MotoGP appointed CAA Sports as its exclusive global sponsorship agency, externalizing sales strategy for the first time since Liberty Media competitor Dorna Sports took full control in 1992. The contract covers all commercial categories except broadcast rights and runs through 2030, with options. Neither party disclosed fee structure, though comparable mandates in Formula 1's midfield tier carry 15-18% commission on new inventory.
The timing is deliberate. MotoGP's current sponsorship book—led by Estrella Galicia (€18M annually), Michelin (title supplier), and Red Bull (multi-team activations)—faces a concentration problem: 11 of its 19 premier-class partners have deals expiring between January 2027 and March 2028. That window also coincides with Dorna's negotiation of its next commercial cycle with the FIM, the governing body that licenses the championship. CAA inherits a sales mandate where renewal risk and greenfield opportunity arrive simultaneously.
Dorna's existing commercial team, roughly 30 people across Madrid and regional offices, has historically managed direct relationships with automotive suppliers, beverage brands, and telco sponsors common in European motorsport. The shift to CAA suggests two conclusions: first, that Dorna believes MotoGP's 2.6M average television audience per race weekend and 430M cumulative social reach justify premium pricing it hasn't yet extracted; second, that North American and Middle Eastern categories—luxury, fintech, crypto—require sales infrastructure Dorna doesn't have. CAA's motorsport vertical has 80+ specialists and existing mandates with Andretti Global, Arrow McLaren, and select F1 teams, giving it a standing queue of brands already buying trackside.
The arrangement creates immediate tension with satellite teams, who sell their own livery and hospitality but rely on series-level sponsors for paddock activation budgets. MotoGP's leaked 2025 hospitality guidelines—obtained by Motorsport.com last August—show that premier-class teams receive pro-rata shares of series sponsorship in the form of branding obligations and co-marketing commitments, not cash. If CAA pulls premium automotive or watch brands into title partnerships, those teams lose negotiating room for their own conflicting deals. Gresini Racing, which carries 7 unique livery sponsors this season, has the most to lose; factory-backed squads like Ducati Lenovo and Monster Yamaha already navigate exclusivity through their manufacturers.
CAA's first test arrives in October, when MotoGP stages its second-ever U.S. Grand Prix doubleheader: Circuit of the Americas followed by a new Indianapolis round. The Indianapolis event is a $40M local subsidy play orchestrated by the state tourism board, which wants a counterprogramming asset against the Indy 500's May stranglehold. That race needs 3-4 U.S.-headquartered sponsors to hit breakeven, and the current paddock has zero American brands above hospitality level. CAA has until September to close them, or the subsidy terms reset.
Watch whether CAA brings in financial services or luxury automotive brands that have never touched motorcycle racing but see MotoGP as cheaper Formula 1 adjacency. Also watch Dorna's internal commercial team: job posts and departures will signal whether this is a true handoff or a co-managed arrangement where CAA handles net-new categories and Dorna keeps legacy renewals. The FIM renegotiation opens in November 2026, and if CAA hasn't delivered €30M+ in incremental commitments by then, Dorna's bargaining position with the sanctioning body weakens.
The Indianapolis subsidy deal requires signed anchor sponsors by Labor Day, or the tourism board can pull funding and leave MotoGP with a $12M venue contract it would need to self-finance.
The takeaway
MotoGP outsources global sales to CAA as **€500M+** in legacy deals expire by 2028, testing whether premium brands see it as F1-adjacent or niche.
motogpcaa sportssponsorship mandatedorna sportsagency consolidationcommercial rights
Brand your brand — for real
70,000 products · virtual proof in 60 seconds · no platform fee · imprinted since 1997
The branded-identity layer Chiefs of Staff and heritage CMOs route through — your name imprinted on real authorized stock, your pick of 200+ brands and 70,000 products, shipped from one accountable house. Nine editorial desks publish the intelligence those operators read before they sign.
200+authorized brands
70,000products · virtual proof on each
9 deskspublishing daily
1997one house, since
70,000 SKUs · virtual proof in 60 seconds · no platform fee · blind-shipped · ASI #217876
Your next customer won't visit your website. Their AI will.
AI assistants have quietly taken over the first step of buying — they answer from catalogs they can read and shortlist whoever can actually ship. Two questions now decide whether you exist to that buyer: can a machine read your catalog, and can you fulfill the order. Most brands fail one or both and never find out why the orders went elsewhere. The winners of this shift aren't the loudest. They're the most readable. Build for the machine that's about to do the shopping.
Built by the craft floor — apparel, media, packaging, and secure print.
This trade runs on hands, not desks. Imprint manufacturing & Komori Press · Canon high-speed secure-media operations is a craft floor — genuine Six Sigma discipline applied to ink, thread, foil, and registration, where a hundredth of an inch is the difference between a brand that reads serious and one that reads cheap. POPS4 is built by exactly those operators: independent, boots-on-the-ground engineers who carry their own book, read a client in microseconds, and put their name on every run. Beyond our own Virginia Beach floor, we work with a vetted network of craft manufacturers across the US — each meeting the highest excellence in QC standards in the industry, each a specialist in its own discipline — so apparel, hard-goods imprinting, media manufacturing, packaging, and secure printing all go to the bench built for them, coordinated from one accountable hub. Short-run from twenty-five units, volume to five hundred thousand. Two hundred authorized national brands, seventy thousand SKUs with virtual proofing on every one. Art archived for instant reorders. Net-thirty corporate terms, NDA-standard white-label — your name on the work, or none at all.
Strategy, positioning, identity, creative, and messaging — wired into an AI system that publishes and distributes on its own. Nine editorial desks generate the authority, the production house ships the physical proof, and the attribution layer tells you which post sold which SKU. What you get is an operating layer — content, catalog, and order path under one roof — that keeps working whether or not you are in the room. Built for principals who would rather own the machine than rent the agency.
Named-account programs — one desk, quiet delivery, NDA-standard.
One point of contact who already knows the file, so nothing restarts from zero between engagements. The work ships blind, under NDA, with your name on it or none at all. Built for single-family offices, heritage-house CMOs, sports-ownership groups, and the agencies that white-label our production. The relationship is the product; the merch is the proof of it.
SFO · Chief of Staff desk. Principal household, properties, aircraft, yacht, calendar, philanthropy — one file.
Shop seventy thousand products. Virtual proof on every one. 24/7.
Drop your logo on any product and see the virtual proof before asking. Quote routes direct to the desk. MCP catalog for AI agents. Celeste for the fast conversation. Full self-service checkout in development.