All is Well at Jumbo-Visma; Progress Towards Broader Cycling Goals; Importance of Development Squads; Off-Loading Top Riders, Social Media Rankings at the Vuelta; IOC Questions
Key Takeaways:
● Plugge: All is Well at Jumbo-Visma
● Progress Toward Broader Cycling Goals
● Why Don’t More WT Teams Field Development Squads?
● Off-loading Top Riders
● Social Media Winners at the Vuelta
● New IOC Governance Questions
Despite all of the media hype and swirling rumors around Team Jumbo-Visma over the last few weeks, and handwringing over cycling’s weak business model and ubiquitous sponsorship challenges, team leader Richard Plugge told The Outer Line earlier today that there was never any risk to the continuity of his team. “We’ve known for quite a while that Jumbo would be scaling back after 2024, and fortunately we’ve had the time and opportunity to talk with various parties about coming in to replace them.” Plugge had conversations with a number of major brands, acknowledging that one of the options the team investigated was the discussion with Soudal-Quickstep. “That discussion didn’t work out for a number of reasons,” said Plugge. “One of the reasons was that after our discussions with the UCI, we found that there wasn’t a good solution for both teams; we didn’t want one team left in limbo.” Plugge said that the process ultimately led to both new and strong existing partners coming together to secure the future growth of the team.
When asked about whether public opinion and social media had influenced any of the team’s recent decisions, including its competitive strategy at the Vuelta, Plugge said, “That’s nonsense. We have a very strong internal culture in our team, and every decision we make leads back to it – does it fit with our culture, or not?” Plugge also confirmed that there is in fact “continuing interest” from Amazon, pointing out that the two parties are already working together, but he refrained from confirming the rumors yesterday that another subsidiary of PON group – Lease-a-Bike – would step up as the primary naming sponsor next year.
More generally, Plugge highlighted distinct progress toward some of cycling’s broader goals, saying that the AIGCP team’s organization (of which he is currently the elected President) has had productive talks with the UCI and organizers, and there is better momentum than in the past. The group is working in close concert with the key organizers to push key changes on the UCI during the next round of WT licenses in 2026 – including minimum and maximum budget controls. One of the specific outcomes of the efforts so far is the new SafeR program, creating an independent entity geared to improving the safety of road cycling. Also going largely under the radar in the “merger mania” and hysteria of the last few weeks, was the announcement that AIGCP and the CPA rider’s group have successfully negotiated a new Joint Agreement – cycling’s embryonic version of a collective bargaining agreement. Although the details are not yet public, Plugge confirmed that the agreement includes new minimum salary requirements and better insurance for the riders.
The emergence of dominant young riders in men’s pro cycling has forced teams to shift away from acquiring established riders in their peak years, and instead focus on talent identification and long-term investment in ever-younger stars of the future. It is therefore surprising that in 2023 only eight of the 18 WorldTour teams sustained an in-house development squad. In a recent and detailed analysis, The Inner Ring summarized the situation, noting that Ineos – still the team with the sport’s biggest budget – lacks an organic development program and has consistently missed on signing up-and-comers. There is a growing need for top teams to maintain fully integrated junior and U23 feeder programs, and it may be that the lesser-capitalized WT programs don’t have the resources to do so. If all this sounds familiar, we can thank European soccer’s top clubs for perfecting the model. Even if cycling doesn’t have soccer’s “transfer” infrastructure in place for teams to “sell” young talent as a commodity to sustain their enterprises, cycling teams are increasingly finding workarounds to monetize their most promising talents. For example, both DSM and Jumbo-Visma have let go of riders under long-term deals in exchange for contract buy-outs. Such deals can help fund in-house discovery, recruiting and development programs, which will, in turn, allow the team to find and sign the next top stars.
This past weekend featured a seemingly endless parade of professional-level races – and perfectly encapsulated how bloated, confusing, and disorganized the cycling calendar has become. Over a week after Tadej Pogačar’s impressive victory at Il Lombardia – the traditional bookend race of the season with any real sporting heft – the WorldTour calendar continues through today at the Tour of Guangxi in South China (once again won by Jumbo-Visma). In fact, overlap of the Tour of Turkey, the Veneto Classic, and Tour of Guangxi is confusing to all but the most plugged-in fans. Worse, it dilutes the intended mission of these late and often far-flung races – to develop the sport in new markets. And with almost no out-of-region broadcast coverage available, the opportunity to emphasize these market development races can’t be realized. The 2023 season saw some of the best riders of all-time throw down seminal performances at major events but is finishing on the down-note of a plaintive whimper. Sparsely attended events with little fan interest are yet another sign of just how much the elite racing calendar is in need of thoughtful revision and contraction.
