Van Aert to Giro? The Cycling Media Can Do Better; Luke Plapp Transfer; CX Kicks Off with Controversy; Banner Year for Women's Sports; The Future of Gravel Racing ...
Key Takeaways:
● Van Aert to Giro Next Year?
● The Cycling Media Can Do Better
● The Luke Plapp Transfer, What It Says About Ineos
● Cyclocross Season Kicks Off with Controversy
● A Great Year for Women’s Sports
● How to Strengthen Gravel Racing
A report suggesting that Wout Van Aert would skip the 2024 Tour de France in favor of a leadership role at the Giro d’Italia (and building toward peak form for the Olympic Road Race and Time Trial) took center stage in cycling media’s on-going electric rodeo late this week. Setting aside all the vociferous debate whether this plan even made any sense, the massive gulf between (1) proof that this plan is real, and (2) the speed and breadth at which it was dispersed unvetted throughout the sport’s English-language media outlets was as remarkable as it was unsettling. Consider for a moment that the story’s sole reference originated from La Gazzetta (owned by the operator of the Giro d’Italia) – which has everything to gain by creating hype and external pressure on Van Aert and his handlers. It would be especially big news in Italy, if one of the sport’s most bankable stars selected its flagship race over the Tour. But few observers stopped to consider – as a fact check – that Jumbo-Visma won’t even start to plan its riders’ 2024 schedules until a mid-December training camp.
With this latest example in mind, and the on-going media hysteria and rumors suggesting cycling’s “next big thing” – it seems wise to take many of these stories with a massive grain of salt. Just in the last couple months, we’ve seen blockbuster stories like Amazon sponsoring Jumbo-Visma, Evenepoel’s pending transfer to Ineos, and the purchase of Soudal-QuickStep by Ineos. Seemingly unlikely stories like these often start with a big scoop which rapidly ricochets around the cycling media landscape and then abruptly fades away, ultimately never coming to pass. There also seems to be a tendency for many stories published in the European media to be taken at face value by English-language outlets – like the Van Aert story or last week’s ludicrous claims regarding Giro economic benefits – which then re-post the stories as though they’d been confirmed via press release. This also leads to more rumors or thinly-sourced stories being bounced around the sport. While some might say that such rumors are harmless, we worry that this kind of cycle can incrementally erode fan trust, damage sponsor relationships, and peel back the thin veil of stability that many teams have fought for years to maintain. Hence, we’d respectfully suggest that the cycling media needs to get better about sourcing and verifying its stories – and refraining from simply repeating the latest scoop without at least trying to verify its validity. That said, there’s at least one positive outcome from this week’s Van Aert hype: all the buzz around One Cycling and an impending takeover of the sport by the Saudis has faded, giving way to chatter about the sport’s great races, its greatest stars, and the potential for an exciting 2024 season.
Luke Plapp’s transfer to Jayco-Alula for the 2024 season has put his former team Ineos under the microscope – both for the fact that Jim Ratcliffe’s erstwhile super-team signed Plapp to huge unrealized expectations in 2022, and that it’s now on the verge of a second consecutive off-season where it hemorrhaged talent without re-stocking. Team owner Ratcliffe continues to apparently be preoccupied by his attempt to close in on a 25% purchase of the Manchester United Football Club. Meanwhile, he and the team’s former mastermind, Dave Brailsford, are both likely to be tapped to take over sporting control of Ineos’ new football project – and the cycling brand may suffer further. As things stands, Ineos will have had the biggest PCS points outflow of all the WorldTour teams for the second-consecutive season. Ineos’ biggest issue – outside of potential financial and sporting disinterest from Ratcliffe, along with a failure to sign rumored targets like Primož Roglič and Remco Evenepoel – seems to be its inability to develop young talent already contracted to the team. Even though they have established guns – like Tom Pidcock, up-and-coming talents like Carlos Rodríguez and Josh Tarling, as well as new American teenage sensation Andrew (AJ) August – a talented rider like Plapp failing to develop into a star and leaving after two seasons indicates that the road back to being a top-three world-beating squad appears longer and more difficult than ever.
The 2023-’24 cyclocross season is well underway, with a slew of smaller Belgian, Dutch, and U.S. races already on the books. But the season’s “official” kickoff was notable not just for the race winners – but also for the top riders who didn’t toe the start line. Mathieu van der Poel, Van Aert, and Tom Pidcock are each coming off long road seasons (and in the case of Pidcock, MTB as well), and have chosen to get into the World Cup fray later in the calendar, in order to be ready for the UCI World Championships next February in the Czech Republic. However, it was a tangential set of statements by UCI President David Lappartient and UCI competitive director Peter Van den Abeele that actually stole the cyclocross thunder. Both floated the idea that riders who skip World Cup events in favor of other series like the SuperPrestige (Belgium) or skip races altogether to rest, may jeopardize their eligibility to race in the World Championships in the future.
