Williams F1 ‘competing with top 50 teams in sport’, says Kenyon
Atlassian Williams F1 Team advisor Peter Kenyon on selling commercial deals in football and Formula 1, and why the historic outfit’s revival will be tech-driven.
Peter Kenyon is a man who knows a thing or two about commercialising sports teams. One of the architects of Manchester United’s development into a sponsorship powerhouse, he then helped turn Chelsea into a global mega-brand with a little help from Roman Abramovich and Jose Mourinho.
Now he is deploying his expertise in Formula 1 as a board advisor at Williams, as the historic Oxfordshire-based team aim to use the biggest technical shake-up in the sport’s history to turbo-charge their bid to return to the front of the grid. Greasing the wheels of that effort are a slew of new commercial deals Kenyon has helped to strike.
“We’ve been involved with the business for five years now,” Kenyon tells City AM, making reference to the team’s acquisition by Dorilton Capital in 2020.
“It’s an incredible brand with lots of legacy and great values, and there’s a long-term plan here. That was supported by two things last year: Carlos [Sainz, former Ferrari driver] joining us, who obviously saw the opportunity when it came to wanting to win; and finishing fifth [in the constructors’ standings]. And that just supported our story of going back to the top.”
Williams revival will be tech-driven
Kenyon’s work with Williams has coincided with its commercial rebirth. Last year’s addition of Atlassian as title partner was a watershed moment but has been backed up by new deals with the likes of Barclays, Anthropic, Marks & Spencer and Wilkinson Sword ahead of the 2026 season, which officially begins in Australia this week.
“AI is on everybody’s tongues. We already use AI in terms of our aero and wind tunnel. Having people like Atlassian, Anthropic and Airia gives us real tech businesses that can come in and support our tech infrastructure, and get us there smarter and quicker,” he says.
“Our tech partners are integral to our operation and growth. If we talk about Williams, our ability to get back to and then stay at the top for multiple years will be tech-driven, rather than just engineering.”
Formula 1 teams can’t mine ticket sales like their counterparts in football but the sport’s upward trajectory – particularly in the US, where Netflix and now Apple have taken the sport to a new, younger, more gender-equal audience – has helped attract a flood of partners, and sent some F1 team valuations soaring to NFL and NBA levels.
“We compete against the other nine or 10 teams [in F1], but we also compete against the top 50 teams across sport,” Kenyon adds.
“Because most partners that are spending the type of money that’s been coming in are also looking at all the sports to say, ‘Do we want to be football? Do we want to be NFL?’ So we very much benchmark against those teams, and it’s our job to get them into F1 and then to Williams.”
Kenyon says “football is still the biggest sport on the planet”, but that it can learn from F1 and vice versa. “I think we do some things better, because we go to 24 different markets. It’s like the circus coming to town. Whether that’s politicians or entertainers or sportspeople or businesspeople, it’s a great gathering of the top talent from all industries.”
F1 gets product into fans’ hands worldwide
Football has flirted with taking league games overseas and, while that effort has been quashed for now, the idea is unlikely to go away.
“Look at the NFL, what they’re doing across Europe now in terms of bringing their in-season games in – it’s all part of that,” he says.
“When I was at United, we were one of the first teams to start doing preseason tours, for that reason. We knew we had a global fanbase, not a Manchester fanbase and not a national fanbase. How do you get that product into those fans’ hands? That’s what F1 has in abundance.”
Commercial deals can only take a team so far, as United’s struggles over the last decade illustrate. The revival of Williams on the track has been an iterative process, with the engine and chassis rule overhauls of this year long pegged as a chance to close the gap on their rivals.
This week in Melbourne will reveal the progress of that project, although Kenyon is keen to keep the focus longer-term. “We’re on a journey. That journey is, we believe, to being race-winning in 2028. It’s not about a race, it’s not about one season. It’s a genuine rebuild on that journey back to the top.”