More on Budget Caps; And More Questions about Race Commentating; the Real Costs of the WADA Crisis; On-Going Sponsorship Concerns; U.S. Nationals ...
Key Takeaways:
● More on Budget Caps, and Competitive Parity
● Further Questions on Race Commentating
● The Real Costs of the WADA Crisis
● Broader Cycling Sponsorship Concerns
● US Nationals Held in Charleston, WV
● Parallels From Motor Sports
We previously discussed the potential impact on cycling of new budget cap discussions ongoing in the English Premier League, and the migration of “American-style” competitive parity measures to more Eurocentric sports. However, a reader pointed out that the Premier Rugby Leagues in the U.K. and France have actually been operating under caps for several years. The U.K. salary cap was initiated in 1999, with the exact objectives which we discussed earlier: ensuring the viability of all clubs, controlling inflationary pressures on cost, and incentivizing a level competitive field. The rugby budget cap process has also survived legal challenges which were made on competitive grounds. The U.K. cap currently stands at £5,000,000 per team (France’s is slightly higher) with credits or adjustments for retaining homegrown talent, players absences or injuries, and one excluded player. It is a team cap and does not restrict individual salaries. It is managed by an independent director who conducts on-going monitoring and investigations. If a team exceeds the cap, they are subject to points deductions, financial penalties, revocation of past trophies or titles, or even relegation. We’ve not yet delved into the rugby situation in depth, but there may be some good lessons here for cycling. (Look for our Special Issue report, later this week, on alternative cap systems for assuring competitive parity – a project conducted in collaboration with Wielerflits.)
Tadej Pogačar leveraged the Giro’s “queen stage” on Sunday to magnify his GC lead over Geraint Thomas to a nearly seven minute stratospheric advantage – the biggest gap at this point in the race in over seventy years. Barring an accident, his eventual Giro win seems a mere formality. And, given what we know about the recoveries of the various other top stars from their injuries at the Basque country race several weeks ago, Pogačar’s audacious plan to complete the historically difficult Giro/Tour double appears more and more feasible. Pogačar and Lidl-Trek sprinter Jonathan Milan have also now accounted for almost half of the stage victories in the increasingly predictable race.
While the general suspense around the Giro has left something to be desired, the rotating door in the Eurosport race coverage has kept things interesting. After last week’s cameo from EF boss Jonathan Vaughters, the Eurosport crew welcomed current Ineos rider Luke Rowe to the studio for the last few stages, to give an insider’s view of the race. Rowe’s delivery and content are objectively good and undeniably add value to the program. However, in our view it once again sets up a potential conflict of interest and appears to toss out any presumption of general neutrality that fans may expect from a broadcaster. With Rowe’s teammate (and podcast co-host) Geraint Thomas sitting in second place overall, how can Rowe reasonably be expected to objectively grade the performance of his friends, teammates, or his bosses at Ineos? If he can’t, it raises the question of whether this provides coverage that is fair to other teams or to viewers who may not be aware of his day job. As if to push this potential conflict to the extreme, Movistar’s Nairo Quintana unleashed an expertly-timed attack on Sunday to contest the stage win (though he would be caught by Tadej Pogačar two kilometers before the finish line) – which could have put Eurosport in a very awkward position. Just a few weeks ago Rowe had called Quintana a “little f-ing rat” on his Watts Occurring podcast with Thomas (noted on social media, and later taken down) suggesting that Quintana shouldn’t be allowed to race at all. (Quintana tested positive for the painkiller Tramadol at the 2022 Tour de France – a relatively milder offense than some of the charges levelled in recent years against some of Rowe’s current/former teammates and team staff.)
The ongoing anti-doping crisis – sparked by perceived inaction concerning a cluster of 23 Chinese elite swimmer positive tests – has not settled down, and continues to cast doubts on the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) as well as its national anti-doping and international federation partners. The salient facts haven't changed – the athletes tested positive for a banned heart medication during a training camp at a hotel – and the tests were silently swept aside under questionable criteria; WADA contends that the charges would have eventually led to exonerations at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). Critics have confronted WADA's selective application of strict liability rules from which the crisis cascaded – the athlete is responsible for any amount of a banned substance found in their test sample and must be adjudicated via the usual process. Despite a hastily convened special WADA congress on the matter last Friday, increasing dissent from leaders like USADA CEO Travis Tygart has heightened tensions and mistrust surrounding the entire anti-doping system.
Lost in all of this disruptive churn are two parallel concerns which could threaten broader sporting integrity and economics: athlete trust in the system, and the intersection of public perception and sponsor interest. An increasing number of elite competitors are expressing dissatisfaction and doubts as to their own safety within WADA's circle of control, and continued degradation of public trust – especially in sports like cycling with heightened Olympic-year profiles – may suppress sponsor involvement where a sport's tarnished image could degrade the value of the sponsor dollar. Let's not forget that cycling was a primary catalyst for the modern anti-doping model; the longer all parties go down this path of accusations and excuses without an action plan, the more damage the crisis will cause for all of the stakeholders. There isn't much runway before the Paris Olympics begin.
