McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown has a bold new way to describe the modern Formula 1 experience: think of it as 24 Super Bowls—every single season.
Speaking at the Autosport Business Exchange Miami ahead of this weekend's Miami Grand Prix, Brown highlighted just how much race weekends have evolved—both as massive fan spectacles and high-stakes business gatherings. "I see Formula 1 as 24 Davos from a business point of view, and 24 Super Bowls from a fan point of view," he said. "These events are all just massive now."
Brown, who has been a driving force behind McLaren's impressive commercial turnaround, broke down how the sport now serves two distinct types of partners. On one side are business-to-business (B2B) collaborators—companies that help McLaren become a better racing team through technology, efficiency, and operational support. "They can really contribute to making us a more successful business and racing team," he explained, noting that these partners also excel at storytelling around their involvement.
On the other side are consumer-facing brands that help McLaren engage with its passionate fan base. "We have great consumer brands that are about helping us engage further with our fans, more engagement," Brown said, pointing to the McLaren Live event in Miami as a prime example. "Without MasterCard and partners of such, we wouldn't have been able to bring that to our fans."
Brown emphasized that the old model of simply slapping a sticker on the side of the car is long gone. Today's partnerships are about activation, growth, and genuine connection. "We really rely on our partners to activate our fan base, grow our fan base, engage our fan base—or business-to-business partners," he said. "It's no longer a sticker on the side of the car."
McLaren's growing roster of high-profile partners reflects this shift. The team now works with global giants like Mastercard, Google, Allwyn, Cisco, Puma, Android, Hilton, and T-Mobile—each bringing something unique to the table. As Brown puts it, "The quantity of partners is only additive to the business that they all generate amongst each other."
For fans, this means race weekends have become more than just thrilling on-track action. They're now immersive, world-class events—part business summit, part championship game—and McLaren is leading the charge.