Dietrich Mateschitz

Austrian billionaire Dietrich Mateschitz, the co-founder of energy drink company Red Bull, has died. He was 78.

German league regulations prevented the company from naming the team Red Bull Leipzig — its name in German, RasenBallsport, means “grass ball sport Leipzig” but the club just refers to itself as RB Leipzig. Red Bull operates soccer teams in top divisions across Austria, Germany, Brazil and the United States. Red Bull says Mateschitz worked on the formula for three years before the modified drink was launched under its new name in his native Austria in 1987.

Dietrich Mateschitz, who became Austria's richest man peddling Red Bull to the masses and harnessing the popularity of the energy drink to build a ...

Dietrich Mateschitz, who has died at the age of 78, was deliberately a man of mystery.

He said, when KTM in 1989 was in bankruptcy, he was preparing himself to buy it. In the Covid pandemic, he funded the Austrian GP to help keep the sport he loved afloat. In 2004, he and Heinz Kinigadner formed a non-profit foundation called Wings for Life. He was also active with a young driver programme which embraced Formula 2 and 3, but also sponsored racers and teams in many other categories. "Money was never a driving force for me,” he once said in a rare interview. When Peter Sauber decided to sign Kimi Raikkonen for 2001 instead of Mateschitz’s preferred driver Enrique Bernoldi (as he was keen to penetrate the Brazilian market) their relationship faltered, and after considering Arrows, at the end of 2004 Mateschitz bought the Jaguar team from Ford and named it Red Bull. It also helped that Germany and France initially banned the drink, which served only to increase interest in it and, of course, demand for it. He agreed a partnership with Chaleo Yoovidhya, the son of a poor Chinese immigrant who had been born in Siam in 1932, to market the drink worldwide. When the plan failed to materialise for Mercedes to take over the Sauber-Mercedes team, for whom Wendlinger drove, it made sense for Mateschitz to step in to support Peter Sauber’s efforts. Red Bull soon became very popular in Austria when launched in 1987, but that was only the start. That was the perfect marketing vehicle, not just because its global reach facilitated ever more dramatic expansion of Red Bull’s market, but because it also suited the ‘edgy’ youthful image that was so carefully crafted through other involvements in what were regarded as ‘high-risk’ sports, such as other motorsport categories, motorcycle racing, motocross, powerboating, hang-gliding, air racing and skateboarding. That was when, in Hong Kong in 1982, he came across a drink that locals said gave them an energy boost when they were tired.

The Austrian businessman was an enormously influential figure in Formula 1 as well as other sports.

He also owned the German hockey club Red Bull Munchen and owned a NASCAR team from 2007 to 2011, which earned two Cup Series victories with drivers Brian Vickers and Kasey Kahne while also bringing a young AJ Allmendinger to NASCAR. Red Bull would go on to become a world leader in the energy drink market, and the brand would also become heavily ingrained in sponsorship of extreme sports. Mateschitz would go on to partner with the drink's founder, Chaleo Yoovidhya, to form Red Bull in 1984.

(Reuters) -Dietrich Mateschitz, the Austrian billionaire founder and owner of energy drink company Red Bull, died on Saturday at the age 78 after a serious ...

Mateschitz was also the founder and owner of Red Bull Racing, a Formula 1 racing team based in Milton Keynes, Britain. He lived in Salzburg with his long-term girlfriend and once said years ago that he drank 10 to 12 cans of Red Bull a day himself. He associated the Red Bull brand with adventure sports like surfing, mountain biking and cliff diving with the company eventually involved as a sponsor in a lot of them. The group achieved a turnover of 7.8 billion euros in 2021 and sold 9.8 billion Red Bull cans worldwide. market at the end of the 1990s. One year later, together with the Thai entrepreneurial family Yoovidhya, he founded Red Bull GmbH, in which he held a 49 per cent stake.

Team principal Christian Horner has hailed the founder of the energy drinks company as 'an incredible man who loved Formula One'

“It is with great sadness that we learned of Dietrich’s death,” said Red Bull team principal Christian Horner. Red Bull driver The Austrian billionaire, integral in Red Bull’s involvement in Formula One, had been battling a long-term illness.

Mateschitz not only helped the energy drink become popular around the world, but also built up a sports, media, real estate and gastronomy empire.

German league regulations prevented the company from naming the team Red Bull Leipzig – its name in German, RasenBallsport, means "grass ball sport Leipzig" but the club just refers to itself as RB Leipzig. Red Bull operates soccer teams in top divisions across Austria, Germany, Brazil and the United States. He was incredibly proud of the team, incredibly proud of everything we've done and have been achieving, and he's been a passionate supporter and the backbone of everything that we do." Verstappen started in Red Bull's driver development program and became the youngest driver in F1 history to start a grand prix when he started with the junior Toro Rosso team at age 17 in 2015. Red Bull also has contracts with hundreds of athletes in various sports and a deep driver development program to get racers to the top level. Red Bull says Mateschitz worked on the formula for three years before the modified drink was launched under its new name in his native Austria in 1987.

Austrian billionaire Mateschitz was co-founder of energy drink company Red Bull, which says it sold nearly 10 billion cans of its caffeine and taurine-based ...

German league regulations prevented the company from naming the team Red Bull Leipzig – its name in German, RasenBallsport, means "grass ball sport Leipzig" but the club just refers to itself as RB Leipzig. He was incredibly proud of the team, incredibly proud of everything we've done and have been achieving, and he's been a passionate supporter and the backbone of everything that we do." Verstappen started in Red Bull's driver development program and became the youngest driver in F1 history to start a grand prix when he started with the junior Toro Rosso team at age 17 in 2015. Red Bull operates soccer teams in top divisions across Austria, Germany, Brazil and the United States. Red Bull also has contracts with hundreds of athletes in various sports and a deep driver development program to get racers to the top level. Red Bull says Mateschitz worked on the formula for three years before the modified drink was launched under its new name in his native Austria in 1987.

Dietrich Mateschitz, co-founder and owner of the Red Bull brand, has died at the age of 78.

Asked what Verstappen’s recent title win would have meant to Mateschitz, Horner added: “Well, thankfully he got to see that. That’s what he did here in F1, proving that you can make a difference. What a great man – he’s few of a kind.