carey will take that advice and do with it what he wants to do, but I don't know how the relationship is going to pan out, I hope for the good of the sport that they can work together because you don't want to see clashes, you want to see one man's great advice being taken on board and then things maybe changing in the future."
