Cycling League
Comments
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What revenue?"Unfortunately these days a lot of people don’t understand the real quality of a bike" Ernesto Colnago2
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Apparently potential investors are being spoken to just now. Nobody commenting, but some company that was previously involved in F1 were mentioned.0
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Like motorsport, the World Tour should be run by one company/Promoter; they decide the races on it, the calendar, charge hosting fees, sell TV rights - and it all goes to the teams. In theory.....
In fact, we now see it with the MTB World Cup - ESO/Discovery/WB do everything....organise, promote, televise, etc
The problem is ASO, RSC, Flanders Classics wouldn't want to be subserviant to another 'organiser'/Promoter. So it won't happen.
All Road/ Gravel: tbcWinter: tbcMTB: tbcRoad: tbc"Look at the time...." "he's fallen like an old lady on a cruise ship..."1 -
There's still no revenue there. MTB doesn't have the same costs as road racing and formula 1 has huge sponsors and audiences."Unfortunately these days a lot of people don’t understand the real quality of a bike" Ernesto Colnago1
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Super League Triathlon have done something similar, I think the PTO have something set up as well.
ASO, RCS and Flanders classics have a monopoly on existing races, what if the new promoter creates their own races?
Issues with the UCI, but other sports exist with more than one governing body.
The current model needs to change, teams and race organisers need financial stability, not the heavy reliance on sponsorship we have just now.0 -
Nobody who has ever said this has ever come with a convincing argument for where this money should come fromroscoe said:
The current model needs to change, teams and race organisers need financial stability, not the heavy reliance on sponsorship we have just now.Warning No formatter is installed for the format0 -
At least they're looking at it and not accepting that this is the way it's always been. Chasing sponsors every 2 -3 years isn't a convincing way to be sustainable.No_Ta_Doctor said:
Nobody who has ever said this has ever come with a convincing argument for where this money should come fromroscoe said:
The current model needs to change, teams and race organisers need financial stability, not the heavy reliance on sponsorship we have just now.
Do you think it's a sustainable model?
How do other sports do it? Revenue sharing? Investors? TV money? Advertising? Sponsorship? Benefactors? Merchandise?
Teams changing names every 2-3 years is not helping, people can't identify with them.1 -
Other sports are better run, and not wedded to old tradition. They also bring in huge TV deals, have stadiums full of fans, merchandise, PR, etcroscoe said:
At least they're looking at it and not accepting that this is the way it's always been. Chasing sponsors every 2 -3 years isn't a convincing way to be sustainable.
Do you think it's a sustainable model?
How do other sports do it? Revenue sharing? Investors? TV money? Advertising? Sponsorship? Benefactors? Merchandise?
Teams changing names every 2-3 years is not helping, people can't identify with them.
Even people inside the sport think it's great how many fans turn up to the roadside, mountains..... and it's free to watch. No serious sport lets that continue.....
There was a discussion on CyclingTips about this 2-3 years ago; the general gist was that as powerful as the ASO are, they're pretty small in the world of sport - and if a major player was interested, they could blow them out of the water. Sadly, there is no sign of this happening.All Road/ Gravel: tbcWinter: tbcMTB: tbcRoad: tbc"Look at the time...." "he's fallen like an old lady on a cruise ship..."1 -
We charge you, the fan, to watch it, either at the roadside or on tv. Except that it's not feasible to charge road side spectators and whenever anyone makes fans pay to watch on tv, they don't stump up the cash.roscoe said:
Cycling has huge audiences, how do we tap into that more?gsk82 said:There's still no revenue there. MTB doesn't have the same costs as road racing and formula 1 has huge sponsors and audiences.
Some people seem to think that race organisers are creaming off huge sums of money for themselves, but only a handful of races make any money, and most of that is used to subsidise the shortfall from organising other races. There's definitely not an excess of free money sloshing about anywhere.1 -
You're missing the point - the MTB point is irrelevant. It's not just F1; MotoGP, MXGP, WRC and others work like that. In fact, the current WRC is hardly in rude health, but even they manage it. That is the model of how a road World Tour could work in theory....gsk82 said:There's still no revenue there. MTB doesn't have the same costs as road racing and formula 1 has huge sponsors and audiences.
