Champions League Shuttered; UCI Expands Grand Tour Size; the Conundrum of Pirate Cycling Feeds; More Info on the Growth of Women's Sports; How the Bicycle Improved Human Genetic Diversity ...

Key Takeaways:

● Champions League Shut Down

● UCI Expands Grand Tours, Ignoring Safety Issues

● More Long Distance Solo Wins

● The Difficult Conundrum of Pirate Cycling Feeds

● More Evidence for the Growth of Women’s Sports

● The Bicycle and Improved Human Genetic Diversity

Recent news that the UCI and its broadcast partner, Warner Bros. Discovery had shut down the track cycling Champions League series was not a surprise, given the challenges of organizing and staging the events and its middling audience metrics over the four years that it ran. In an earlier AIRmail Issue, we compared the UCI’s YouTube channel performance for its cyclocross World Cups against the Champions League events, and noted that several individual cyclocross races had more views than the entirety of the Champions League. While not scientific, this indicates the UCI is investing much more into developing and pushing its CX products, perhaps at the expense of its track cycling audience and athletes. A joint statement by the UCI and WBD explained that they would be refocusing on the concurrent Track Nations Cup and rebrand this as the Track World Cup starting in 2026, with the hope that track cycling will continue to grow leading up to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. In the short term, there will be fewer international track meets, but one wonders if the continual changes to the format is a more critical long-term problem. Some have suggested a condensed 6-Day model run over a 3-night weekend, or even a tightly focused single night program as a better fit for broadcast production and fan attendance. Track cycling is an incredibly vital discipline for national federations because of the trove of Olympic and World Championship medal opportunities, and, more to the point, cyclocross is not even an Olympic sport. As one of the sport’s most reliable athlete development platforms – many road racing heroes started out on the track – we hope that the UCI gets it right next time.

Contradicting its earlier stance, the UCI announced plans this week to expand the number of teams participating in grand tours from 22 to 23. The previous number of 22 consisted of the 18 UCI WorldTour teams, the top-ranked two teams among the UCI ProTeams from the previous season, and two wildcard ProTeams, generally chosen by GT organizers from among their nationally-registered teams. The move was quickly panned by most observers, as (1) being contradictory to the UCI’s supposed focus on safety – raising the number of riders in the race above what had previously been determined as safe – particularly at a time when safety is one of the very top concerns on most teams and managers; (2) a cave-in to the influence and power of ASO, which wants to make way for more French teams to participate in its Tour de France; and (3) changing the rules for grand tour qualification in mid-stream, particularly for those teams at the top of the UCI ProTeam rankings. Although this rule change has probably been in the works or under consideration for at least several weeks, it marks the first major announcement by President David Lappartient after his crushing defeat last week in the race for the IOC presidency, and appears to be an unfortunate step backwards regarding his priorities and focus going forward.

The recent trend of riders soloing to win the top men’s races continued over the weekend, with Mads Pedersen launching a nearly 60-kilometer flyer for his second consecutive Gent-Wevelgem victory. The same thing happened on Sunday with Primož Roglič riding clear at the Volta Catalunya to take the final stage and seal the overall win. Pedersen, who tied the Gent-Wevelgem record for career wins with three, highlighted his standing as one of the sport’s forgotten superstars by racking up his 50th career win (more than either Wout van Aert and Jonas Vingegaard) at the age of just 29. Meanwhile, Roglič, at age 35, reminded everyone that there are some exceptions to the oft-cited youth revolution, by deftly dismantling his young GC rival, UAE’s 22-year-old Juan Ayuso, on multiple laps of the Montjuic circuit. These examples further underscored an argument that we have been repeatedly making: as the pace and intensity moves further and further from the finish line, it has created a revolution – with 16 out of the last 20 major one-day races (including monuments, Olympics & World Championships) taken via solo breakaway. The trend seems like it is here to stay, as the stronger teams and riders realize it’s in their interest to make the racing as hard as possible early on before launching their strongest rider off the front.

