A whole range of sports over recent years have seen some of the biggest and most popular stars in the world invest in teams within them.
The most notable of those have come in the world of football. From Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney taking over current League Two side Wrexham to Tom Brady’s minority investment in Birmingham City, it’s becoming more and more common place to see celebrities put their money into teams within sport.
In recent months, that wave of investment has seen a number of F1 teams benefit.
The most notable has been French constructor Alpine who have recently announced that a number of the world’s biggest sports stars have become new strategic investors.
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With a long and illustrious history in the sport that dates back to 1981, Alpine’s parent company Renault have become one of the most invested in teams in Formula One over the past year.
Racing under a number of different names during their F1 tenure, Renault remain the owners of the racing team which was rebranded in 2021 to promote the company’s sports car brand, Alpine.
Little is definitively known about who owns the Alpine F1 racing team on the whole but what is known is that back in June 2023, 24% of the team’s shares were sold to an investment group including Otro Capital, RedBird Capital Partners and Maximum Effort Investments.
RedBird’s portfolio includes a large stake in Fenway Sports Group, a group which currently owns Boston Red Sox and Liverpool FC, whilst it also holds a stake in both AC Milan and Toulouse. Meanwhile, Maximum Effort Investments is led by actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.
At the time of that early round of investment, Renault said that its Alpine F1 team would “benefit from the investor group’s collective expertise and track record in the sports industry including media, sponsorship, ticketing, hospitality, commercial rights management, licensing, and merchandising strategies to unlock incremental value creation and new growth levers.”
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Due to its growing popularity both worldwide and in the US in particular over recent years, Formula One has become the sport to invest in.
At the forefront of that investment has been French team Alpine who have seen a number of A-List celebrities invest in their team in 2023.
Actors Ryan Reynolds, Rob McElhenney and Michael B. Jordan were part of the team’s first wave of investment on behalf of Otro Capital back in June who now own 24% of Alpine. They’ve since been joined by a number of high profile sports stars in mid-October.
The athletes involved are likely to play a part with the team in terms of driving commercial strategies at Alpine using their own experience from their sport, as well as appearing at races.
It’s difficult to know exactly how much money each of the above sports stars has invested in Alpine during the latest round of investment.
Back in June, Otro Capital — the company that the stars are now partnered with — announced a €200 million (£173m) strategic investment in Alpine Racing Ltd. They have since announced in the last week that the above stars have joined the group.
Otro Capital’s original €200 million investment saw them acquire 24% of the Formula One team. Reynolds, McElhenney and Jordan were part of that investment with their company Maximum Effort Investments sad to be in control of one tenth of that 24% stake.
After a pretty torrid 2023 season, this latest round of investment from some household names comes as good news for French team Alpine.
With five races left of the current season — the next of which comes in Austin, Texas at the 2023 United States Grand Prix — they sit in sixth spot in the constructors’ standings out of ten teams.
Both drivers, Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly, have secured one podium finish each during the season which highlights the potential that the French team have, but overall results and consistency have been poor and will likely see them finish below last season’s finish on 4th spot.
Given their link with Renault, the team holds a long and illustrious history in F1, starting all the way back in 1981. Competing under different names throughout, they secured their first bout of success under Benetton when they won the 1995 Constructors’ Championship, whilst Michael Schumacher won two Drivers’ Championships in 1994 and 1995 as their driver.
More titles followed in the mid 2000’s, this time under Renault, as the team won the Constructors’ Championship in 2005 and 2006 with Fernando Alonso winning the drivers’ titles in the same seasons.
Alonso returned in 2021 as Alpine were announced as Renault’s team’s new name going forward to promote the brand. It’s not fully known how long Alpine will be used as the team’s name but it is said to be a ‘long-term deal’.
* denotes on-going season.
Nathan Evans is a data editor for The Sporting News.