Pro cycling may be showing off its most exciting racing of the season – especially via the exploits of its generational talents like Pogačar and Demi Vollering (who emphatically won the Tour of Burgos this weekend) – but there is a paradox quickly coming to a head during this Olympic year. In most Olympic cycles, sponsorship investment in sports like cycling trends to increase to capitalize on the opportunity to connect with new markets and audiences. This is due to the compelling personal and competitive storytelling which can be popularized via athletes and the sports in which they strive for Olympic glory. While this is happening for some sports this year, cycling sometimes appears to be on the outside looking in on all that potential cashflow. As mentioned, the recent U.S. national championships, which overlapped not only the Giro d’Italia, but also a new UCI 1.2 race in New York, flew under the radar for most fans. This unfortunate lack of visibility, community turnout, and aforementioned questions around the Olympic team selection criteria may blunt the potential value proposition for sponsors.
Cycling’s teams and events are heavily reliant upon sponsors. While we may hear more about the sport’s teams continually searching for sponsors, the same kinds of funding sources are being asked to cover the increasing costs to stage the existing events – and build up new ones to enhance the calendar and diversify the sport. Yet on both fronts, commercial sponsors are hesitant because cycling doesn't seem to have its marketing and broadcast reach defined clearly enough to secure the long-term investment commitments. The 2024 Olympic cycle may already essentially be over, but for cycling, there are some lessons to be learned and new strategies it can adopt for a changing sports sponsorship landscape.
In other racing news, the USA road cycling National Championships were held last week in Charleston, West Virginia (unfortunately running at the same time as the Giro d’Italia). The well-designed course provided quality racing and worthy winners – EF’s Kristen Faulkner won the women’s road race, while Sean Quinn took the men’s title. There were mixed reports regarding the crowd and how well the events of the week connected to the host region. One local newspaper said the city only expected an influx of two or three thousand people – but USA Cycling pronounced itself satisfied with the turnout and response, particularly given that this was the first running of the event in a new city in several years. Regrettably, the weekend’s events only received minimal coverage in the American cycling media – once again raising all the “chicken and egg” questions about the future of U.S. road racing, a topic we seem to return to regularly.
Perhaps the most talked-about story coming out of the event was the confusion around a rule which awards an automatic Olympic road race spot to the winner of the time trial. Thankfully, the men’s side was devoid of drama, with UAE’s Brandon McNulty taking the win to join the already-qualified Matteo Jorgenson, and one yet-to-be-announced third rider. However, the women’s process was thrown into potential disarray when Taylor Knibb, a professional triathlete who has already been selected to compete in the triathlon at the Olympics, was the surprising winner of the time trial – automatically grabbing one of the two slots allotted for the U.S. women’s road race team. However, The Outer Line understands that Knibb will voluntarily relinquish her spot in the road race, allowing the cycling federation to assemble the strongest team possible – probably with a rider already qualified for track events – while attempting to comply with complex and sometimes overlapping USAC, UCI and IOC participation rules.
On the subject of the Olympics, there are now growing concerns about the readiness of the Paris infrastructure, even though these games will make greater use of existing facilities than any other games in recent history. More than 75% of the venues for this year’s extravaganza – now just two months away – are existing stadiums or structures. Despite this, there is still reportedly a “mad dash” to get everything ready in time. Temporary facilities near the Eiffel Tower and Place de la Concorde are behind schedule and will require on-going construction work “up to the few minutes prior to events taking place in them.” The other major concern has to do with water quality in the river Seine – where long-distance swimming and triathlon events will take place. The river frequently exceeds various water cleanliness standards, due to the city’s archaic infrastructure – in which sewer and stormwater systems are connected. (When heavy rains occur, the city’s sewage treatment plants overflow and can’t handle the volume – and hence untreated sewage may enter the river.) July and August are normally fairly dry in Paris, so hopefully this won’t be a problem. In terms of cycling events, there is on-going work on the Port Alexandre III bridge, where the time trial event finishes, but that work will reportedly be finished in time for the events.
Two major storylines from motorsports which have direct relevance to pro cycling have caught our attention recently. First, in the IndyCar series, a huge cheating scandal involving turbocharger-suppression software – mandated for track restarts – ensnared the current Indianapolis 500 champion and likely the entire Penske team (which owns the Indianapolis motor speedway, and Roger Penske owns the entirety of IndyCar). While other drivers and teams were implicated, Josef Newgarden is bearing the brunt of the heat as his team owner has hired independent counsel to investigate whether the team’s constructor, GM-Chevrolet, was involved in the hack. If this “internal investigation” motif sounds familiar, it’s a similar containment strategy being used by WADA and World Aquatics in the ongoing Chinese swimming doping scandal. Could the outcome and impacts of the IndyCar scandal inform any potential future discovery of motorized doping in pro cycling? On the other hand, Lando Norris’s breakthrough win at the recent Formula One Miami Grand Prix partially disproved the notion that a sport dominated by a single athlete – the perpetually incredible Max Verstappen – is boring. In addition to record-high attendance and broadcast reach, the victory by Norris immediately changed the F1 narrative from, “everyone else is racing for second place,” to “anyone can rise to the challenge.” Pro cycling may have seen its narrative shift to the dominance of Pogačar in the short term, but similarly, we can expect star riders and their teams to rise to his challenge as well – just maybe not in Italy, though. The 2024 season is a long way from being over, or boring for that matter!