That disconnected sentiment, from the UCI’s highest offices no less, expresses yet another dysfunctional UCI calendar management problem. If we apply Lappartient’s logic to his new favorite discipline event – the UCI Gravel World Championships, in which literally a majority of the field raced exclusive road calendars, except for the Gravel World’s – the disconnect becomes even clearer. Should the UCI disqualify Gravel World’s winner Matej Mohorič for riding the Tour de France instead of Unbound? And does the UCI understand that skipping races shouldn’t be used as a context for exerting pressure on cyclocross’s star riders? One wonders if anyone in the UCI has noted the level of fan interest in any CX racing where WvA, MvdP, Pidcock and hot prospect Thibau Nys are not in the mix? Perhaps this should be a moment of reflection, to reappraise the sport’s professional calendars and make the adjustments which encourage and enable the best riders to be available at the best races – to continue to build the sport’s audience?
The Life Time Grand Prix 2024 participants were announced this week, with groups of 30 men and 30 women to contest seven different events for a share of $300,000 in prize money. The LTGP format of marathon MTB and gravel races has been viewed as the world’s premier series for the nascent sport of gravel cycling, but as the sport grows more international – including a UCI World Championship – can one U.S.-only series featuring mostly North American athletes truly lay claim to the top of the sport? Gravel racing (and to a lesser extent marathon MTB) has now taken off as a global discipline, with a growing list of events in Europe, Africa and Australia. While the LTGP features arguably the world’s most important off-road event, Unbound Gravel, it also contains newer and lesser-known events like The Rad Dirt Fest in Trinidad, Colorado and Big Sugar Gravel in Bentonville. Given gravel’s worldwide growth, would it make more sense to have a truly worldwide series that includes races with different owners beyond Life Time? Travel and visa challenges experienced by foreign athletes for the seven-month U.S. LTGP calendar meant the series skewed toward North American riders, and a global series would make more sense for broadening the competitive spectrum. As it stands now, without such diversification, LTGP is at risk of being eclipsed by the UCI Gravel World Series – leading to it being pigeonholed as a regional series that features mostly the same group of riders contesting the same events year after year.
Last week capped off a huge year for women's sports across the global landscape as tennis, golf, basketball, and soccer hit record milestones for viewership, ticket and sponsorship revenues, and record setting prize money payouts and media deals. Many of these achievements were put front and center by a privately-branded "Parity Week" marketing effort to bring attention to economic growth, equality, and the power of women's sports to inspire, inform, and shape consumer behavior. Even without that private campaign, record setting NWSL media numbers (online and traditional viewership) leading up to Gotham FC’s 2023 championship win and the NWSL's parallel announcement of a $240 million broadcast rights deal raised the sporting bar. That new media deal positions the league for greater exposure to capitalize on the sport's overall World Cup momentum and popular demand for wider NWSL game availability. A similar deal may be in the works for the WNBA.
Notably absent from the side conversations and analyses was any discussion of the continued – but still lagging – advancements in women's professional cycling, which is a shortcoming that the sport's stakeholders should be working harder to reverse in 2024. Rapid onset of change due to the Women's WorldTour expansion over the past few years has increased the popularity and demand for the sport's content in cycling's traditional marketplace, but a glaring lack of availability (or any production whatsoever) for racing broadcasts has proverbially kneecapped the growth potential. Underscoring the potential is the renewed focus being placed by sponsors – to be in position to capitalize on the momentum in cycling like that which was witnessed in soccer recently. Human Powered Health shifted its priorities from fielding men's and women's programs to doubling down, freeing its resources, and building up its women's team into what could be a top WWT contender in 2024. And that example may tip other sponsors – to add their investment, market insights, and strategic input. Collectively, such changes could further transform the sport's availability, popularity, and consumer demographics in future years.
And for our wrap-up feel good sporting story, we go back to women's soccer, and the emotional farewell of two of the U.S. national team’s most recognizable and inspirational players – Ali Krieger of the victorious Gotham FC and outgoing team captain Megan Rapinoe of the OL Reign. Both players have left a significant legacy in the sport, winning multiple World Cups and tournaments together, building up the NWSL along with the sport’s other stars, inspiring countless youngsters to pick up the sport, and providing flashpoint leadership for gender equality, and – especially Rapinoe – a voice for LGBTQ rights. The storybook matchup finale (although slightly dulled by Rapinoe’s in-game injury) was an indicator of the power and popularity of women’s sports today, and a beacon to guide other women’s professional sports, like cycling, to greater heights. We eagerly await the women’s coming season and its renewed rivalries.