(Photo credit: Rolex)
After 11 years as a Global Partner and the Official Timepiece of Formula One, Rolex will give way to LVMH at the beginning of next season, in 2025. The news first broke on Coronet in early July.
At the time, Rolex did not say why it was walking away from a sport whose audience had doubled in the past decade, reaching 1.5 billion viewers in 2023, the fourth most watched sport worldwide.
But Coronet is now reporting Rolex did not want to renew the contract because of a dispute over the contract’s duration. While F1 wanted Rolex to sign for ten years, Rolex did not want to commit beyond five years, according to sources.
F1’s carbon footprint has continued to garner attention, a reason Rolex could have requested shorter terms. Each year, 10 teams and thousands of workers travel around the world to compete in 24 races in the name of entertainment, a carbon footprint estimated at 223,031 tCO2e per season, 49% of that coming from travel logistics alone, according to F1’s most recent report.