Stock Markets August 31, 2026 05:49 AM

Breaking down Liberty Media's tracking stocks: Formula 1, Liberty Live and the Atlanta Braves

A granular look at three Liberty Media clusters, their valuations, liquidity quirks and the risks baked into voting-class shares

By Derek Hwang
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FWONA FWONK LLYVA LLYVK BATRA

Liberty Media’s public structure now comprises three active tracking-stock groups - Formula One, Liberty Live and Atlanta Braves - each issued in A (voting) and C (non-voting) share classes. Two former SiriusXM trackers were retired in 2024 when Liberty merged the assets into Sirius XM Holdings. This analysis walks through the underlying economics, recent trading dynamics, valuation metrics and the main near-term catalyst across the three remaining buckets.

Breaking down Liberty Media's tracking stocks: Formula 1, Liberty Live and the Atlanta Braves
FWONA FWONK LLYVA LLYVK BATRA
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Key Points

  • Liberty Media currently has three active tracking-stock groups - Formula One (FWONA/FWONK), Liberty Live (LLYVA/LLYVK) and Atlanta Braves (BATRA/BATRK) - after retiring the Liberty SiriusXM trackers LSXMA/LSXMK in 2024.
  • Formula One is the strongest cash-flow generator with $492M FCF (Dec 31, 2024) and expanding revenue, but its multiples are high (P/E 113.9x, EV/EBITDA 34.8x).
  • Liberty Live has the most immediate catalyst - Q2 2026 earnings - but shows negative EBITDA, persistent losses and wide disagreement between a lone analyst buy recommendation and InvestingPro fair-value outputs.

John Malone’s Liberty Media remains organized around six active tracking-stock tickers, grouped into three distinct economic businesses. A housekeeping note up front: the Liberty SiriusXM trackers LSXMA and LSXMK were wound down in 2024 when Liberty Media merged fully with Sirius XM Holdings and converted holders into SiriusXM equity. What endures are three operating clusters - each listed on NASDAQ and presented with both A shares (one vote per share) and C shares (no vote). That split is a durable Liberty structural feature that often produces material price differentials between share classes.


The three-bucket map

Liberty’s active tracking universe cleanly separates into three business groups. Each group reports the same economic results for both share classes within the group, but the two series trade at different prices and exhibit distinct liquidity and valuation patterns:

  • Formula One Group - FWONA (A shares, voting) and FWONK (C shares, no vote)
  • Liberty Live (Live Nation stake) - LLYVA (A shares, voting) and LLYVK (C shares, no vote)
  • Atlanta Braves Holdings - BATRA (A shares, voting) and BATRK (C shares, no vote)

Bucket 1 - Formula One Group (FWONA / FWONK)

The flagship holding tracks Liberty’s ownership of Formula 1 racing and represents a large market-cap component of the Liberty complex. The group reported revenue growth from $1.15 billion in 2020 to $3.65 billion in 2024, driven in part by an expanding U.S. fan base. EBITDA reached $744 million in FY2024, and free cash flow stood at $492 million as of December 31, 2024.

Market prices as of Friday, August 28, 2026 were FWONA $93.42 and FWONK $101.80. Notably, the C shares (FWONK) trade at a premium to the A shares - roughly $8.38 higher - a counterintuitive outcome for corporate governance purists but one that is explained by trading liquidity. FWONK averages approximately 933,000 shares traded per day versus FWONA’s roughly 84,000, and market participants are willing to pay for the easier means of entry and exit.

Analyst valuations are mixed: Guggenheim lifted targets to $124 for FWONA and $134 for FWONK (implying around 17-18% upside) as of August 16, 2026. By contrast, InvestingPro’s fair-value estimates as of August 31, 2026 were lower - FWONA fair value $85.82 (an 8.1% downside) and FWONK fair value $86.55 (a 15.0% downside).

On conventional multiples, the group looks expensive: a P/E of 113.9x and an EV/EBITDA of 34.8x (as of September 30, 2025). Net income fell to a -$30 million loss in FY2024 despite the strong top-line and EBITDA expansion, primarily reflecting elevated depreciation and amortization tied to the acquisition accounting. The trackers exhibit low systematic volatility - a beta around 0.65 - consistent with steady media-rights cash flows.


Bucket 2 - Liberty Live Group (LLYVA / LLYVK)

Liberty Live is effectively a vehicle for Liberty’s roughly 30% stake in Live Nation Entertainment. The tracking entity itself reports minimal direct operating revenue compared with the scale of the underlying business; revenue was $382 million in FY2025, up about 12% year-over-year. But the attraction for many investors is exposure to Live Nation’s concert, ticketing and venue ecosystem via a tracking stock wrapper.

Shares were priced at LLYVA $99.89 and LLYVK $103.55 as of Friday, August 28, 2026. The financial profile of the tracker shows negative EBITDA (-$25.6 million in FY2025), ongoing net losses, negative free cash flow (-$29 million) and a deeply negative book value reflected by a -15.1x price-to-book metric. Those negative headline metrics are affected by the parent-level debt allocation embedded in the tracking structure and therefore do not map cleanly to Live Nation’s operating health. The reported net margin of -22.8% is a structural artifact rather than a pure operational read.

