Red Bull GmbH

• 1. Introduction

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  Red Bull GmbH, an Austrian private conglomerate headquartered at Fuschl am See in Salzburg, had sold more than 11.5 billion cans of its energy drink by 2022. Those cans had reached over 171 countries. Yet the company is just as likely to turn up on a Formula One grid, at a battle rap championship or beside a historic warplane. It owns football clubs, runs an art fellowship and publishes magazines about mountaineering and gardening. How did a single drink from a Thai pharmaceutical company grow into all of this? Who put up the money, and who held the shares? And why would a drinks business spend so heavily on things that look nothing like a drink?

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• 2. A Thai Tonic Abroad

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  In 1982, Dietrich Mateschitz was on a business trip to Thailand for the German consumer goods maker Blendax, which Procter & Gamble later acquired. He tried a local energy drink called Krating Daeng and found that it eased his jet lag. The drink was made by T.C. Pharmaceuticals, a company belonging to the Thai entrepreneur Chaleo Yoovidhya. Mateschitz, an Austrian, believed Western buyers might want it too, and he proposed adapting it with Chaleo.

  The two men founded Red Bull GmbH in 1984. Each invested US$500,000 and each held a 49% share. The remaining 2% went to Chaleo's son, Chalerm. Mateschitz was put in charge of running the company and shaping its worldwide marketing.

  The recipe took three years to rework. Between 1984 and 1987, the company added carbonation and made the drink less sweet, aiming at European tastes. The new version went on sale in Austria in 1987 under the name Red Bull. It spread quickly among young urban professionals and became shorthand for an energetic way of living.

  The founders' wealth followed the drink's success. By March 2012, Forbes estimated that Chaleo Yoovidhya and Dietrich Mateschitz were each worth more than US$5.3 billion.

  The company later added other beverages, among them Simply Cola and the Carpe Diem range of herbal soft drinks. The Sabai Wine Spritzer was developed with Siam Winery in Thailand. In 2018 came Organics by Red Bull, a line of organic soft drinks made mostly without caffeine.

  Moving all those drinks around the world has a cost. In 2021, Red Bull ranked twelfth among the biggest carbon emitters in maritime cargo shipping.

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• 3. Wings and Free Cases

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  Free cases of Red Bull handed out to college students were the company's first big promotion. It was an early attempt at viral advertising, and sales spread rapidly. The company went on to build a polished image aimed at young urban professionals, using sport and entertainment as its stage.

  In 1992, the company began a series of animated commercials under the slogan "Red Bull gives you wiiings". The characters had squinting eyes and large noses, and they sprouted a pair of wings after drinking the product. The artists Tibor Hernádi and Horst Sambo directed them, working with Johannes Kastner, owner of the German agency Kastner & Partners. The campaign has since aired in over 170 countries.

  The drink itself travelled alongside the advertising. Red Bull moved across Europe in the early 1990s and entered the United States in 1997. Within a year it held roughly 75% of the American energy drink market.

  The American rapper Eminem lent his name to the Red Bull EmSee Battle Rap championships. The company also stages art shows and the Red Bull Flugtag, a German name meaning flight day.

  On the road, the Mobile Energy Team, known as MET, puts mostly college students into specially designed cars called Racers. Many carry an oversized can on the chassis, on models such as the Suzuki Vitara, the MiniCooper and the SportTrac. Each team completes daily missions at sporting events, businesses, colleges and shopping centres. Members are trained to explain the drink's properties to shoppers.

  In the air, the company runs historic aircraft under the names Red Bull Air Force and The Flying Bulls. The fleet includes a Chance-Vought F4U-4 from the Second World War, a Lockheed P-38L-5LO and a North American B-25J-30NC. It also lists a Douglas DC-6B and a Bell AH-1F Cobra. The Flying Bulls name has a second life too, because in 1999 Red Bull began sponsoring a Czech aerobatics team of that name.

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• 4. Studios and Galleries

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  Red Bull Media House is the company's media arm, covering sport, lifestyle, music and games. It publishes five magazines. The Red Bulletin covers lifestyle, Servus covers food, health and gardening, and Terra Mater covers nature, science and history. Bergwelten is about alpinism, while Seitenblicke follows celebrities. Its other divisions include Red Bull TV, Red Bull Photography, Benevento Publishing, ServusTV and Red Bull Music Publishing.

  In 2007, the company launched its own label, Red Bull Records. It also runs the Red Bull Studio recording facility in Santa Monica. The Red Bull Music Academy organises workshops and festivals around the world. In Spanish-speaking countries, the brand organises and sponsors Red Bull Batalla de Los Gallos, a series of battle rap competitions.

