Merger Mania Much Ado About Nothing; Serious Questions Raised; Coverage of the Gravel Worlds; Glasgow Losses; New Doping Positives
Key Takeaways:
· Jumbo-Soudal: Much Ado About Nothing?
· Failed “Merger” Raises Many Questions
· Controversy Around UCI Gravel Worlds
· Glasgow Losses Tabulated
· Will Road and Gravel Racing Eventually “Merge”?
· Concerning Doping Positives in South America
It is still not clear what transpired during the past ten days of “will they, won’t they” merger overtures between the Jumbo-Visma and Soudal-Quickstep teams, but the outcome has left most cycling observers scratching their heads at best, or already publicly pillorying the participants at worst. But the key point is – despite plenty of speculation in the media – we still don’t know what actually happened, or why. A week ago, one of the primary principals, Patrick Lefevere, essentially confirmed the deal, with a formal announcement apparently imminent. When there was no announcement Monday, and then nothing on Tuesday, doubts began to creep in. Then, toward the end of the week it was reported that the whole deal was off. It now appears that the proposed “merger” – which turned the cycling world upside down for a few days – was much ado about nothing. But to what end, and who would have benefited?
Rather than trying to speculate or analyze in the absence of reliable information, we would just highlight several key questions regarding what may have happened, or what the driving forces might have been. Presumably, some of these details will eventually emerge as the smoke clears.
1) Did Jumbo-Visma’s management initiate the idea – and try to effectively grab Soudal as a sponsor – because they truly couldn’t find sponsorship money anywhere else? There has been much hand-wringing about current economics and the sport’s financial future, and it may actually be true that one of the most successful teams ever couldn’t find a sponsor to replace Jumbo after 2024. But why would the team have started the discussion if, as it appears at the current moment, they actually do have the funding to compete next year?
2) Did the Soudal company initiate the idea, with the hope of sponsoring an historically successful team, and promoting a combination structure that would please the principals of both teams – despite the fact that it could be detrimental to a lot of riders?
3) Were the teams’ two bike sponsors – Specialized and Cervelo – somehow involved behind the scenes? For example, did Specialized perhaps make a play to supply its bikes to Jumbo-Visma via a combined team? Is it possible that complaints from Remco Evenepoel’s camp this summer made Specialized worried that they would lose the superstar in the off-season, while a combined team might have assured Evenepoel of support for his grand tour ambitions? Reports that Cervelo parent PON is now putting up more money to support J-V next year suggests that there may have been some competition to be the team’s bike supplier.
4) Did the public and social media outcry about the deal actually influence the outcome? After many observers concluded a few weeks ago that social media pressure may have influenced Jumbo-Visma’s competitive strategy at the Vuelta, could the same type of pressure have been a factor here? Most business deals like this are kept strictly confidential, but this one was apparently leaked to the highly-reputable Wielerflits website before it was completed. Would someone have had a reason to leak the information, hoping that negative public opinion might torpedo the deal? Was one of the parties getting cold feet?
5) What role, if any, did the reported Amazon “media deal” with J-V for 2024 play in the process? The nature of this supposed partnership – now apparently off – is still very murky, if it was ever even accurate at all, but could it have driven other sponsors to disrupt the deal?
6) What role did the UCI’s somewhat threatening press release a week ago – warning the teams about their contractual obligations – play in the protagonists’ thinking? Although the teams would presumably have been well aware of their responsibilities, could the tone of the UCI note have given rise to second thoughts? (Not directly related, but another a puzzling question: why did the UCI state that if the merger went through there would only be 17 WT teams in 2024 and 2025 – unlike in the past when licenses have changed hands? Such a move would have benefited only one party – ASO, which would have potentially been able to invite another of France’s second tier UCI Professional teams to the Tour de France as a result.)
Regardless of where the truth lies, the whole affair is not a good look for cycling. In just ten short days, the affair highlighted and possibly confirmed many of the sport’s governance and financial vacuums: a true lack of sponsorship dollars, attempts to restructure (some would say “steal”) sponsorships deals, sponsors themselves initiating team disruption, a lack of strong controls in the professional sport’s organizational structures, and the possibility that riders and staff can be stranded high and dry at the very end of the season – even if they have a valid contract in hand.
Despite the seemingly endless uncertainty surrounding the futures of the Jumbo-Visma and Soudal-QuickStep teams, one certainty is that Primož Roglič, Jumbo-Visma’s veteran ace, will be heading to Bora-Hansgrohe for the 2024 season. The length and size of the contract, as well as Roglič’s reasons for leaving the team, are still unclear, with Bora boss Ralph Denk only saying the deal is for “more than a year” and only rumors suggesting that there was a buyout fee of €3 million and an annual salary of nearly €6 million. However, it seems certain that even at that eye-watering price, Roglič is a solid addition for Bora. The team has pieced together impressive grand tour GC results in the last three years without top-tier talent (three top fives and a win at the 2022 Giro d’Italia). It has undoubtedly noticed that the sport’s biggest races are becoming winner-takes-all competitions – a fact underscored by all five monuments and all three grand tours in 2023 being won by a member of cycling’s Big Six – Van der Poel, Van Aert, Pogačar, Roglič, Vingegaard or Evenepoel – or one of their teammates. As a result, a situation is evolving in which there is almost no asking price too high.