A material catalyst in the near term is earnings: the Q2 2026 report was scheduled for release on August 31, with consensus expectations for a sharp sequential improvement - analysts look for $0.74 in EPS versus a $3.20 loss in Q1 and revenue rising to roughly $121 million from Q1’s $63.6 million. Q1 had already outperformed revenue expectations materially.

Valuation overlays from InvestingPro as of August 31, 2026 indicate substantive downside - LLYVK flagged at -27.6% and LLYVA at -24.9% relative to model fair value. The sell-side coverage is extremely limited; the single analyst covering the trackers held a Strong Buy with a $122 target, creating a clear divergence between that recommendation and the fair-value output. The trackers’ market sensitivity is higher than the Formula One names, with a beta near 0.97.


Bucket 3 - Atlanta Braves Holdings (BATRA / BATRK)

The Atlanta Braves trackers represent a trophy sports-franchise exposure combined with a related real estate development near Truist Park in Cobb County, Georgia. Reported revenue reached $732 million in FY2025 and has shown steady growth, though EBITDA experienced significant compression - falling to $23 million in FY2024 before recovering to $91 million in FY2025.

As of Friday, August 28, 2026, BATRA was quoted at $55.72 and BATRK at $50.55. Inverse to the F1 pair, the voting A shares (BATRA) trade at a roughly $5.17 premium to the C shares, which aligns with market intuition that control and voting rights carry value for a major sports franchise where ownership transfers require MLB approval.

Performance-wise, BATRA led the Liberty complex year-to-date with a +31.3% return, with BATRK close behind at +28.5%. One-year returns were +17.3% and +12.4% respectively, both ahead of the Formula One trackers. From a valuation perspective, the Braves names appear most stretched: an EV/EBITDA of 100.2x and InvestingPro fair-value outputs suggesting downside in the range of -31.3% to -38.3%. Those figures point to a scarcity premium being priced into a live sports asset rather than valuation driven strictly by discounted-cash-flow fundamentals.


Side-by-side metrics

Metric FWONA / FWONK LLYVA / LLYVK BATRA / BATRK
Price $93.42 / $101.80 $99.89 / $103.55 $55.72 / $50.55
Market Cap $25.3B $9.4B $3.3B
YTD Return +4.5% / +3.9% +22% / +25% +31% / +28%
1Y Return +3.7% / +1.9% +5.6% / +6.3% +17.3% / +12.4%
P/E (LTM) 113.9x Negative Negative
EV/EBITDA 34.8x Negative 100.2x
Revenue (FY2024/25) $3.65B $382M $732M
FCF +$492M -$29M -$26M
Beta 0.65 (low) 0.97 (market) 0.82 (moderate)
FV Upside (A) -8.1% -24.9% -38.3%
FV Upside (C) -15.0% -27.6% -31.3%

Key takeaways and positioning

  • Best business quality - Formula One: Only bucket generating positive free cash flow and sustainable EBITDA growth.
  • Best recent performance - Braves: BATRA has been the top performer year-to-date, reflecting a scarcity premium for a marquee sports franchise.
  • Most actionable near-term event - Liberty Live: the Q2 2026 earnings release is the clearest immediate catalyst across the three groups.
  • Lowest volatility - F1 trackers: a beta of about 0.65 makes these the calmest names, supported by long-term media-rights visibility.
  • Highest valuation risk - Braves: EV/EBITDA north of 100x indicates the most compressed margin for error among the three buckets.

The Malone ownership construct

The A/C share split is a signature of Liberty’s capital-structure approach - retain economic exposure while concentrating voting control. In practice, the C shares typically see heavier trading volumes and tighter spreads, making them preferred by institutional and liquidity-focused traders, whereas the A shares are held by investors prioritizing governance influence. None of the three groups pays dividends.

These instruments operate more like engineered financial exposures than conventional single-operation equities, and the consistent discount to model fair value across the six live tickers largely reflects the structural complexity that investors price into the family. That complexity can present both a hurdle and an opportunity for market participants who fully understand the mechanics behind the wrappers.


Conclusion

Liberty Media’s remaining publicly traded tracking-stock universe offers three differentiated sources of exposure - a media-rights driven motor sport business, a concert-and-live-entertainment stake, and a trophy professional-sports franchise - each with distinctive liquidity, governance and valuation dynamics. Investors should weigh voting rights and trading liquidity carefully, and be mindful that fair-value models and sell-side targets provide divergent pictures for several of the tickers.

Risks

  • Valuation risk for the Atlanta Braves is significant - an EV/EBITDA of 100.2x and fair-value downside estimates of roughly -31% to -38% expose investors to sentiment shifts in sports finance (affects sports and entertainment sectors).
  • Liquidity and pricing mismatches between A and C share classes can create trading premiums or discounts that are unrelated to underlying operations, introducing governance and market-structure risk for equity investors (affects equity markets and institutional trading).
  • Structural accounting artifacts and parent-level debt allocations muddy the economic picture for Liberty Live, making headline negative metrics potentially misleading and increasing earnings-release sensitivity (affects live entertainment and event-ticketing sectors).

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