  In 2013, Red Bull started a talent development program called Red Bull Sound Select. Randy Randall of the band No Age said he was comfortable working with Red Bull. His reasons were that no larger company owned it and that the branding at the events stayed fairly low key. The same year, the company launched Red Bull Amplifier with help from Sidekick Studios. It offers digital startups access to Red Bull's audience, events and facilities, and in return the brand becomes associated with trendy startups.

  Art of the Can is an international competition that asks artists to build works from Red Bull cans.

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• 5. Games and Esports

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  Wipeout 2097, a racing game, features the Red Bull brand heavily throughout. On the PlayStation 3's social platform, PlayStation Home, Red Bull built its own island in January 2009. It advertised the drink and the Red Bull Air Race event, which gave the space its name.

  In late November 2009, two more spaces opened on the same day. One was the Red Bull Illume space, and the other was the Red Bull Beach space, which featured the Red Bull Flugtag. In January 2012, the company released its first personal space, the Red Bull House of Skate, built around an indoor skate park.

  During the 2010s, Red Bull began sponsoring individual players. They included the American Halo 3 player Richard "Ninja" Blevins, the Spanish League of Legends player Enrique Cedeño "xPeke" Martinez and the Swedish Super Smash Bros. player William "Leffen" Hjelte. It also backs players of the fighting games Tekken and Street Fighter.

  Its team sponsorships include G2 Esports and Cloud9, as well as OG, the Dota 2 team that won The International in 2018 and 2019. Another is T1, which has won the League of Legends World Championship a record six times. Red Bull fielded a League of Legends team of its own, called Red Bulls. It played in the European Challenger Series in 2017 and folded in 2018.

  In the Formula One Esports Series, Red Bull won the constructors' championship in 2019-2020 and 2025.

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• 6. Sponsoring the Edge

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  In 1989, the Austrian Formula One driver Gerhard Berger became the first athlete Red Bull ever sponsored. Early deals leaned toward lesser-known and extreme sports. The rower Xeno Müller won Olympic gold in the single scull at the 1996 Atlanta Games while backed by the company. The BASE jumpers Frank "Gambler" Gambalie, Miles Dashier and Shane McConkey were also on the list.

  In the 2010s, the roster widened to mainstream names. These included the Austrian tennis player Dominic Thiem, the Brazilian skateboarder Letícia Bufoni, the American skier Lindsey Vonn and the baseball player Kris Bryant. As of 2016, the company backed more than 750 individual athletes and more than a dozen teams.

  Red Bull also invents its own competitions. At the Flugtag, entrants launch homemade flying machines off a 10-metre ramp into water. The Soap Box Race is its own take on the soapbox derby. Crashed Ice is a winter world tour in ice cross downhill, where skaters race through an urban track with steep turns and high drops.

  At the Apollo Theatre in New York City, the Red Bull Rope Masters competition is held with the National Double Dutch League. Teams from Japan often dominate it with fusion routines set to hip-hop or contemporary music. At the Erzberg Enduro, a motorcycle event the company sponsors, fewer than two percent of entrants finish the course.

  Since its first edition in 2014, Red Bull has paid the costs of the Wings for Life World Run. That arrangement lets every participant's entry fee go entirely to the Wings for Life foundation.

  The sponsorships run across many sports. Cyclists on the roster include Danny MacAskill, Fabio Wibmer, Wout van Aert and Pauline Ferrand Prevot. The England cricketer Ben Stokes has the branding on the back of his bat. The winger Jack Nowell became the first player with branding on a scrum cap. The company also sponsors the Los Angeles Clippers and the Red Bull 3X series of 3x3 basketball tournaments.

  In the Philippines, the Thai unit and a local partner have funded the Red Bull Barako basketball team in the Philippine Basketball Association since 2000. The team has won three championships.

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• 7. Grand Prix and Beyond

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  Red Bull's first motorsport team sponsorship came in 1995, with the Swiss Formula One team Sauber. In late 2004, the company bought Jaguar and turned it into Red Bull Racing for 2005. It bought the Minardi team the following year and renamed it Scuderia Toro Rosso, which is Italian for Team Red Bull. That team later became Scuderia AlphaTauri and is now called Racing Bulls.

  Red Bull Racing won the Constructors' Championship in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013-2022 and 2023. Sebastian Vettel won the Drivers' Championship in 2010, 2011-2012 and 2013. Max Verstappen won it in 2021, 2022-2023 and 2024.

  The engine supply changed several times. Renault engines powered the team from 2007 to 2018, and Honda took over until the end of 2025. In 2021, Red Bull founded its own division, Red Bull Powertrains. It began producing power units for the Red Bull-owned teams in 2026, with backing from Ford.

