The Trump Effect on Sports; New Anti-Doping Crises; Cyclocross; Growing Financial Disparity Between Teams; One Cycling Rumors Resurface ...

Key Takeaways:

● Trump’s Potential Impact on Sports

● New Anti-Doping Crises to Open the Year

● Cyclocross Developments

● The Growing Financial Divide Between Teams

● One Cycling: The Rumors Resurface Again

The BBC took a look this week at what the coming Trump presidency might imply for international sports. In general, sports are likely to become more politicized; recall, for example, Trump’s beef with the NFL during his first term, his continuous criticism of athletes who protested in favor of racial justice, and the refusal of various championship teams – notably the Golden State Warriors – to even attend invited White House victory ceremonies. The new President will likely utilize soccer’s 2026 World Cup and the Olympics to promote his political agenda, with the World Cup “handing the president even more global spotlight” as it coincides with the country’s 250th birthday. The U.S. will host the World Cup along with its neighbors Mexico and Canada – both of whom the incoming President has already threatened with massive trade tariffs. Immigration restrictions may impact certain U.S. sports leagues, particularly soccer, and World Cup fans may have difficulty traveling between events. Trump’s hyper-focus on transgender participation in sport as a cultural flashpoint in the recent election indicates that this narrow issue will be used to legitimize the undermining of trans and minority rights more broadly. (However, just as we’ve argued on the other side of the issue, this probably only suggests that a handful of trans women will be barred from competing in high school and college sports. As recently pointed out by Representative Bobby Scott of Virginia, there are currently 32 transgender athletes competing in college sports – a lower number than the 45 lawmakers on the relevant House oversight committee.)

In other sports, influential golfer Rory McIlroy has suggested that Trump might be able to finally resolve the on-going controversy – and potential merger – between the PGA and LIV Golf, given his close relationship and connections with the Saudi government structure involved behind LIV’s creation. Indeed, under Trump, the expanding Saudi investment and participation across a wide variety of sports – including potentially cycling – seems likely to be provided with additional political support or tailwinds. Given Trump’s apparent fondness for Russian leader Putin, it also seems likely that Russia may wiggle its way back into broader acceptance in the international sporting world – even after its blatant and documented doping scandals of recent years. In summary, we should also remember, as we noted earlier, that almost 95% of campaign donations from sports moguls and owners went to the Republican party. This “suggests those in charge of domestic sport are largely content with Trump…”

The anti-doping firestorm around the Chinese swimmers early last year – many of whom became medal winners at the Paris Olympics just months later – reignited to start off another year of heated controversy. An investigative report detailed the inner workings of the IOC and how it uses WADA’s powers as a proxy political tool to bully signatory nations into agreeing with whatever formal (or informal) demands the Olympics set for these partners. Key revelations show that a World Aquatics official was subpoenaed in relation to the China case, which quickly went up the IOC and WADA chains of command and caused a flurry of retaliatory moves including a threat to re-award the Salt Lake City 2034 Winter Games and to deny confirmation of a prominent U.S. official to the IOC -- unless the U.S. reaffirmed its recognition of WADA as the “supreme” authority for sports integrity. While U.S. and SLC 2034 committee officials did so under duress at the Olympic convocation prior to last summer’s Games, privately, those same officials stated that in the interest of time this was all for show and done only to obtain the SLC award without delay.

The IOC may have overplayed its hand if the reporting is taken at face value. There were no viable alternatives for the 2034 Games at the time, and given the IOC’s inability to coax bids from new host cities, the threats toward the 2034 Salt Lake City organizers were likely hollow – due to the lead time, and the challenges of finding any alternate hosts willing to front the enormous costs. WADA’s code may have been sport’s integrity guardrails for the last 25 years, but the Rodchenkov Act – which allows Federal investigators to open criminal cases when doping and other types of sports cheating impact competition in which U.S. athletes compete – can potentially put athletes, IOC and WADA and other sports governance officials in jail. Hence, the IOC’s desire for independent control of international sports (plus the monetary windfall of that effective monopoly) has finally crashed into the reality that doping and any related cover-ups are actual crimes that bear a legal consequence. With U.S. investigators still at work on the China case, and the IOC’s demands that U.S. Olympic Committee and Utah politicians work to repeal the Rodchenkov Act all but forgotten according to the article, we encourage sports governance and business observers to keep a scorecard as the controversy unfolds.

Cyclocross has been in full swing since October, particularly in Belgium where the X20 and Superprestige Series and many of the most coveted UCI World Cup events take place – and the availability of World Cup live feeds on UCI’s YouTube channel has been a bright spot for fans worldwide. While the men’s competitions were in a holding pattern pending arrival of several road racing stars to join the fray, the women’s racing has yielded some of the most balanced and exciting outcomes – an observation also synonymous with women’s road cycling in recent years. Riders like Ceylin Alvarado, Lucinda Brand, Puck Pieterse, and World Champion Fem van Empel have been slugging it out weekend-in and weekend-out, and each rider has taken at least one win or more. In particular, Brand and Pieterse have shown consistency and improvements to fitness and technique which place them above former World Champion Alvarado’s level, and nearly on-terms with current champion van Empel. The Dutch are by far the strongest overall nation in women’s cyclocross, and while some competitors like Zoe Backstedt (Great Britain), Inge Van Der Heijden (Belgium), and newcomer Marie Schreiber (Luxembourg) are showing strongly, the upcoming Dutch national championships (January 12) may indicate who will make its World Championship team – and who might wear the sport’s next rainbow jersey.

