Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and Carlos Slim, the world’s richest man, would have to win agreement from each of Formula One’s 12 teams to get a green light for a planned takeover of the sport’s rights holder, according to documents seen by the Daily Mail.

The teams commit to race in F1 by signing a contract called the Concorde Agreement which contains a clause committing the rights holder and the sport’s governing body to ensure ‘that the championship will be shown free to air where there are suitable broadcasters prepared to do this’.

It would prevent Murdoch’s pay-per-view Sky channels from exclusively broadcasting F1 in key markets such as the UK. Changes to the Concorde Agreement require consent from each of the teams.

False start: Rupert Murdoch's takeover bid could end up in the pits

Although the contract is up for renewal at the end of 2012, there is little likelihood that the teams would agree to removing the clause from it.

Last year 49 per cent of the teams’ $1.6billion total budgets came from sponsorship and the average deal cost $5.2million. This high-octane price is fuelled by wide exposure to F1 on free-to-air television which gave the sport 527million viewers in 2010. 

The teams have demanded the commitment to broadcast F1 free to air in every iteration of the Concorde Agreement since it was first signed in 1981. F1’s chief executive Bernie Ecclestone adds: ‘It has always been our intention to broadcast free to air television wherever possible.’

He says F1 is worth ‘six or seven billion dollars’ and it could be hard for News Corp to convince shareholders that spending this much is justified if it is forced to let its rivals broadcast the sport free to air.

In particular, it may grate with one of News Corp’s biggest shareholders, Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed, who has said ‘I am not interested in this kind of sport’.

Even if News Corp and Carlos Slim swerve around these obstacles, their acquisition could still end up in the pits as they would need clearance from the European Commission.

Murdoch has fallen foul of the regulators before. In the late 1990s the Competition Commission blocked BSkyB from buying Manchester United due to the power it would give the firm in negotiating broadcast contracts.

Given that its acquisition of one team was blocked, it does not seem likely that the watchdog would let its purchase of a sports series get off the grid.