  Adrian Newey, a former chief technical officer of Red Bull Racing, is credited with designing many of the team's highly successful cars. His RB19 won 21 of the 22 races in the 2023 season. In 2010 he designed a prototype, the Red Bull X2010, for the video game Gran Turismo 5. In 2022 the company announced a production hypercar, the RB17, also designed by Newey.

  In the Netflix series Formula 1: Drive to Survive, team principal Christian Horner described a rare position. Red Bull had four drivers, two at Red Bull Racing and two at Scuderia AlphaTauri. He said the two AlphaTauri drivers were contracted to Red Bull.

  NASCAR has had a rougher history. Red Bull announced Team Red Bull in 2006, and it debuted in the Nextel Cup Series at Lowe's Motor Speedway. The team shut down in December 2011, and BK Racing acquired its assets. In January 2025, Red Bull returned by sponsoring Shane van Gisbergen and Connor Zilisch with Trackhouse Racing for certain races.

  In Australia, Triple Eight Race Engineering has carried Red Bull sponsorship since 2013. Jamie Whincup won the Supercars title there in 2013-2014 and 2017. Van Gisbergen won it in 2016-2021 and 2022.

  On two wheels, Red Bull is a title sponsor of Red Bull KTM Factory Racing and Honda Racing. In 2007 it launched the Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup for young riders with no Grand Prix experience. A partnership with Ajo Motorsport began in 2012 in Moto3 and reached Moto2 in 2017. Its founder, Aki Ajo, will lead the Red Bull KTM Factory Racing MotoGP team in 2025.

  The company has also backed a Stanford student team in the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge for driverless cars. Their robotically driven Volkswagen Touareg, named Stanley, won it. From 2003 to 2019, Red Bull promoted the Red Bull Air Race World Championship.

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• 8. Buying the Club

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  On the 6th of April 2005, Red Bull bought the Austrian football club SV Austria Salzburg and renamed it Red Bull Salzburg. Supporter groups in Austria and across Europe criticised the move heavily. The company also bought FC Liefering to serve as Salzburg's feeder club. Salzburg has since won the Austrian Bundesliga 14 times.

  Later in 2005, Red Bull purchased the MetroStars of Major League Soccer from Anschutz Entertainment Group and renamed the franchise. The sale delayed the groundbreaking on the team's planned stadium by a month. Red Bull paid for the new Red Bull Arena, which opened for its first match on the 20th of March 2010. It is now known as Sports Illustrated Stadium.

  In 2007, the company set up a lower-division team in Campinas, São Paulo, called Red Bull Brasil. It aimed to reach the top Brazilian division within ten years and failed. In March 2019, Red Bull took over Clube Atlético Bragantino, then in Série B, and renamed it Red Bull Bragantino. The team won the 2019 Série B title and reached Série A for 2020.

  In June 2009, Red Bull bought the football licence of SSV Markranstädt, a German fifth division club near Leipzig. It became RB Leipzig for the 2009-10 season. The company set a target of the Bundesliga within ten years and beat it, winning four promotions in seven seasons to join the top flight for 2016-17. RB nominally stands for RasenBallsport, meaning Lawn Ball Sports, which gets around corporate sponsorship restrictions. Some fans have protested the club, though it has won the DFB-Pokal in 2021-22 and 2022-23. It reached the UEFA Champions League in 2017-18 and 2019-20, the latter run ending in a semi-final loss to Paris St. Germain.

  In ice hockey, EC Salzburg of the Austrian Hockey League was the first team Red Bull sponsored, in the 1987-88 season. The company acquired it outright in 2000 and renamed it Red Bull Salzburg. In 2012, it became title sponsor of EHC München in the German DEL, and took full ownership the following year. It also financed the team's new arena, SAP Garden.

  The pace picked up in 2024. In January, Austria's Federal Competition Authority announced Red Bull's planned purchase of a 51% controlling interest in the owner of the cycling team BORA-Hansgrohe, and approved it on the 29th of January 2024. The team's manager, Ralph Denk, said the foundations of the partnership were now officially in place. He called it "the green light we've been waiting for".

  In May 2024, Red Bull bought a minority stake in Leeds United and became its principal shirt sponsor. In August, it took over the Japanese side Omiya Ardija from NTT, its first Asian club. In October it announced a future minority stake in Paris FC. In January 2025, it became main sponsor of Atlético de Madrid until 2027. In August 2025, it completed the purchase of the English rugby club Newcastle Falcons. The company has said it is interested in baseball, though no purchase has been made official.

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