You don’t need $65m. You need fans.
When World Tour teams need Formula 1 money to keep up, you know the equation is broken.
I’m a Tadej Pogačar fanboy.
Watching him race is watching cycling perfection, and he’ll go down as the GOAT. But the problem with perfection is that perfection is boring.
UAE Team Emirates has an annual budget in the US$65m arena. Pogačar’s take-home pay is more than 10% of that. They’re a sovereign-backed super-team operating at a Formula 1 level of sponsorship. For reference, the new Cadillac F1 Team is rumoured to be asking a similar number per year for a title sponsor.
Pogačar isn’t just the best rider in the world; he’s the most complete athlete cycling has ever seen, surrounded by the most advanced infrastructure money can buy. Outside of the Top 5 teams, everyone else is playing a different sport. Mid-tier teams chasing them like club sides were trying to outspend Manchester City. It’s delusional.
So, if you can’t win the arms race, stop fighting it.
It is far too rare for a team to step up, accept the power of their limitations, and build a cycling product that is different. One that is, perhaps, dedicated to the pursuit of fan engagement rather than chasing the ghost of success in the face of US$65m dollar teams and the greatest rider of all time.
Teams are built to win races, to sell products, or, in the modern era, sportswash. But when was the last time a team was built to entertain?
Professional sport is entertainment. And if you forget that, you forget the entire point.
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Is the equation upside down?
Professional cycling teams continue to pour money into performance. Every tiny detail is analysed and optimised. If the evidence doesn’t exist, research papers are funded.
The sport is built on the idea that winning creates fandom, that UCI points lead to Tour invites, and Tour invites lead to sponsorship cheques. Why is the Tour de France so important? Because that’s where the fans are.
I’m not naive enough to think it’s this simple, but maybe it’s time to flip that model. Instead of chasing the Tour de France, go straight to those fans.
Right now, teams treat fans as numbers, not as people. The media value report matters more than the community that the report supposedly represents.
It’s not rocket science.
This past week, Mathieu van der Poel turned up at the Ponies Ride in Los Angeles. It created an excitement across LA’s riding community that spread online across the world.
The script was flipped on the sponsor rides that pros usually dread. Instead of forcing the fans to a random event, MVDP turned up on their ride.
It was described as “guerrilla marketing” on LinkedIn. It wasn’t. It was common sense. A reminder that in this era of trackable metrics, data, and influencers, people want a real connection.
Who knows how many Whoop bands, Canyon bikes, or Zwift subscriptions MVDP sold by turning up, but that’s not the point.
With his team, Alpecin-Deceuninck, rumoured to be looking for around US$7 million in new sponsorship, it’s far more likely they’ll find it through moments like this than by adding another midweek race in France to their palmarès.
Side note: In how many sports can you go out for your morning exercise before work, and one of the best athletes in the world joins you? Completely free. No tickets. Bikes are great.
You still need legitimacy.
Please don’t think I’m saying that teams don’t have to win races. Performance still matters and gives you the legitimacy that allows a brand or a team to flourish. But legitimacy doesn’t have to come from spending tens of millions in the World Tour.
Take L39ION of Los Angeles. Between 2019 and 2022, they didn’t need to race in Europe to make noise. They built their own world, their own brand that often felt bigger than the races themselves. For a period, they seemed like the most talked-about team in cycling.
We’ve seen flashes of what’s possible elsewhere. Bas Tietema’s Unibet Rockets grew from a YouTube channel run by a few mates. While their direction has slightly shifted since, they proved that you can build a professional cycling team out of joy and storytelling.
EF Education–EasyPost are another case study. They went through countless identities before landing on their current mix of culture, travel, and adventure. That 2019 Dirty Kanza film remains, in my opinion, one of the best mini-docs in cycling history, and proof that fans crave authenticity more than results.
That said, even EF could go further. Lachlan Morton has transcended that team, he’s become his own ecosystem. I can’t help but think they could do so much more if they brought their same creative energy down to the local level.
While there is other great work out there, I can’t put everything in a 1200 word op-ed, it seems like these are the exception not the rule. The peloton feels like the same logos shuffled around every year.
Why can’t we have a team built from the ground up to be entertaining not just in races, but off the bike too. A team that belongs to fans, does not try to sell to them.
Screaming into the void…
I know that I sound like a broken record shouting at clouds. I’m just a 24-year-old kid slamming the keys on a laptop that a few thousand people will read. It frustrates me that I, and so many others, can see the issues but can’t seem to fix them.
How can I play a my part? Is it starting my own team to show what’s possible? Climbing the corporate ladder inside one of the big brands so I can cause change from within? Hell, is it running the UCI?
People have been asking these questions for decades, but nothing changes. Instead of taking risks to grow the sport, everyone fights over the same small pie and focuses on the next quarter’s figures. The money flows to the same names, the same teams, the same ideas.
I feel my duty to this sport is so much more than just that of a bike racer. I owe it everything and it kills me to see how much potential is being left on the table.
What scares me most is that it’s such an uphill battle that one day I’ll finally shut up, stop believing change is possible, and go to get a proper job…
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Love this Joe- has passion- much of your point and easily forgotten
Reminds me of the boy & starfish
https://youtu.be/Z-aVMdJ3Aok
Interesting post Joe, completely agree that people want connection so fostering that the way to go.
In regards to teams and fans, I think maybe cycling has a difficult time of fans/sponsorship due to its lack of geographical stability for teams like you have in major team sports - not something that can be solved over night.
I am wondering though in more short term, maybe more fans at races is the bigger answer. Do you know if attendance of fans at races influences sponsorship for teams?
Thinking allowed surely increased viewership benefits all teams rather than just the bigger players.
Thinking of races, La Vuelta appears to have opportunity to tap into thanks to the culture of Spain.