Pog's Main Rival is the UCI; Continuing Dismantlement of Amateur Athletics; Can Road Racing Only Thrive in Europe? Should Team Principals Moonlight as Commentators?
Key Takeaways:
● Good Course Design Keeps the Giro Interesting
● Pogačar’s Main Rival is the UCI
● More on Regional Sports Networks
● Dismantlement of Amateur Athletics: Olympic Implications
● Can Road Racing Only Thrive in Europe?
● Should Team Principals Moonlight as Race Commentators?
Tadej Pogačar entered the Giro first rest day with a commanding lead; the gap between Pogačar and the rest of the field has isolated Geraint Thomas in third place – closer in time to Jan Hirt in 10th place than to Pogačar. But, even with a likely Pogačar procession unfolding over the next two weeks, the race has been exciting to watch so far – partly due to perfect weather that has showcased the Italian landscape but also thanks to thoughtful course design by RCS. The 2024 route has proven nicely balanced, with climbs on the sprint stages creating thrilling pursuits between the breakaway and sprinters inside the final few hundred meters and softer mountain stages keeping the gaps relatively close. This means there are a large number of riders still in contention, at least for the remaining podium steps. RCS has sometimes had a reputation for being stuck in the past and slow to innovate, but this Giro course has been a good illustration of how thoughtful course design can mesh with modern racing to minimize boring transition and sprint stages, and make nearly every day a must-watch event.
Up to this point, the biggest obstacle standing between Pogačar and a Giro victory has been the UCI, the sport’s governing body. After Pogačar won the second stage last Sunday and slotted into the race’s iconic pink leader’s jersey, he raced on Monday’s Stage 3 in an RCS-issued skinsuit that featured the pink jersey with dark purple shorts – which were meant to pay homage to the Torino soccer team that had perished in an airplane crash exactly 75 years earlier. This two-tone skinsuit apparently angered the UCI race commissaires so much that they warned UAE that Pogačar would be disqualified if he raced in the outfit again – even though he was simply wearing what he was given by the race (and the skinsuit technically being in compliance with the UCI’s own rules). The next day, Pogačar, looking to avoid disqualification, wore a standard pink jersey with black shorts, and finally on Friday, Pogačar was able to don the multi-colored skinsuit for the time trial. The fact that the UCI would even threaten to throw one of the sport’s biggest stars out of the race without first checking with RCS, highlights the persistent dysfunction between regulators in the sport, even over such a mundane issue. Too often it seems that the UCI is at odds with races and riders, instead of working collaboratively to promote the sport.
The dismantling of U.S. regional sports networks has levied a big financial hit on sports teams which relied on Diamond Sports Group to deliver live game broadcasts to their fans. Diamond’s bankruptcy reorganization yielded two major recent lessons in the global broadcast licensing space. Multi-carrier cable contract pillars like those which Diamond built its business upon are no longer viable, and although Diamond renegotiated its arrangement (and rates) with Charter Communications, it failed to do so with Comcast. Comcast’s games are out of the revenue equation, which is suppressing team spending on players, stadium improvements, and other marketing initiatives. However, Diamond’s pending partnership with Amazon could open some new revenue channels as games begin appearing on the streaming giant’s platform, albeit at reduced rates than what the teams may be able to secure had they simply streamed the content themselves – something which is prohibited by the contracts held by Diamond! Revenue suppression is a paradox which affects many sports like pro cycling, which have a similar regionally-split broadcast delivery modality: the license holders are ultimately responsible for the reach and revenue success of the content (as was the case with GCN+ before it folded), and when that breaks down, growth is essentially held in check because local fans can’t access – let alone economically purchase – the action in real time.
A cycling case in point would involve the recent women’s Itzulia Tour. While fans have been delighted with the action and storylines of the Giro d’Italia, almost nobody got to see three brilliant stages of the women’s tour around the Basque country – a race which captivated fans of men’s racing just a few weeks ago, and which (via the horrendous crash) has rewritten the entirety of 2024’s WT narrative. Coverage was not available in North America, had limited availability via Discovery and Amazon elsewhere, and 3-minute summaries on YouTube did not do justice to Demi Vollering’s emphatic solo on stage 3 and overall win in a top-tier WWT field. While the solution may seem to be content consolidation and universal streaming access, not everything is that simple. Disney admitted as much when it released its current earnings report showing that its flagship sports streaming service, ESPN+, is losing subscribers. The intersection of increasingly higher sports media rights, technology investment, and consumer dissatisfaction with ever-increasing streaming subscription costs will likely define the future of sports content availability – and undoubtedly impact pro cycling’s revenue future as well.
