U.S. Bike Racers - Low Quantity but High Quality; Star Rider Salaries; Red Bull May Have a Conflict; Bike Commuting; Lessons From Basketball and Baseball
Key Takeaways:
● American WT Racers: Low Quantity but High Quality
● Learning From Baseball
● Top Rider Salaries
● Does Red Bull Have a Conflict?
● Urban Bicycle Transportation Challenges
● Lessons from the WNBA
The number of Americans competing in the sport’s top WorldTour tier has inched up to 13 this year, according to an annual review in our sister publication Beyond the Peloton. However, that is only a single rider more than the two-decade low of 12 that we saw last year; moreover, it is down significantly from the whopping high of 29 we saw in 2011. However – as evidenced both by both Sepp Kuss winning the Vuelta and some deeper number crunching – the U.S. is actually performing quite well. Specifically, the PCS Points generated per U.S. rider has gone through the roof and is at the highest point in modern history. In short, while the quantity of riders may be low, the quality is extremely high. The report suggests that the decline in absolute numbers can be at least partially attributed to the current lack of any truly American teams – which in turn causes the top riders to be dispersed throughout the peloton. In addition, American riders developing in lower tiers face greater competition on teams where there may be fewer open slots for foreign riders. By comparison, in 2010, there were 21 U.S. riders, all on just three U.S.-based WT teams (HTC, Garmin and RadioShack) while this year there are 13 U.S. riders spread over ten teams.
Observers often lament the difficulties of effecting much real change in a tradition-bound legacy sport like pro cycling. But many said the same thing about baseball just a couple years ago when attendance hit a 25-year low, and the sport’s popularity had dipped well below football or basketball. But, as everyone knows by now, baseball’s owners sat down and implemented a number of key changes last year – to speed up the game and make it more exciting. (The pitch clock, bigger bases, limited pickoffs and no defensive shifts.) As the Huddle Up newsletter recently delineated, Major League Baseball generated $11.6 billion in revenue this past year, up 15% from the year before, and game attendance was up almost 10%. Most of the changes were met with derision and annoyance by the older generation of fans, asking why fix something that isn’t broken, and who cares about new fans? But as the report says, “the league stuck to its guns, and the results were fantastic.” There are even some emerging reports that the sport may consider shortening its ludicrously long 162-game regular season, which has been in place for over 60 years. We’ve been hearing a lot lately about the mysterious One Cycling project …. What will it take to get cycling’s various owners and stakeholders to finally come together and effect these kinds of real changes?
A recent report in La Gazzetta dello Sport listed the salaries of the sport’s top stars. According to the article, Tadej Pogačar is the highest-paid rider in the sport, with a €6 million annual salary (along with a rumored €100 million buyout clause) while fellow Slovenian Primož Roglič trails behind at €4.5 million. Pogačar’s main Tour de France rival, Jonas Vingegaard, collects €4 million per annum, as does multi-discipline star Mathieu van der Poel. Behind them, Wout van Aert was estimated at €3.5 million per year, Remco Evenepoel at €2.8 million, Tom Pidcock and Adam Yates at €2.7 million, with Egan Bernal and Carlos Rodriguez both earning €2.5 million. These are interesting data points and would support the theory that teams are struggling to increase their sponsorship dollars as quickly as they’re paying out top wages to their riders. However, it begs the question of how exactly these “estimations” are being gathered – and just how accurate these numbers are, especially considering the complexity of typical contracts, which can lean heavily on incentive arrangements and bonuses. For example, one has to wonder if Vingegaard really earns €2 million less per year than Pogačar, whom he has just soundly defeated at two consecutive Tours. Various sources also attempt to publish estimated team budgets in the past as well. In the absence of any other more verifiable information, these figures tend to get spread around, repeated and then cited by follow-up articles as if they are the gospel truth. While these estimates probably do land somewhere close to the actual truth, readers should remember that – at best – these figures are just that: estimates.
In a recent blog posting about potential conflicts in pro cycling, veteran cycling commentator The Inner Ring discussed French lottery and gambling company La Française des Jeux's announcement of an attempt to take over the Swedish gambling company Kindred (parent company to popular online bookmaker Unibet). Since both companies are major sponsors and/or owners of professional cycling teams in the sport’s top two tiers – Groupama-FDJ and ProTeam TDT-Unibet – this deal could potentially put one or both of the teams in a tough spot. UCI rules state that no teams in the top two tiers of the sport can share a “link likely to influence the sporting course of events or to be perceived as so doing.” The UCI is clearly trying to avoid the situation where different teams might collude or act in each other’s interests during a competition on the road. While it might be unfortunate for the team that ends up having to find a new sponsor, this regulation seems straightforward and sensible enough.
