New Dan Friebe blog

iainf72

In case you missed it

http://www.bikeradar.com/blogs/article/ ... ntry-24566

Any thoughts? Are huge budget teams from non-traditional cycling countries the future, or even good for the sport?

phil s

I think we need to accept that bigger budgets and more "professionalism" are inevitable in most sports these days. Just look at Football plc. There's no escaping it. Now, is it a good thing? Well, it's good for the participants who are paid a salary that will help them plan for decent retirements - as long as they don't fritter their money. Is it good for the fans? I don't necessarily think so. We are now seen as potential consumers by these companies (I mean teams). I don't think we'll ever return to the innocence of days like these http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dA2zy0hLbs
As pointed out in Dan's piece there'll be victims along the way as teams who don't embrace change fall by the wayside.

The Prodigy

Bid budget teams good for the sport?

Catoosha - No
Sky - Yes

Maybe the sport will never look back, then again, some big name positives could see interest wain, sponsors pull out and huge holes in the sport.

The future is difficult to predict, but not with hindsight.

calvjones

if It's spent increasing domestique wages yes, attracting top talent with a consequent cycle of wage inflation and more financial risk for smaller teams trying to keep up, no.

Shall we look to other sports for a hint of which it might be?

mididoctors

might not work

reserving my judgment for latter in the year

will confess to a degree of unease but this may be a personnel bias

blazing_saddles

mididoctors wrote:

might not work

reserving my judgment for latter in the year

will confess to a degree of unease but this may be a personnel bias

Exactly my sentiments.....

iainf72

The Prodigy wrote:

Catoosha - No
Sky - Yes

Curious - why do you say that?

DanielFriebe

I'd like to think the "Old World" teams will shape up, Iain, and they're going to have to if they want to carry on attracting the kind of sponsorship that will keep them competitive. If not, if the current groundswell of interest in new markets like the US, the UK and Australia continues, we might well see a gradual but permanent shift in the balance of power. What's currently happening at the Tour, if not yet other races, carries echoes of how the European Cup then Champions League has changed in recent years. Gone, sadly, are the days when a Red Star Belgrade or a Dynamo Kiev or a Benfica could compete with the Real Madrids or Arsenals. Similarly, it's no longer any coincidence that neither France, Belgium nor Holland - or indeed any team hailing from those countries - has produced a Tour winner for well over a decade.

Having said all of this, perhaps I've been a bit hasty. The revolution won't happen overnight. We should certainly reserve judgment on Sky's potential on the road. They definitely don't have a roster that GUARANTEES success in the Tour, Giro or the Classics. I do however think that, increasingly, it's teams from countries with no real cycling heritage that are marketing themselves effectively to prospective sponsors, and we're increasingly going to see the effects of that in the big races.

Now watch, Quick Step and Omega Pharma will dominate Flanders and Roubaix, Pellizotti will win the Giro, Basso the Tour, Chavanel the Worlds, and I'll look like a complete buffoon...

mididoctors

DanielFriebe wrote:

Now watch, Quick Step and Omega Pharma will dominate Flanders and Roubaix, Pellizotti will win the Giro, Basso the Tour, Chavanel the Worlds, and I'll look like a complete buffoon...

yeah but its a win win..

if your wrong we all get a exciting unpredictable season

and if your right you can go "told you so"

turbo........ tedium awaits me

micron

I bet the PT teams are wetting themselves that they don't have a slick Twitter feed. Of course pumping loads of money into a team equals instant success - just look at Man City :roll: Confusing slickness and spin with the ability to get a job done is surely what happened with New Labour

I presume we will now be awarding the TdF to whichever team/rider has the best PR spin - let's just put Wiggins and Armstrong on the podium now, shall we? Not saying the sport can't innovate but there are an awful lot of assumptions being made about the success of Sky based on, um, their ability to blog well and give riders laptops. Unfortunately, as far as I know, the use of mobile phones and laptops is actually banned in competiition - it's a riders legs that push the pedals round, not his typing fingers.

And please tell me what RadioShack have raised except for the retirement age?

Moomaloid

Any investment into the sport has got to be a good thing. I agree that it would be good to see it bolster the wage of the domestiques. lets be honest if ever competitors in a sport deserved to earn more its in Cycling. I think this year is going to be a big learning experience for the sport.... exciting.

micron

I agree that there could be better remuneration for domestiques and indeed many support staff. But I don't agree that simply chucking money at a sport makes it necessarily more 'professional'. The assumption that the 'F1' model or the 'Premiership' model is the best for cycling, simply because it introduces more money into the sport and concentrates power in the hand of a very few superteams, is a dangerous one.