The very public dispute between high-profile sprinter Caleb Ewan and his Lotto-Dstny team finally came to an end, with Ewan agreeing this past week to terminate his contract and return to Jayco-AlUla next year. Although Lotto has had a higher-than-expected level of competitive success this season, it has been seemingly plagued with a string of internal melodramas – and the Ewan episode suggests some possible lessons for off-loading expensive stars. While Lotto and team manager Stephane Heulot will certainly be happy to get rid of Ewan’s reported €2 million per year contract (even though they are rumored to be subsidizing some percentage of the contract for 2024), one has to wonder if this could have been better managed. Could the team have better preserved Ewan’s market value had it refrained from its scathing public criticism following his Tour de France abandon? After all, if a team manager wants – for whatever reason – to part ways with a highly-paid talent while they are still under contract, it makes no sense to publicly criticize them. This only suppresses the rider’s value, making it more difficult to offload the contract, reducing the potential for a monetary return on the rider’s transfer.
The social media research firm RedTorch recently issued a report covering social media engagement during the Vuelta, saying that the race “amassed 135% more engagements, 77% more new fans, search interest rose by 10%, and teams doubled their engagement on average compared to last year. The Vuelta thrived …” The group tracks engagement on the top five platforms – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok. Instagram was responsible for two-thirds of the total social engagements around the race, with the most posts coming on stages 13 (Vingegaard’s victory on the Tourmalet) and 21 (final stage into Madrid). A corresponding table ranked all the teams in terms of the success of their social media programs and Jumbo-Visma garnered 5.7 million engagements, with Ineos and UAE ranked second and third. Interestingly, ProTeam Caja Rural–Seguros posted a TikTok video five days before the start of the race, which eventually generated 4.3 million views, almost 50% more than any other team on that platform. Search interest was up in the U.S. by almost 50%, due to Sepp Kuss’s popularity as the first American to win a grand tour in ten years.
As the International Olympic Committee gathered in Mumbai for its annual meetings, reports began to emerge that various members were encouraging President Thomas Bach to consider running for another term – surpassing the 12-year limit now allowed, which would require a change to the Olympic Charter. Although he professed his loyalty to the charter (of which he is a co-author), Bach has not so far dismissed the proposal. A firestorm of criticism ensued – implying that if the IOC does not stick to its basic governance principles, there will be a breakdown in sports governance and controls across the board. Veteran observer Jens Sejer Andersen of Play the Game suggested that if Bach's term is extended, “hundreds of sports presidents at the national and international sports leaders will be inspired to follow suit, and the modest progress achieved in democratising sport will be in shatters.” This new controversy came hard on the heels of another dispute earlier in the week, when the IOC suspended the Russian Olympic body after it tried to include parts of eastern Ukraine under its sporting jurisdiction. Russia accused the U.S. of orchestrating the move, while IOC critics suggested it was a hollow gesture, given that almost all individual Russian athletes can still compete in Olympic events anyway.
And in other troubling Olympic news, investigative journalists obtained the annual salaries of key Olympic officers by acquiring the IOC’s mandatory U.S. tax status filings. Several of the officials were being paid between a half a million to a million dollars a year for seemingly low-ranking positions. Considering that a rank-and-file Olympic athlete must often work full time to make ends meet while training for the Games, the disparity between athlete support and what the officials are being paid flies in the face of the IOC’s official party line — that the athletes are the center of the organization’s mission. It remains to be seen what kind of fallout this additional information will lead to, but so far there has been almost no response from the IOC, which may be waiting for this and other recent bad news to blow over. All this as the supposedly break-even Paris 2024 Games inch closer to the opening ceremonies — with potential financial exposure despite Lausanne’s assurances.
Finally, another bizarre story went a little under the radar this week. Kaitlin Armstrong – charged in the murder of cyclist Moriah Wilson, her flight to Central America using her sister’s passport, and arrest and extradition – was widely covered in the mainstream media last year. This week, she tried to escape from Travis County, Texas sheriffs after a medical appointment. Remarkably, Armstrong was on the run for about ten minutes before being re-apprehended. This can’t help her case much, and predictably, when contacted by the local media, her defense attorney had no comment. After numerous delays, the murder trial is scheduled to begin at the end of this month, and – given its salacious twists and turns – will likely again start to attract broader mainstream media attention.