Team EF Education EasyPost CEO Jonathan Vaughters joined the GCN Eurosport team as a commentator on the Giro over the weekend, which he also did for a few days last year. Vaughters has a deep knowledge of the sport as a long-time racer, team manager, and former AIGCP President, and over the years has provided perceptive and nuanced suggestions for how to improve and guide the sport forward. His interesting (if sometimes provocative) insights or hot takes inject a liveliness to the commentary, something which is often lacking in cycling, and he has clearly nurtured a chummy relationship with GCN, who refer to him as an “outspoken supremo” on its website. But others question if it is appropriate for a team manager to commentate live on an event where their own athletes are competing – sometimes opining on the background or attributes of his own and other teams’ racers. While it is common in cycling and most other sports for team officials to be interviewed during live events, we can’t think of too many instances where the team manager is factually commentating; offering analysis and opinion that fans or even rival teams could capitalize on or be misled by – information that could, for example, affect wagering odds. Imagine Jerry Jones joining Jim Nantz in the commentating booth to call a Cowboy’s game, or GCN inviting Patrick Lefevere to jump in as a commentator. (A related drama unfolded in the NBA earlier this season when Doc Rivers, in his role as a commentator, may have lobbied from that position to secure the head coaching job in Milwaukee.) Team managers like Vaughters could clearly add interesting perspectives in the broadcast booth, but could this practice veer into territory where there may be potential conflicts of interest?
Is road racing a sport that can only survive in Europe? With the earlier cancellation of the 2024 Joe Martin stage race in Arkansas, and last week’s postponement of the Maryland Classic, the sport is clearly continuing to struggle in the U.S. Meanwhile, it’s pretty healthy in Europe: Netflix is about to release Season Two of its Unchained series, Red Bull has just purchased a WT team (BORA-Hansgrohe) and the women’s side of the sport is doing very well, with the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift and a Paris-Roubaix event. So, does this imply that athletes from places like North America, Australia and Asia will have to mostly relocate to the continent in order to build a career in road racing? Will cycling ultimately be like American football, which basically only exists at the elite and professional level in one country? One director of an American UCI team suggested that it’s actually less expensive for the team to attend a block of races in Europe than the U.S., because UCI races must cover all travel and entry fees for a team – an advantage not shared with non-UCI races in North America.
There are many reasons that men’s road cycling is suffering: competition from gravel races, the rise of Zwift, Strava and other online platforms that provide competition, escalating costs of putting on races, growing popularity of women’s racing and changing consumer tastes. Although the U.S. hosts the world’s largest grass-roots bike racing league – the NICA high school MTB series, with 35,000 participants – there may only be a few hundred junior road racers across the entire country. Compare that to sports like football and track and field, which each have over 1 million high school participants. Considering all of these factors, it is important to note that new USA Cycling racing licenses are actually increasing somewhat over the last two years, so it is too early to predict the demise of road racing in America. Nonetheless, serious concern is definitely warranted.
The ongoing saga of challenges to the NCAA’s “amateur” student athlete model has taken several new turns, all of which favor athlete interests. An antitrust lawsuit filed all the way back in 2020 – bolstered by other high-profile cases which already established the illegality of many NCAA policies – is heading towards an out of court settlement which could funnel billions of dollars of damages to former collegiate athletes, and force schools into revenue sharing with current athletes. A possible settlement could avoid further precedent towards dismantling the amateur student athlete designation, and fiscally speaking, would avert a massive tripling of any antitrust case award. However, this would not stop other concurrent legal cases from forcing the NCAA to re-designate athletes as employees, opening the door for athlete collective bargaining similar to professional sports leagues. In the big picture, with each successive case supporting athletes, the amateur model – which is also central to the IOC’s charter – is being dismantled. With so much precedent being established, how long will it be before a case with direct impact to Olympic policy and revenue streams is filed in an internationally recognized court? World Athletics is already trying to stay ahead of that curve by awarding its Olympic medal winners a small share of its reserves, but at this point such moves may only delay the inevitable. in global elite sport – especially cycling – there’s really no such thing as an amateur.