And, yes, I'm certain we'll see more of a 'peloton a deux vitesse' - in exactly the way the French mean that term.

skavanagh.bikeradar

It's a situation/prospect that probably fills most cycling observers/fans with equal parts dread and interest. The F1 and Premiership models should be rejected, they only work for the moneyed and powerful few. Weirdly an NFL, NBA model might be more appropriate, or Indy Car. We don't want 4 teams with all the money and riders boring us on the roads (and off them) while forcing everyone else to live beyond their means and bankrupt themselves, while reducing the number of events to a small overly hyped few. The Tour is already heading this way - a sort of media black hole, sucking everyone in and therefore ignoring the other events.

micron

Ariege (the department that contains Ax-3-D and Pamiers) has already said that this may be the last year that they can afford to host the Tour. Still, I'm sure Mr Friebe will love it when it's the 'Lance Armstrong Invitational Tour Day France sponsored by Sky' :roll:

blazing_saddles

I worry that all this new world cash is probably dependent upon the success of their riders.
My concern is that their current interest in our sport is "seasonal" and may dwindle, upon the reirement of certain, key individuals.

If we experience a transfer/wages explosion, over the next season or two, only for the big money to dry up...........

It's all well and good to cite the Tour of California etc, as the way to global expansion, but when you balance it out with the current status, or rather lack of, of the Tour of Georgia.

We cannot afford to see 3 or 4 utterly dominant, cash rich teams, sweeping the board, as SB points out, while smaller, Euro teams struggle to survive and hold onto their sponsors, as a result.

Is the long term future of our sport in safe hands, with such an elite and fickle group?

skavanagh.bikeradar

Perhaps not. However I don't think you'd find many people inside the sport or watching it that genuinely think that the 'old' way is good for the sport, especially for the riders. But if the events and the teams are run by a small cabal of wealthy organisations, then cycling will be taking steps away from it's heritage and toward Murdoch and his ilk. You can ask Coventry, Charlton, Leeds, Southampton, Portsmouth and even the hugely indebted Man Utd and Liverpool how that feels.

The only thing that might save cycling is it's complexity with different length stage races, monuments, classisc, semi-classics, bog standard day races, time trials, world champs etc - it's hard to come up with an F1 or Premiership model for that lot and that it is difficult to screen on TV as it goes on for hours and the finale doesn't guarantee drama. Perhaps we will have one day races that have bonkers finishing circuits especially for TV so the last 90 minutes are mental.

iainf72

The other thing with cycling is that history counts for a lot. It's virtually impossible to create a new event that captures the publics imagination. Look at the BR forum members luke warm response to the Tour of California, a nice race for sure, but if it wasn't around I doubt anyone would miss it.

I must say, the constant football language around team Sky (The Manchester United of cycling, etc) is a bit tedious. Why can't they just be the Sky cycling team?

Garmin are an interesting case. They've captured people's imagination without having a huge budget or being a win machine.

I've just finished reading Super-Freakanomics so I'm thinking the money injection will make a difference, but just not in a way anyone expects. Could be good, could be bad, we'll only know when it's happened.

Here's a question : Are Brailsford and Sky ready for Pro cycling and all it brings?

Kléber

Sport is a winner takes all environment, just as no one remembers who finishes second, yet alone 17th, the more money the sport attracts, the more the riders capable of winning will get a share of this. Wages for domestiques won't rise too much, unless they are the "super domestique" style of rider whose performances can make a big difference to another rider's ability to win.

Cycling's long had a simple tradition, it is a sport close to the public. No stadiums, no airs and graces. But it's changing, whether VIP zones at finish lines or team buses with tinted windows, riders are becoming "stars" and getting detached from the normal world. But it's still an interesting sport to follow and you can get very close to the action for free.

micron

skavanagh.bikeradar wrote:

Perhaps we will have one day races that have bonkers finishing circuits especially for TV so the last 90 minutes are mental.

TDU stage 6 http://www.tourdownunder.com.au/race/stage-6

Race Distance: 90km*
* Subject to live coverage with SBS

Guess the future is already here - well in Australia