With the sport’s big two men of the moment (Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej Pogačar) taking a brief break prior to next week’s Tour of Flanders, Roglič and Pedersen had their opportunity to shine, and remind us that they are also elite racers. For example, Pedersen, at just 29, has a Road Race World Championship, something Wout van Aert lacks, and has as many career Tour de France stage wins as Remco Evenepoel and Mathieu van der Poel combined. And, in an age where young talent and the promise of future results are obsessed over, the 35-year-old Roglič just keeps winning – beating many highly-touted youths along the way. Over the last 24 WorldTour stage races he has finished (going all the way back to the spring of 2018), Roglič has 17 WT stage race wins (for an absurd 71% win rate), and has only finished off the podium four times (83% podium rate). Considering this is better than Pogačar's 66% win rate, he has to be considered one of the best stage racers in history to have not (yet) won the Tour de France. With the sport’s top teams scouring the earth for younger and younger prospects in search of the next great thing, Roglič’s continued dominance after turning pro at 27 years old should serve as a reminder that greatness isn’t always found in the most obvious places.

Volatility in cycling content availability and pricing – and the proliferation of pop-up pirated streams – are disrupting pro cycling’s broadcast situation to a new and alarming degree. Consolidation of content into higher-tier, higher-cost subscription packages has unfortunately incentivized “privateers” to distribute pirated feeds of a variety of races through different online services, and fans haven’t been shy to tap into this modern day “Pirate Radio” marketplace. This past weekend, the live feed of nearly every major race from the conclusion of the Volta Catalunya to nearly the entire men’s and women’s Ghent Wevelgem race were available on YouTube pop-up channels, much to the delight of many intrepid fans. On one hand, these feeds are a source of consternation for the broadcasters who have the licensing rights in certain regions. On the other hand, why are they so slow to file a channel and content complaint to have the feeds taken down before the races finish? Historically, the online service moves quickly to remove and scrub its content when the legitimate license holder or broadcast feed source files the complaint. However, given pro cycling’s convoluted licensing/regional structure, ascertaining the legitimacy of the complaint – i.e., who is actually damaged by the piracy – might be part of the problem. (It should be noted that most, if not all of the pirated live feeds were taken down by YouTube within hours after the races finished.) For the survival of the sport, it is important to solve this conundrum, because when fewer fans choose to access the live content due to subscription cost, the license holder can’t achieve ROI and sponsors receive less exposure to create engagement and marketing activation opportunities. In other words, it can constitute a downward “death spiral” for race coverage. It’s a difficult riddle to unravel, but in the short-term, it’s also guaranteed that if you search for your favorite races as they are underway, you’ll find them – for free.

Another new report from a reputable consultancy reinforces the theme that the revenues and economic opportunities in women’s sports are accelerating. This latest update estimates that the elite women’s sports market will reach an estimated $2.35 billion or more this year, representing a $470 million improvement over 2024’s actual revenue total (and more than a $1 billion improvement over the original ‘24 prediction). Of note was a statistically important 4% jump in revenues derived from broadcast licensing, which parallels a drop in live, in-person attendance that may be due in part to smaller current stadium capacity for many women’s leagues. Forgive us if we repeat ourselves here again, but women’s professional racing still represents the greatest opportunity to expand cycling’s audience globally, and the research is quantifying how this can be done – through broadcast hours, but also potentially through co-branding and collaboration with many other women’s sports, particular at the individual athlete level and through a myriad of sponsors who stand to benefit from the rapidly increasing reach of the elite women’s sports marketplace.

The humble bicycle got unexpected credit this week for its role in expanding marriage opportunities and increasing human genetic diversity. When the bicycle was first invented, some two hundred years ago, it enabled people to easily travel greater distances, and dramatically increased the number of people any given individual might come into contact with. Prior to its invention “the average distance between the birthplace of spouses in England was just one mile,” whereas after bicycles came into wider usage, they made it “easier for couples who lived further apart to reproduce.” According to geneticist Steve Jones in his book "The Language of the Genes" the bicycle was “the most important event in recent human evolution.” And also cited in the article, was Susan B. Anthony’s famous quote that bicycling has “done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.” Who knew?