One company sells TV rights around the world, instead of separate deals - and raises finance/revenue from races wanting to be on the World Tour. It's far too radical for a conservative sport like road cycling, so it's not happening.All Road/ Gravel: tbcWinter: tbcMTB: tbcRoad: tbc"Look at the time...." "he's fallen like an old lady on a cruise ship..."1 -
What's the point of a cycling league? To find out which team wins the season? Who cares?
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How do youraise finance/revenue from races wanting to be on the World Tour? The races cost money to stage, it's TV rights and sponsorship that pays for them.Warning No formatter is installed for the format0
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And direct government funding not requiring any justification in terms of a return.No_Ta_Doctor said:How do you
raise finance/revenue from races wanting to be on the World Tour? The races cost money to stage, it's TV rights and sponsorship that pays for them.1 -
Don't towns/local councils/regions pay to host races/stages?No_Ta_Doctor said:How do you
raise finance/revenue from races wanting to be on the World Tour? The races cost money to stage, it's TV rights and sponsorship that pays for them.0 -
Brian Cookson has weighed in on Twitter, this is his blog from a couple of years back on it
https://www.briancookson.com/blog/2020/6/28/a-new-economic-model-for-professional-cycling
Oh and while I'm here, Amaury (the parent company of ASO hade €550m revenue in 2022. ASO is reckoned to be about 40% of that, so €220 mill, give or take. ASO own the Tour, The Vuelta, Roubaix, Paris-Nice, LBL and a load of other races. They also own the Paris marathon, some golf and the Paris-Dakar rally. So only a portion of that €220 mill represents cycling, and that's by far the biggest chunk of revenue in cycling.
And that's revenue, not profit. Even if it was 100% profit, if we say cycling is 80% or so of the total revenue and all given back to the teams, then that's still less than 10mill per WT team - ignoring any pro teams that also need a slice from the races. Or the women's races that are also included.
ASO races (from Wikipedia):
UCI World Tour
Critérium du Dauphiné
Eschborn–Frankfurt
La Flèche Wallonne
Liège–Bastogne–Liège
Paris–Nice
Paris–Roubaix
Tour de France
Volta a Catalunya
Vuelta a España (alongside Unipublic)
UCI Continental Circuits
Arctic Race of Norway
Paris–Tours
Tour du Faso[citation needed]
Tour of Oman
Deutschland Tour
Tour of Saudi Arabia
Women's
Tour de France Femmes
La Vuelta Femenina
La Flèche Wallonne Féminine
Liège–Bastogne–Liège Femmes
Paris–Roubaix Femmes
Amateur & other
Tour de l'Avenir
Shanghai Criterium
Saitama CritériumWarning No formatter is installed for the format2 -
Corporate hospitality. Merchandise. TV rights. Image rights.0
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Just out of interest, are GCN still making a loss, if so, I suppose that does blow the fan paying stream away.
Perhaps I'm being naive about all of this, but it's worth looking at, the sport needs more stable income streams.0 -
Cycling sponsorship has a unique model that is very attractive to sponsors as they get to name the team. No other sport has that.
Personally, I think the main problem that cycling faces isn't due to it's business model, it's that most people who are running teams are ex-riders who have next to zero commercial experience, unless selling a race to a rival counts, who rely on patronage and their own name to attract sponsors.1 -
I agree with what you're saying about the unique sponsor model, however, F1 does also have that, to a degree. Alpha Turi are a fashion brand, Red Bull are a drinks brand etc.
