TV Lessons from Baseball; Cycling's Top Salaries; The UCI Outdoes Itself Again; Pro's Closet Reopens, as Other Cycling Businesses Falter; Sports Owners Lean Republican ...

Key Takeaways:

●        What Can Cycling Learn from Baseball?

●        Top Cyclist’s Compensation Details Leak Out

●        The UCI Outdoes Itself – New Color Rules

●        The Pro’s Closet Reopens

●        95% of Sports Political Contributions Go to Republicans

Looking ahead to the future of pro cycling on live TV, the sport should examine the most recent strategic changes in Major League Baseball’s ongoing broadcast realignments – and contrast that to the loss of free-to-air Tour de France coverage in the U.K. market. MLB’s complicated regional sports network (RSN) partnership with FanDuel Network (formerly Diamond Sports Group - DSG) has forced many teams to either negotiate out of their broadcast contracts with the bankrupt RSN and find another subscription network or broadcast partner, or else accept lowered licensing fees. Three strategies have emerged: large market teams like the Atlanta Braves can use their leverage to become profitable financial anchors for FanDuel, while smaller market teams like the Minnesota Twins have cut ties and moved to MLB.com’s larger – but more diluted – content distribution platform. The third path is local network free-to-air TV with a mix of other games carried on cable and streaming via existing league contracts – as was chosen by three teams. The free-to-air mixed model is perhaps the most intriguing in that the often-high cost of RSN subscriptions was dissuading fans within the teams’ markets from tuning in; rather than risk reduced fan interest, some teams forecast additional revenue by increasing live game availability. The engagement algorithm might look different depending on the market and team, but – as seemingly opposed to pro cycling – MLB team owners understand the value of “free” to draw new fans into the sports narrative and increase the marketing engagement for long term financial value. As most of pro cycling’s content moves behind paywalls, the sport risks increased losses in subscribers due to cost and the aging-out of fans who lose interest in the encroaching “content desert.” Just how well will the mixed free/subscriber model work out for MLB in 2025? The lessons learned may help drive pro cycling forward.

Compensation of pro cycling’s top riders has traditionally been kept under wraps, but the past few weeks have provided fans with an interesting peek behind the curtain.  Remco Evenepoel reportedly returned to his Soudal-QuickStep team for 2025 with a new €5 million per year deal (including bonuses), and La Gazzetta dello Sport reported that Tadej Pogačar’s new deal with his UAE team is worth €50 million in the next six years, or €8.3 million per season – along with a stratospheric €200 million buyout, making it truly impossible for rival teams to pry him loose. Some of these figures may seem absurdly high, but, at least in the case of Pogačar, the compensation levels could actually be a deal. Outside of his raw results-scoring ability – which has seen him single-handedly outperform entire WorldTour teams – a recent disclosure from Colnago has shown just how much value he could be driving to his sponsors. For example, since Pogačar’s first career Tour de France victory in 2020, the historic brand has seen its top-line sales triple, with profit more than doubling since 2022. Even after taking into account potential “non-Pogačar” influences – such as Colnago’s acquisition by Abu Dhabi-based investment firm Chimera Investments LLC – these gains suggest that road cycling and the Tour de France in particular still generate by far the biggest marketing footprint, even compared to the rise of gravel and related events. It also illustrates that the old-school strategy of placing your product next to a winner is still the best way to increase sales, despite the intense focus teams put on building a social media presence.

In the rich tradition of closely regulating sock height, the UCI has outdone itself again – by issuing strict new rules regarding the allowable colors of team jerseys, saying in part that “teams shall be responsible for ensuring that their jerseys are sufficiently different from the leaders’ jerseys for the individual general classification leader’s jersey, points classification, king of mountain classification and youth classification in Grand Tours and events of the UCI Women’s WorldTour identified by the UCI." Given that those jerseys include the colors white, green, yellow and red, it would appear that several teams will have to change their jerseys substantially. And contrary to the UCI’s claims, it seems that this will make the already difficult task of identifying riders in the peloton even harder, as all teams will have to migrate toward more similar jersey colors. In the past, we have seen Team EF Education First alter its traditional pink jerseys for the Giro d’Italia, to avoid confusion with the leader’s jersey, or team Visma-LAB adjust its largely yellow jerseys for the Tour. But this new rule looks like it could affect several more teams in the peloton, including the largely white jerseys of Tadej Pogačar’s UAE team. We sincerely wish that the UCI could find its way to focus on a range of far more important and often pretty simple changes that would improve the safety, rather than just the appearance, of the sport.

In something of a surprise announcement, it was reported that The Pro’s Closet would reopen, with the backing of a new private investor. This comes just weeks after the company announced its closure, and a process of auctioning off inventory. And after it had reportedly raised nearly $100 million in private capital over the past couple years. The company’s troubles were attributed to the whipsawing market and demand for bicycles and related cycling goods during and after the COVID pandemic.  This is the second and most visible of such retail brand realignments in 2024, following the liquidation of the previously merged e-tailer businesses of Planet Cyclery and The Colorado Cyclist this summer – out of which a new Planet Cyclery online storefront emerged just two weeks ago.  The new TPC backer, a five-year-old entity called the Elshair Group, already has TPC listed on its website – along with a suite of other eclectic investments in olive oil, scented candles, body-building, yerba mate beverages, digital marketing assistants and a curated marketplace for exchanging boutique furniture.  Two previous TPC managers will run the new business. The new firm’s website indicates that it is independently financed with no external investors, and that “we're in it for the journey, not just the destination.” At first glance, it’s hard to see the synergy or connection here, but it will be interesting to see how the newly-refinanced company reenters the turbulent bicycle marketplace, and if more distressed retailers – or even manufacturers – choose bankruptcy realignments to shed debt and right-size in the face of lingering industry downturn pressures.

And on that observation, every week seems to bring more news underlining just how tough and turbulent the cycling market is at the moment. More evidence came this week from the British retailer Halford, which reported that a 25% year-over-year decline in profitability due to challenges in its cycling division. While the company indicated that it had increased its market share, it cited a report claiming that overall bike sales in the U.K. are down by almost one-third relative to pre-Covid levels. This comes on the heels of various bike manufacturers reporting profits down by as much as 50%.

An interesting story in The Guardian this past week reported that political contributions from sporting figures and sports owners during the just-concluded election cycle went overwhelmingly to Republican candidates. Sports figures gave a total of $132 million to political campaigns since 2020, with a remarkable 95% going to Republicans. However, drilling down in more detail, it turns out that almost two-thirds of that total figure came from just one individual – Miriam Adelson, wife of the late Sheldon Adelson – who purchased a majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks from Mark Cuban earlier this year. Adelson is one of Donald Trump’s largest donors and is also a very prominent supporter of the state of Israel. One of the other largest Republican donors was the relatively new owner of the Denver Broncos, Rob Walton (and the uncle of Tom and Steuart Walton who are active investors in various cycling-related properties.)

The recent 2025 Tour de France route presentation recently provided this past season's bookend, and its course will feature many historic climbs and a race structure that seems destined for record breaking climbing times on each of its summit finishes. With so many recent race-winning performances in the sport receiving scrutiny for exceeding what we thought we knew about athlete physiology, we might look to another stage from the Tour's storied past to potentially level set just how far training and racing have advanced in the present day. Join us later this week as we take another look at the legacy of the Lac de Vassivière time trial – which last appeared in the race nearly 30 years ago – and its potential to provide invaluable data that might shape the sport's future.