However, the situation gets a bit more complicated when we consider the more ambiguous and unique case of Red Bull – which has just received approval to take an apparently controlling interest in the Bora-Hansgrohe team. There is universal agreement that major players like Red Bull coming into cycling should be a good thing for the sport. However, given that the company also sponsors individual high-profile riders like Wout van Aert and Tom Pidcock, we wonder if this new relationship might also run afoul of the same UCI rule. Put bluntly, it opens the possibility that it might be in Red Bull’s interest to do something like pressuring Van Aert or Pidcock to offer Primož Roglič subtle assistance in races, in exchange for an increase in the length or salary of their deal. Obviously, we aren’t suggesting that this will happen – just that it becomes possible. Hence, it will be interesting to see how the UCI handles this issue. If it takes a strong stance, Red Bull could be forced to funnel all of their road cycling funds into a single team. This might be bad news for folks like Van Aert and Pidcock, and it could also signal the arrival of another potential super team.
We don’t normally venture into the area of bike commuting, but something caught our eye this week that everyone should check out. The Lab of Thought, a movement to radically rethink mobility in Amsterdam – probably the world’s most cycling-friendly large city – put together a series of diagrams and cartoons underlining the often ludicrous effects of urban planning on bicycle transportation. “The dominant efficiency- and speed-based narrative of urban mobility limits our understanding of mobility phenomena and ultimately limits the effectiveness of our transport policy interventions and technological innovations.” The series of graphics is humorous and insightful, but it definitely strikes home; check it out here.
A new documentary on Sue Bird and her journey in the WNBA indicates that the women’s basketball league is turning a corner for revenues, media rights valuation, sponsorship worth, and ‒ with a new players’ collective bargaining on the horizon ‒ historic contracts. Sue Bird: In the Clutch, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, followed the final two seasons of the legendary player and also provided context for the league’s continued growth in popularity. A key point stressed by Bird is that the viewership and revenue metrics which picked up after the pandemic “bubble” did not slow down, and the prior CBA (expiring in 2028) is nearing the trigger point at which players can vote to pursue a new one as early as 2024. The league is already crossing the $200 million threshold for annual revenues, which could provide an additional $60 million or more for salaries under a sharing model. The continued evolution of the WNBA and NWSL have provided a kind of “proof-in-motion” as to the intersection of strongly negotiated athlete rights and the pressure that places on its league owners and administrators to trailblaze new revenue paths. And there is a lesson in these league successes for our sport. Cycling has always had the capability to take a similar path, but it has never materialized for lack of “league” cohesion and a weakly positioned athletes’ association. The lessons we can take from other sports, and in particular, women’s sports, are not insignificant and could inform the next steps in pro cycling’s sporting journey.
A new twist in Diamond Sports Group’s bankruptcy proceedings may have potentially saved the regional sports network in the short term, but in the long view, it may hasten the end of RSN cable broadcasting in the future. Amazon has taken a reported $115 million stake in the financially distressed broadcaster, with an option for a further $50M stake. The partnership shores up DSG’s operations for 2024, but in providing MLB, NBA, and NHL live sports content for Amazon, cable distribution contracts may start to be replaced with streaming-only options. The DSG/Amazon partnership could also prevent many teams from re-acquiring their media rights or pursuing their own distribution models. While fans in certain team markets might be adversely affected, the sports leagues are likely not going to force the issue – due to the revenue fees desperately needed to keep up with stadium initiatives and player salaries. As many league sports shift reliance from terrestrial TV to streaming, niche sports like cycling must also evolve. In this sense, RSNs are analogous to pro cycling’s fractured media model – where fans are often unable to watch races broadcast out-of-market. As we have repeatedly suggested, cycling will need to navigate towards content consolidation and coherent streaming subscription models that blend free and premium content; without that content consolidation and accessibility to derive value from global consumers, races which cut their own licensing deals are likely to lose profitability through reduced market reach.
And to close with a feel-good moment …. the Texas Christian University women’s collegiate basketball team suffered a storm of injuries to its starting players, forcing the Division 1 school to forfeit two key games due to its inability to field a complete team. Rather than go down without a fight, the team held open tryouts on campus for “walk-on” players and selected four additions to the team – who didn’t just come out to play, but to win. The Horned Frogs won in their first game back as a full team. While we don’t expect a men’s or women’s WorldTour team to suffer a potentially decimating team time trial crash right before the Tour de France, maybe it doesn’t hurt to keep your form sharp for early July … just in case you get the call-up from a desperate Directeur Sportif.