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A few thoughts
1. Cycling isn't as popular as we think outside the really big races. Some races pay TV companies to broadcast footage.
2. A league system essentially requires the fans to forget about who wins individual races, and concentrate on who wins the overall title, otherwise nothing changes. Unlikely given the long history of the sport that that will happen
3. The TdF is by far the biggest race in terms of popularity. Without it a new 'league' would be at a huge disadvantage, and I can't see ASO giving it up
4. Charging spectators at the roadside is a non-starter and not just because of the logistics. Very few will pay to watch a few seconds of sport where many will have no real context of what's going on. Also you'd be very, very unlikely to see the key moment.1 -
It's the hammer series rehashed."Unfortunately these days a lot of people don’t understand the real quality of a bike" Ernesto Colnago1
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It's nothing like F1 - the same riders don't do all the races.
Do you think you are ever going to care more about which team wins the season than which rider wins PR? Or even which rider wins the season (if it's a very convoluted individual thing) rather than which rider wins the TDF?
What's the point of it?0 -
The biggest team comp in the current calendar is probably the Tour team classification, and lets face it, none of us have paid attention to that in the past few years except to be able to explain why Movistar are apparently chasing down some 56th GC ranked Bora riderWarning No formatter is installed for the format0
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Lots of knowledgeable, informed comments on here. Although I’ve cycled for over 50 years, I’ve only followed pro cycling since 2010. Everyday is a school day as they say.
Next question is what then do the teams that are discussing this expecting it to look like and how will it work? If it gets past the initial discussion stage, unlike the Jumbo\Quickstep non merger.0 -
That was a really insightful article by Brian Cookson. Made a lot of sense.No_Ta_Doctor said:Brian Cookson has weighed in on Twitter, this is his blog from a couple of years back on it
https://www.briancookson.com/blog/2020/6/28/a-new-economic-model-for-professional-cycling
Oh and while I'm here, Amaury (the parent company of ASO hade €550m revenue in 2022. ASO is reckoned to be about 40% of that, so €220 mill, give or take. ASO own the Tour, The Vuelta, Roubaix, Paris-Nice, LBL and a load of other races. They also own the Paris marathon, some golf and the Paris-Dakar rally. So only a portion of that €220 mill represents cycling, and that's by far the biggest chunk of revenue in cycling.
And that's revenue, not profit. Even if it was 100% profit, if we say cycling is 80% or so of the total revenue and all given back to the teams, then that's still less than 10mill per WT team - ignoring any pro teams that also need a slice from the races. Or the women's races that are also included.
ASO races (from Wikipedia):
UCI World Tour
Critérium du Dauphiné
Eschborn–Frankfurt
La Flèche Wallonne
Liège–Bastogne–Liège
Paris–Nice
Paris–Roubaix
Tour de France
Volta a Catalunya
Vuelta a España (alongside Unipublic)
UCI Continental Circuits
Arctic Race of Norway
Paris–Tours
Tour du Faso[citation needed]
Tour of Oman
Deutschland Tour
Tour of Saudi Arabia
Women's
Tour de France Femmes
La Vuelta Femenina
La Flèche Wallonne Féminine
Liège–Bastogne–Liège Femmes
Paris–Roubaix Femmes
Amateur & other
Tour de l'Avenir
Shanghai Criterium
Saitama Critérium
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It's such a shame he got out manoeuvred and ousted by a small town French mayor as UCI president, especially as Lappartient has delivered zilch so far.roscoe said:
That was a really insightful article by Brian Cookson. Made a lot of sense.No_Ta_Doctor said:Brian Cookson has weighed in on Twitter, this is his blog from a couple of years back on it
https://www.briancookson.com/blog/2020/6/28/a-new-economic-model-for-professional-cycling
Oh and while I'm here, Amaury (the parent company of ASO hade €550m revenue in 2022. ASO is reckoned to be about 40% of that, so €220 mill, give or take. ASO own the Tour, The Vuelta, Roubaix, Paris-Nice, LBL and a load of other races. They also own the Paris marathon, some golf and the Paris-Dakar rally. So only a portion of that €220 mill represents cycling, and that's by far the biggest chunk of revenue in cycling.
And that's revenue, not profit. Even if it was 100% profit, if we say cycling is 80% or so of the total revenue and all given back to the teams, then that's still less than 10mill per WT team - ignoring any pro teams that also need a slice from the races. Or the women's races that are also included.
