Fantastic piece, Joe. I couldn't agree more about the fragility of the Women's WorldTour. I'm glad you included Natascha's perspectives and highlighted her efforts to build better foundations in women's cycling. She's truly one of the smartest people in our sport.
U.S. Criterium racing: Red Hook was great, but even greater perhaps was the mid-80s Nabisco Mayor's Cup organized by David Pelletier, a former rock n'roll promoter. It ran from 1985-87. In 1985, there were 19 races held throughout the USA. Same format for each race. 50km (from what I can recall), 2 prime lines, $100 primes ($300 today). Nabisco was a big player (In '85 Nabisco revenue was around $11 billion). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVV_xEpIqv4
Wow. This is an amazing insight and great storytelling about a world of sport that a lot of people do not have on their radar. Truly eye-opening. Goes to show the importance of constructing and maintaining a brand model that manages to connect the raw identity of the sport with the never-ending development of the modern business world. The difficulty of finding a pathway that benefits everyone can be found in every great sport on the planet, and it will be interesting to see how the cycling world will try to find theirs.
Thank you. To my knowledge, cycling is one of the only sports in the world that maintains the same financial and political play as a hundred years ago. The initial reaction to the Premier League was one of skepticism, change will always cause issues, but without change it's a gradual death.
No i read it alright, but the whole lets fire a third of the Peloton part seems like a pretty big non Starter to me.
Not to mention that a lot of the changes here suggested, in particular a closed woman league and or banning WT mens team form attending samller races , woud have no doubt rippel effects that woud kill off a lot of the smaller races , and a lot if not most of the lesser Pro Teams and Conti Teams, but i guess that alright as long as the top is healty,
As a Cycling Fan I also am i a bit baffeld by that obsession about having the star and the best of the best compete with each other all the time, I mean really we shoud have learned by now that the outward qualtiy of the Startlist and the quality of the actual racing is in no real realtion.
I fully understand your perspective, and there are some radical suggestions in there. As far as killing of the lesser ProTeams and Conti Teams...I know better than most about the impact that has happened there. My U23 years (starting in 2019) coincided with the huge drop off all Conti teams. Unfortunately, the death of those teams happened 7/8 years ago.
We can agree to disagree, but I strongly believe that the WT has too many riders. When it comes to financial sustainability, less is most probably more.
Fantastic piece, Joe. I couldn't agree more about the fragility of the Women's WorldTour. I'm glad you included Natascha's perspectives and highlighted her efforts to build better foundations in women's cycling. She's truly one of the smartest people in our sport.
U.S. Criterium racing: Red Hook was great, but even greater perhaps was the mid-80s Nabisco Mayor's Cup organized by David Pelletier, a former rock n'roll promoter. It ran from 1985-87. In 1985, there were 19 races held throughout the USA. Same format for each race. 50km (from what I can recall), 2 prime lines, $100 primes ($300 today). Nabisco was a big player (In '85 Nabisco revenue was around $11 billion). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVV_xEpIqv4
Wow. This is an amazing insight and great storytelling about a world of sport that a lot of people do not have on their radar. Truly eye-opening. Goes to show the importance of constructing and maintaining a brand model that manages to connect the raw identity of the sport with the never-ending development of the modern business world. The difficulty of finding a pathway that benefits everyone can be found in every great sport on the planet, and it will be interesting to see how the cycling world will try to find theirs.
Thank you. To my knowledge, cycling is one of the only sports in the world that maintains the same financial and political play as a hundred years ago. The initial reaction to the Premier League was one of skepticism, change will always cause issues, but without change it's a gradual death.
Last safe cycling by first get rid of a third of all riders Job...how lovely let's fire those bums...
And then let's kill off some races...thats waht I as cycling fan want..less cycling.
You really must have skipped the other 36 pages of writing?
Attack dog Andrew at the ready.
No i read it alright, but the whole lets fire a third of the Peloton part seems like a pretty big non Starter to me.
Not to mention that a lot of the changes here suggested, in particular a closed woman league and or banning WT mens team form attending samller races , woud have no doubt rippel effects that woud kill off a lot of the smaller races , and a lot if not most of the lesser Pro Teams and Conti Teams, but i guess that alright as long as the top is healty,
As a Cycling Fan I also am i a bit baffeld by that obsession about having the star and the best of the best compete with each other all the time, I mean really we shoud have learned by now that the outward qualtiy of the Startlist and the quality of the actual racing is in no real realtion.
I fully understand your perspective, and there are some radical suggestions in there. As far as killing of the lesser ProTeams and Conti Teams...I know better than most about the impact that has happened there. My U23 years (starting in 2019) coincided with the huge drop off all Conti teams. Unfortunately, the death of those teams happened 7/8 years ago.
We can agree to disagree, but I strongly believe that the WT has too many riders. When it comes to financial sustainability, less is most probably more.
Excellent read, thank you! 🙏🏻