Breakaway League (again)

iainf72

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0 ... eries.html

So, they're going to create new races globally. Just like the UCI does and people complain about that. But this time the teams get some of the revenue.

sherer

sounds like scare mongering to me about like the F1 breakaway league from a few years back. This is aimed at 2014 so basically it's a message to the UCI saying do what we want or we will leave. No one really wants to setup a new league a they don't have the classic races for that but it's trying to force the UCI into giving the teams more revenue.

rick_chasey

Indeed. Sabre rattling.

Unfortunately, like in most cases of sabre rattling, one side isn't particularly rational or logical.

andyp

sherer wrote:

sounds like scare mongering to me about like the F1 breakaway league from a few years back. This is aimed at 2014 so basically it's a message to the UCI saying do what we want or we will leave. No one really wants to setup a new league a they don't have the classic races for that but it's trying to force the UCI into giving the teams more revenue.

The UCI only have one revenue stream at the moment; tv rights to the Worlds. If teams want a share of tv money then they are going to have to get it from the rightholders to the major events, which mainly means ASO and RCS rather than the UCI.

The teams could try and circumvent that by setting up their own series but does anyone really think 10-14 four day races with the same format is what fans want to see? I don't, for me one of the attractions of cycling is the variety of racing on different courses.

rick_chasey

The teams are getting ahead of themselves.

What makes cycling are the races. The race owners dictate everything, since they have THE assets.

It's not like the premier league where without the clubs there is no league, or formula one, where without Ferrari and McLaren no-one cares.

We care about the races - the races that have been tuned, honed, and tweaked for decades and even over a century in some instances.

Riders may be big - teams may be big, but only because the big races give them the platform to be so.

sherer

so far the only team linked to this is Radioshack anyway and with one of their sponsors leaving at the end of the season that team could fold before this gets a chance to get off the ground.

The UCI could reserve a space on all the Pro Tour Team jerseys and then sign a global sponsor and distribute money that way.

Forgot about the ASO having TV rights and none of that going to the teams, in some ways this needs the UCI to think about the money side from the ground up

LangerDan

The biggest stick the UCI hold in this is the power to revoke the licences of any of the breakaway riders - and possibly suspend or revoke the licences of any non-breakaway rider found racing with them. This would force race organisers to side with the UCI ( and therefore have events without several of the top teams) or the league (where there would be races with some of the top riders but an overall field of probaly less than 80 - 100 riders)

Its all pre-negotiation posturing.

Possibly interesting aside: The Supervisory board of Rothschilds has sitting on it for the past 3 years, one Martin Bouygues (as in Bouygues Telecom). The Bouygues group owns a major holding (43%) in the French comms company TF1. TF1, in turn, own all of Eurosport. So the money men have control of one of the main "global" cycling carriers

Pross

I know it's not what is proposed but surely there is nothing stopping a rival set up holding a race on exactly the same course and Flanders, Roubaix etc.?

inkyfingers

Roubaix might be tricky as I don't think all of those cobblestone roads are public rights of way.

You also have to remember that a lot of money has to change hands for these races to happen and local councils etc will only close roads and provide policing if there is going to be a benefit to them or the community, be it financial or cultural.