ASO races (from Wikipedia):
UCI World Tour
Critérium du Dauphiné
Eschborn–Frankfurt
La Flèche Wallonne
Liège–Bastogne–Liège
Paris–Nice
Paris–Roubaix
Tour de France
Volta a Catalunya
Vuelta a España (alongside Unipublic)
UCI Continental Circuits
Arctic Race of Norway
Paris–Tours
Tour du Faso[citation needed]
Tour of Oman
Deutschland Tour
Tour of Saudi Arabia
Women's
Tour de France Femmes
La Vuelta Femenina
La Flèche Wallonne Féminine
Liège–Bastogne–Liège Femmes
Paris–Roubaix Femmes
Amateur & other
Tour de l'Avenir
Shanghai Criterium
Saitama Critérium2 -
You could charge some spectators for some things - like somewhere mountainside with a bar and a big screen or similar, or when you have finishes in stadia. There was something like that on the Angliru, and I was disappointed not to have a ticket... Mainly for the bar and the big screen, if you are standing at the roadside on a mountain stage it can be tricky having a good live stream so you just get riders coming past with limited context - I'd definitely have paid to be able to see a big screen as well.poweredbyidris said:A few thoughts
1. Cycling isn't as popular as we think outside the really big races. Some races pay TV companies to broadcast footage.
2. A league system essentially requires the fans to forget about who wins individual races, and concentrate on who wins the overall title, otherwise nothing changes. Unlikely given the long history of the sport that that will happen
3. The TdF is by far the biggest race in terms of popularity. Without it a new 'league' would be at a huge disadvantage, and I can't see ASO giving it up
4. Charging spectators at the roadside is a non-starter and not just because of the logistics. Very few will pay to watch a few seconds of sport where many will have no real context of what's going on. Also you'd be very, very unlikely to see the key moment.
You can't charge all roadside spectators though I agree, that's completely un-policeable for a start.1 -
Hospitality tents out on the route, like they do in Belgiumbobmcstuff said:
You could charge some spectators for some things - like somewhere mountainside with a bar and a big screen or similar, or when you have finishes in stadia. There was something like that on the Angliru, and I was disappointed not to have a ticket... Mainly for the bar and the big screen, if you are standing at the roadside on a mountain stage it can be tricky having a good live stream so you just get riders coming past with limited context - I'd definitely have paid to be able to see a big screen as well.poweredbyidris said:A few thoughts
1. Cycling isn't as popular as we think outside the really big races. Some races pay TV companies to broadcast footage.
2. A league system essentially requires the fans to forget about who wins individual races, and concentrate on who wins the overall title, otherwise nothing changes. Unlikely given the long history of the sport that that will happen
3. The TdF is by far the biggest race in terms of popularity. Without it a new 'league' would be at a huge disadvantage, and I can't see ASO giving it up
4. Charging spectators at the roadside is a non-starter and not just because of the logistics. Very few will pay to watch a few seconds of sport where many will have no real context of what's going on. Also you'd be very, very unlikely to see the key moment.
You can't charge all roadside spectators though I agree, that's completely un-policeable for a start.0 -
I wonder whether these events are viable long term or whether they are just getting by on working through someone's speculative initial investment.roscoe said:Super League Triathlon have done something similar, I think the PTO have something set up as well.
The World Triathlon Series is struggling for host cities for 2024. Rumour has it that cities will only volunteer to take on the costs if they have local council support and/or a large entry in the associated non-elite event. Sunderland hosted the UK round in 2023 - heavily subsidised by the council as part of an initiative to promote tourism - after Leeds declined to host it any more. Pressure on council budgets and reduced non-elite fields in the post-Covid / high inflation era have scuppered financing.
The Ironman series appears to be viable on a long term standalone basis, which it out to be as Ironman entry fees and merch costs are extortionate. (But the Weekend Warriors like the cache of being an Ironman, as would I if my body would take it!)
As far as a potential new cycling event goes, if someone has deep pockets then it will work, but otherwise, after an initial blaze of publicity, it would likely fade away.
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