Formula E used to be the racing series people apologized for liking. Not anymore.

A wave of tech, banking and gaming money has turned electric racing into one of the most contested sponsorship categories in sport, and the numbers behind it are getting hard to ignore.

Where the Money Actually Comes From

Formula 1 set the template first. Five of its eleven teams for the 2026 season carry a technology or fintech name on the car, from Oracle Red Bull Racing to McLaren’s deal with Mastercard, reportedly worth around 100 million dollars a year on its own. Analysts now call that single contract the largest financial services sponsorship Formula 1 has ever signed. They also project total sponsorship spend across the grid will clear 3 billion dollars this season, up roughly 15 percent on last year, and nobody in the paddock seems surprised by that either.

Betting brands noticed the same audience and moved fast. Betway became Formula 1’s first official betting operator this season, with FanDuel following for fans in the US and Canada, and both deals lean on the same pitch that lured the banks in: live data, in play markets, a fanbase that already checks odds during a race weekend. Curious readers can browse the current lineup of betting and casino operators at https://www.bestcasino.com/, the same names now showing up on liveries and in race weekend broadcasts. The payments industry and the betting industry chasing the same sponsorship slot says something about who watches this sport now.

Formula E was never going to sit that one out.

Formula E’s Own Money Trail

ABB became the series’ first title sponsor back in 2018, in a naming rights deal reportedly worth 25 million dollars a season, and it just renewed. That renewal landed days after Formula E locked in a new operating agreement with the FIA running all the way to 2048. Twenty two more years of racing bought stability, and stability is exactly what makes a marketing department comfortable signing a multi year check.

The current partner list reads less like a racing programme and more like a technology conference badge:

  • Google Cloud runs multi year technology infrastructure across the championship
  • Infosys powers the stats centre and the digital fan data behind it
  • Julius Baer, the Swiss private bank, joined as a founding partner focused on sustainable investment
  • TDK ties battery and materials technology to the series’ electric identity
  • Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund backs Formula E alongside Extreme E and the E1 powerboat series under one combined deal

Team level sponsorship sits lower down the scale, typically 1 million to 10 million dollars a season, with a single race title costing up to 2 million. Cheap compared with Formula 1’s top tier. Not cheap compared with most sports.

Why This Money Chooses Electric

Ask a sponsorship buyer why Formula E, and the answer rarely mentions lap times. Three things come up instead.

  1. The audience skews young. Formula E fans trend noticeably younger than traditional motorsport crowds, and younger fans are the ones brands struggle to reach anywhere else.
  2. The races happen downtown. London, New York, Tokyo, and soon Madrid and Miami. No long drive to a circuit in the countryside, just a street closure and a grandstand near the office.
  3. The story writes itself. A battery company or a bank can point at Formula E and say it backs the future of mobility, not just a car with a number on it.

None of this makes Formula E bigger than Formula 1. It does not need to be. It has become the cheaper, younger, more sustainable half of the same sponsorship conversation. Increasingly, the same brands are having both conversations at once.