Is Pro Cycling Dead?
of March, it was apparent that sports couldn’t continue as normal – couldn’t continue at all – during the coronavirus pandemic. But for pro cycling, the warning signs came earlier. As Italy struggled with mounting cases, race organisers called off the highly anticipated Strade Bianche. Meanwhile, Paris-nice continued with a thinned peloton and an ever-increasing set of restrictions until the promoter, ASO, called a halt one stage shy of the planned finish.
The dominoes fell quickly after that, with country after country restricting movement and cancelling races. The Classics, Giro d’italia, and Tokyo Olympics were rescheduled or called off, even as the ASO scrambled for a way to hold a delayed Tour de France (now set to start 29 August). The result is unprecedented in living memory: unless the world makes a dramatic recovery starting sometime around the end of August, we may be looking at the first year with almost no major races since 1918. Since then, neither pandemic nor global military conflict has stopped all professional bicycle racing; the Tour of Flanders ran in occupied territory every year during World War II.
In the larger context of widespread sickness and economic shutdown, the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on pro cycling is small. Nonetheless, it will ripple out over many seasons in countless unknowable ways. How will a one-year Olympics postponement affect late-career riders such as Alejandro Valverde, aged 40, and Annemiek van Vleuten, aged 37? What of the career trajectory of young phenoms like Egan Bernal, Kate Courtney, and Mathieu van der Poel? Maybe the best example of the virus’s butterfly effect, however, is the Tour. If it didn’t run, which seemed entirely possible, consider the impact on Bernal’s team, Ineos.
For years the richest outfit in pro cycling, Ineos’s almost R1 billion-a-year budget – more than double the Worldtour
average – may now look more like a liability than an asset. Owner/sponsor Ineos is a petrochemicals behemoth, with over R340 billion in annual revenue. But it faces dual impacts of a crashed economy and an oil-price war. If Ineos’s business collapses, its controlling owner, Jim Ratcliffe, may reconsider his spending priorities; the first step might be major cuts to the team roster.
Ineos isn’t alone. Astana, Bahrain Mclaren, and UAE Team Emirates rely on oil and gas revenue. The broader economic downturn also poses threats. A number of title sponsorships will expire at the end of the season, probably before the economy recovers. And more than a third of Worldtour teams have title sponsors in tourism, construction, and leisure interests – businesses that have been hit especially hard.
Deceuninck-quick-step’s general manager, Patrick Lefevere, is a wily operator who’s saved his team from demise several times already. But he’s concerned. “It would be naïve to think that the economic impact of the coronavirus crisis does not translate to cycling,” he wrote in a column in the Belgian daily Het Nieuwsblad .As at the time of going to print, at least a third of the teams on the Worldtour had slashed salaries, ‘furloughed’ staff, or both. Dariusz Miłek, owner of footwear company CCC, which sponsors both women’s and men’s Worldtour teams, told a Polish cycling website, “We are now fighting for our business.” Meanwhile, the pro teams alliance petitioned the UCI for permission to re-negotiate rider contracts and access the UCI’S R21 million emergency fund.
The linchpin is the Tour, from which most teams achieve the bulk of their media exposure. If the (postponed) Tour is cancelled, wrote Lefevere, it’s “a total disaster”, an ominous prediction that thankfully now seems unlikely. Though as part of media conglomerate Groupe Amaury,
Tour promoter ASO might have the resources to withstand such a hit.
That’s not the case for many other races.
The calendar has changed dramatically, compacting seven months of racing into just three to start, which has led to overlaps and big decisions to be made by teams as to who should race where and when. Most events lack lucrative TV contracts and get their revenue from sponsorships and host towns, which pay for the race to generate tourism. Municipal budgets will be strapped, and big grants to bike races will hard to come by.
In a worst-case scenario, the Worldtour teams line-up could shrink by a third (assuming that 12 of 19 teams have sponsorship jeopardy, and that roughly half of those could fold), with massive roster revamps and many mid-tier riders pushed out altogether. The racing calendar could collapse too, and fewer events would cause a negative spiral of less coverage and exposure for teams, which would then have a harder case to make to potential sponsors.
Women’s pro road racing is at the mercy of the same forces as men’s, but with far smaller budgets. It’s possible its forced resilience means women’s racing is better positioned to rebound. But the damage could be worse, especially if sponsors prioritise men in the recovery. One sliver of light is 25 October’s inaugural women’s Paris-roubaix, a major step forward.
Among the options the ASO was exploring is a Tour without roadside fans. The idea has critics, but it could push the sport to create new ways to engage the public and freshen tired broadcast presentations. It may also reshape the calendar in constructive ways. Some proponents of modernising the sport have suggested shortening the Grand Tours, both for rider health and to open up the calendar. Promoters have resisted; all three Grand Tours roll through a three-month window for2020–whatatimetobeafan!buthave they missed a trick here? Ten- to 14-day Grand Tours could spur long-term calendar reforms; transformative for the sport.
Finally, the sport’s financial model has never been stable or equitable, with power concentrated among big promoters, and far less influence for teams and riders. As it has with larger social concerns such as health care, employment, and social welfare, the coronavirus has exposed structural weaknesses in pro cycling that have always been there. This is the opportunity to modernise the sport financially and organisationally – and to give everyone involved, especially the riders, a bigger voice in deciding its future.
When we have flattened the curve and when our hospitals are no longer flooded with the sick and dying, when we have returned to work and school and the monumental task of rebuilding, we will face questions central to every facet of our lives, including sport: what now? What are our values and priorities as a society? Who has a say in deciding them? And how, after everything, can we build something new, something better?
WE MAY BE LOOKING AT THE FIRST YEAR WITH ALMOST NO MAJOR RACES SINCE 1918.