Some reporting has suggested that Jumbo’s team tactics, which saw them back Sepp Kuss late in the recent Vuelta a España, contributed to Roglič’s departure. However, considering Roglič’s age, the salary he can command, the fact that he is still strong enough to lead a team at the Tour de France – along with the presence of Jonas Vingegaard on Jumbo – it seems that this was an amicable parting of ways where each side recognized the mutual benefits of moving on. For his part, Remco Evenepoel claims he is staying at Soudal-QuickStep, but at this point, it seems prudent not to believe everything we hear. After all, with Zdeněk Bakala reportedly wanting to minimize the amount of money going into the team, it will be difficult for Evenepoel to ever have the necessary grand tour support to challenge for a Tour de France title.
The weekend saw the running of the second annual and much-hyped UCI Gravel World Championship; unfortunately, the headlines were focused not so much on the respective winning rides of Matej Mohorič and Kasia Niewiadoma, or the beautiful and challenging course in the Veneto region of Northern Italy, but more on the race’s promoter, the UCI, and its baffling decision to not provide a live broadcast of the Women’s race before passing the blame onto local organizers. Of course, providing a live broadcast of a men’s race but not a women’s is indefensible in 2023, and it is difficult to comprehend why the UCI didn’t make live broadcasts for both (or none) a requirement for their local organization partners. Additionally, while the U.S. is a large and growing market for gravel events, the UCI failed to provide a legal broadcast of the men’s race in the American market. The UCI has been trying to elbow its way into the gravel scene since at least 2019, and gravel insiders mostly feel the agency doesn’t really understand the discipline. A decision like this reinforces the idea that the UCI misunderstands the appeal of gravel, which at its core is based on inclusion.
On the other hand, the race lacked the “blink and you’ll miss it” excitement of this year’s edition of Paris-Tours, a tradition of the European road race calendar that has incorporated well-placed gravel sections in recent years, and which ran simultaneously to the Gravel Worlds. The UCI Pro Series race was won by young American Riley Sheehan, a 23-year-old stagiaire on Israel-Premier Tech who, just months ago, was riding criteriums for the NCL. Once again, two events running concurrently further highlights the lack of strategic thinking behind the UCI race calendar. But it also raises the question of what exactly defines a gravel event versus a road event, with the TroBroLeon, Strade Bianche, Antwerp Port Classic, and Paris-Tours all fitting into a similar mixed terrain course design. Is it possible that the two disciplines are so similar that they will continue to move toward each other and eventually merge – with road cycling slowly incorporating the best portions of top gravel events – and hence keeping gravel from becoming a full-blown standalone discipline like cross-country mountain biking?
As we first reported back in August immediately following the Glasgow World Championships cycling festival, the event was likely to end severely over-budget to the detriment of its public funding sources. At the time, a figure of £10 million over cost was touted by reliable sources in the Scottish press, but this has been revised to a no-less shocking £8 million ($9.8M) gap. The original funding allocation of £30 million provided by the Scottish government had already been revised to £36 million by the time final event planning was in motion, and some £60 million in combined investment was estimated to have been spent in total to run all of the UCI races and related events. However, the impact to public funding sources has earned the most scorn, given that the overrun was announced just days after more than £10 million in cuts to the country’s Creative Scotland and related arts and culture budgets were disclosed by the government. Many prior editions, including the well-received 2017 Bergen (Norway) event, have gone into the red or outright bankrupt due to a variety of planning factors and the general lack of broadcasting revenues to drive immediate returns. But as we stated prior, the benefit of a World Championships is often realized years later after short-term economic pains; the event often showcases a geographic region’s business and tourism opportunities to facilitate investment and economic growth, offsetting the initial investments over time.
This week – in the midst of suggestions that even a team as big and successful as Jumbo-Visma needs to get more cash to compete – we heard renewed demands for a budget cap in cycling. But, as we have commented frequently in the past, money is not the only thing that matters in pro cycling. And this is true in other sports as well. As reported last week, the top three teams in Major League Baseball – in terms of payroll – didn’t make the playoffs, but two of the bottom four teams did. “This certainly shows that it’s difficult [for teams] to buy a ticket to the postseason ….. There are more than just spend-money ways to have consistency over 162 games.” The same is true in cycling.
Buried beneath all the recent merger hysteria was unwelcome news that 39-year-old Argentine professional Juan Pablo Dotti tested positive for the long-lasting EPO blood booster CERA (at the Glasgow World Championships. In and of itself, this finding would be unremarkable, as yet another aging pro rider attempts to prolong their career – even at the ProContinental level – in an increasingly youth-oriented sport. But there may be other factors in this case that are important for anti-doping authorities. First, CERA's signature is easily detected in anti-doping tests, and hence, positive tests have been rare, except it seems in Central and South American cases. One reason why may be related to EPO’s economic history: in the early 2000s, the medication was scrutinized by U.S. Congressional committees due to vast gray market diversion and reselling. Millions of doses of Amgen's original blockbuster EPO version, Epogen “Alfa,” that were near expiration or had expired were surreptitiously repackaged, relabeled as one kind of EPO or another and resold, often leading to patient harm. What may be happening again is that CERA deadstock is being similarly relabeled and resold as Alfa in under-regulated markets – and Alfa is the most covered by dopers because it is almost undetectable when carefully micro-dosed. Dotti’s CERA positive (and eleven positives at the 2018 Tour of Costa Rica) follows a pattern where athletes and their enablers may have been duped into thinking they’d procured the right kind of EPO but were actually using another. While we hope athletes are getting the message with each successive positive test, doping is an ever-evolving landscape.