On the men’s side, Mathieu van der Poel rejoined the starting grid at the Zonhoven World Cup and proceeded to reel off five straight wins, including the Zonhoven, Gavere, and Besançon UCI events. Much of the season was defined by the current crop of Belgian riders, including Michael Vanthourenhout and Eli Iserbyt, but the arrival of Van der Poel reset the entire order and flow of the racing – the wide gulf between his fitness and CX skillset and those of his contemporaries was in plain view by the middle of lap one at Zonhoven and Gavere. Only the late arrival of Wout Van Aert – who rejoined the starting grid at the smaller Azencross event and has since won at Gullegem and the UCI event at Dendermonde – has tempered the sentiment that everyone else is racing for second place when Van der Poel starts a CX race. While he may be the strongest in this generation, Van der Poel appears to have limitations this season in muddier events when running in inclement conditions disrupts the continuity of his superior pedaling output. On the other hand, Van Aert appears to be the heaviest he has been in years – perhaps as the result of down-time from his 2024 injuries – but the added bulk hasn’t detracted from his CX showings so far given his technical skills. It remains to be seen if he’s done enough to make selection for the Belgian national team, but if he arrives in Liévin (France), it could lead to another MvdP vs. WVA showdown.

In spite of all the difficulties facing the continuity of cycling teams and races, there is one notable bright spot in American bike racing; the Cynisca women’s professional team is kicking off its third year in the peloton and has signed Specialized as their bike sponsor to begin 2025. The bike brand will operate alongside existing partners Shimano, Pearl Izumi, Enduro Bearings and other sponsors. As was the case last year, the team will be based out of a service course in Saint Martory, France, at the foot of the Pyrenées. With eleven riders from the United States, Ireland, Canada and Belgium, the team will race a full schedule of European UCI road races. We have to give credit to the Cynisca team for putting together a competitive, development-focused team to face a new season when many other independent programs have struggled or folded in recent years.

The growing financial divide between teams has never been more of a factor in rider destination as pro cycling’s transfer season wraps up and the biggest available names settle in new teams. The second-division Lotto team, which lost co-sponsor Dstny for 2025, has seen multiple mid-contract riders like Maxim van Gils leave for richer deals from the sport’s far better-funded super-teams. Similarly, other strongly funded second-division teams like Tudor and Q36.5 have used their superior finances to sign high-profile riders like Julian Alaphilippe (Tudor), Marci Hirschi (Tudor) and Tom Pidcock (Q36.5). With the going rate for the top riders continuing to increase at a rapid pace (Pidcock, who has five pro road wins in his career, is reportedly making about $6.3 million per year in his new three-year deal), it will only become more and more difficult for teams that don’t have the backing of wealthy sovereign states or passionate ultra-high-net-worth individuals to continue in the sport.

In this vein, a recent deep dive by the Huddle Up newsletter highlights that Formula 1 was recently having a similar issue, with teams losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year. The historic McLaren team was forced to sell off assets, including its headquarters, to make payroll, and was within a month or two of bankruptcy. However, the sport is now booming in popularity since its takeover by US-based Liberty Media, which in 2021 introduced a $145 million per year team cost cap (not including the salaries of the team’s three highest paid employees; the cap was later reduced down to $135 million per year). Teams have gone from hemorrhaging cash to turning a profit. And, most importantly, franchise values have skyrocketed, which has given team owners an incentive to continue to invest in their teams, since they will be able to recoup their investment when the time comes to exit the sport – plus a healthy profit. Considering that cycling team stakeholders almost always exit the sport with nothing to show for their years of massive investment, it isn’t clear how long the middle-to-lower tier teams will be willing to stick around in the current “winner takes all” format. F1’s unique example of cost cap success could be a creative, and most realistic, solution to the UCI’s recent explorations with a hard salary cap.

Rumors about the seemingly on-again, off-again One Cycling reform project were stoked by a new report in the Escape Collective, suggesting that the reform initiative may once again be on the verge of a public launch. Although the report is light on independently verifiable facts and timelines, it suggests that the project includes seven top teams (Visma-Lease a Bike, Ineos Grenadiers, Lidl-Trek, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, Soudal-Quick Step, EF Education-EasyPost, and Picnic-PostNL), will incorporate Velon’s existing infrastructure, and that it is close to securing €300 million in investment from SURJ Sports Investment, a subsidiary company of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF). While many observers agree wholeheartedly with the general premise behind One Cycling, many have been skeptical that it will ever really get off the ground. (Coincidentally, this story comes from the same source that some fifteen months ago suggested on the RadioCycling X account that a takeover by the Saudis was imminent and would “revolutionize and change cycling forever.”) Obviously, these types of investments can take time, often years, to be formulated and finally come together – although in contrast, LIV Golf launched quite suddenly in 2021 with $1.5 billion from the PIF, and with virtually no advance notice or news leaks.

Looking beyond these bold claims, how One Cycling might eventually unfold or actually look like in the future is much harder to piece together. UCI president David Lappartient has said it would never support a breakaway league, even though the sport’s governing body would welcome outside investment. And ASO’s Christian Prudhomme has directly signaled, via dismissive public comments, that his organization has no interest in such a venture. Indeed, virtually every reform movement that has ever been mentioned, proposed or formulated for pro cycling eventually runs into the brick wall of ASO’s de facto monopoly. Hence, under even an optimistic scenario, One Cycling may be limited to an organization which could pool certain TV rights sales, event support, and branding for non-ASO aligned events like Flanders Classics races (CEO Tomas Van Den Spiegel is a prominent advocate of the project) and the independent Tour de Suisse. While much needed, this type of venture might only provide an incremental revenue increase and struggle to return on its investment. The most substantive news in the report might be that the UCI plans to reduce the current number of WorldTour calendar races and add 14 new top-tier events for the 2026 season. This could mean significant legacy events will be on the chopping block, and a partnership with a potentially cash-rich One Cycling group could be critical for their continued survival.