Women’s races turn to crowdfunding
Campaigns to fund TV and prizes find success, reports James Shrubsall
In the absence of money available from within the sport, women’s cycling is turning to crowdfunding campaigns to raise cash to pay for broadcasting and prize money. For last weekend’s Strade Bianche, €26,633 (£22,834) was added to the original €10,00 (£8,570) women’s prize fund via a Gofundme campaign, while the Healthy Ageing Tour, a three-day Dutch stage race taking place this week, turned to fans to help raise money to enable it to broadcast the race, via its own Gofundme campaign. The Strade Bianche fund was set up by Dutch cycling fan Cem Tanyeri, who wanted to address the discrepancy in prize funds between men and women cycling. Recently this was brought into sharp relief at Het Nieuwsblad, where the women’s winner received €930 (£790) as opposed to the €16,000 (£13,720) that David Ballerini got for winning the men’s race.
Despite the large amount raised by the Strade Bianche campaign, the eventual total prize pot of €36,900 (£31,636) was still short of the €40,000 (£34,290) pot for the men’s race.
But Annemiek van Vleuten, who has won the race twice, said equal prize money is not as important as getting riders – and sponsors – seen in order to move women’s racing forward. “I am very happy that fans apparently can’t believe we are getting unequal prize money,” van Vleuten told Nrc.nl, referring to the campaign.
“But the change has to be of a different order. Most importantly, women need to be seen on TV in races. For example, I would kill for a women’s edition of the Tour of Lombardy. But if it is made mandatory that they have to pay out equal prize money immediately and that the race can’t then happen because of that, we are doing the wrong thing.”
Meanwhile, the decade-old Healthy Ageing Tour will now be broadcast on GCN and Eurosport after crowdfunding and an anonymous benefactor raised the cash to broadcast the race.
The race organiser launched a crowdfunding campaign last month in an effort to get €9,500 (£8,150) to fund a livestream. As of Monday it had raised €4,740 (£4,070) from the public.
It said: “The costs of the TV production are carried each year by us as organisers. The organisation of a corona-proof event in itself is a challenge, especially financially. That’s why it was necessary to call on the public. We are thankful for the support.”