15 ms·

The economics of the Tour de France

114 points by rmason 6y ago

dade_ 6y ago
It's also an opportunity to develop amd test new technology, but it wasn't mentioned in the article. https://www.bloomberg.com/press-releases/2019-07-04/ntt-and-a-s-o-continue-to-transform-and-revolutionize-the-fan-experience-of-the-tour-de-france-with-new-technology-deal https://www.bloomberg.com/press-releases/2019-07-04/ntt-and-...
jariel 6y ago
There are no spectator fees because it's not a spectator sport. 3 hours of traffic and waiting ... And then the anticipation ... The 'zoom ... zoom zoom zoom' - in 1 minute it's over. That's it. On the last leg in Paris, you get 5x that, but still. It's nice to see once but 'paying' for so many reasons is out of the question. Nice to see a newspaper find a way out of the scourge ...
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  > 3 hours of traffic and waiting ... If it isn't a spectator sport... why do you have to wait in traffic to get to it? Seems like a 'nobody goes there it's too busy' sort of argument?
  - TylerE 6y ago
    It's a giant party. No one goes to the Kentuky Derby to watch the horses run for 90 seconds - that's much better done on TV.
    - chrisseaton 6y ago
      > It's a giant party. So... it's a spectator sport?
      - jariel 6y ago
        It's an 'event' and the furthest thing from 'spectator sport' because there is literally almost nothing to spectate. Its 3 hours of 'prep' because the courses are usually way out there, way far away from anything, and near the route traffic is upside down, maybe there is parking maybe there is none, nobody knows. It doesn't happen at a 'venue' that's designed for sport, it happens out there in the French boondocks. So you make a day of it ie sightseeing. It's an excuse to get out and see the country.
    - walrus01 6y ago
      Related: http://grantland.com/features/looking-back-hunter-s-thompson-classic-story-kentucky-derby/ http://grantland.com/features/looking-back-hunter-s-thompson...
  - Someone 6y ago
    Many want to watch it on a steep climb, where the riders are going slowest and are spread apart most, giving you optimal viewing time. Such climbs often are over the only decent roads up the mountain, and those roads will be closed down an hour or so before the riders arrive. There also will be competition for the best spots (in the outside of corners, where you can overlook the road) Because of that, for many, it’s easily 3 hours of (traffic and waiting), even ignoring traffic time. But that need not be bad. You bring food and drink, sit in nice weather (hopefully), and watch the stage on tv.
  - cranekam 6y ago
    OP might have been referring to the hours of police/officials/advertising caravan that precede the riders. You can’t just show up 10 minutes before the race passes. On a typical mountain stage the roads are closed mid-morning so anyone who wants to see it either has to drive up in advance (up to a week on the really famous climbs) or ride/walk up on the day then wait for the aforementioned traffic to pass before seeing the race. But it’s okay: it’s a big party. You hang out with new friends, you wait for the media helicopters to appear, and then you see the riders, albeit briefly, producing inhuman levels of effort. Then you go home and watch the race for real on TV, happy with your day out. On flat terrain in the middle of a stage you might be able to just park up and wait for 30 minutes but you’d also be missing the spectacle surrounding the race itself.
  - michaelt 6y ago
    > why do you have to wait in traffic to get to it? Because someone's closed a bunch of roads :) Seriously though: You can sell tickets at the starting and finishing lines, or by putting a loop in the course and sending the riders past the spectators 10 times. But for the rest of the course, the riders will shoot past in a few seconds. Look at this density of spectators: https://youtu.be/2ytb_ajLCFw?t=160 https://youtu.be/2ytb_ajLCFw?t=160 You can't sell a 'party atmosphere' or pad the entertainment out with dancers and marching bands and food trucks because the spectators are spread out over the entire course. And even if you decided to charge for tickets despite that - the course isn't fenced off, so people without tickets can just walk in. And if you added fences and bouncers checking tickets, you'd need loads of them because the course is far too long to funnel everyone through a single entrance like a music festival does. And even if the fences and bouncers somehow made economic sense, you've gone from blocking a section of road for an hour as the race goes past to blocking it for a day or two as the fences get built.
- PedroBatista 6y ago
  Your views of a “spectator sport” might be skewed by Nascar or other good for tv Americanized sports with plenty of scoring and announcer drama. On-TV cycling is a “hang” and on the side of the road even more.
  - pmontra 6y ago
    Well, no. I went seeing some stages of the Giro d'Italia. Time trials are awful on TV but great on the street because you see every single athlete passing by you. Normal stages are great on TV (3+ hours of live feed) but awful on the street because you don't see anything and you know little of what's going on. However in both cases it's great to be at the start, maybe a couple of hours in advance, or at the arrival, especially after the end. Ciclocross is different. They have as much as 100k paying people (on venue) in the Netherlands and in Belgium. It's also great to be able to move around the track and see the cyclists in different spots. Probably this is possible only in smaller events. I have experience of races in Italy. MTB, no direct experience. Looks great on TV and YouTube. And if all cycling would go on pay TV, goodbye. I'll be a little sad but I'll look at something else. I'll keep cycling tough.
- mft_ 6y ago
  In my experience, many (if not most) sports aren’t really great to watch as a spectator, versus on TV... if your goal is appreciation of the actual sporting event taking place. Bike racing? As you say, it’s hours if not days of effort and travel, for about five minutes of seeing the riders zoom past. Motorsport? At least they’re on a circuit and go past lots of times, but it’s actually very hard to have a tactical appreciation of what’s going on from the side of a track. Sports within a stadium (for example soccer, cricket) are better, but it’s still very hard to have a decent appreciation of what’s going on second to second, versus a decent TV presentation. Small court sports (e.g. basketball, tennis, badminton, etc.) are probably the best but there you are very dependent on the quality of the seating position you purchase. But... this ignores the enjoyment of the travel and being present at the event. Yes, you get a much better appreciation of the racing watching the Le Mans 24 hour race (or indeed a TdF stage) on TV. But travelling, camping, barbecuing, partying, experiencing the event, with friends? That’s a life experience that far transcends enjoyment of the sport of self.
adamjb 6y ago
"The Economics of Professional Road Cycling" which they cite about halfway through is absolutely worth the read if you're the kind of cycling fan who enjoys a good academic paper.
dredmorbius 6y ago
Themes rhat can be pulled from this: - Creative business models: L'Auto's original inspiration. - Routing and right-of-way economics: playing towns off one another for course rights. - Advertising. - Risks of authoritarian collaboration and/or short-term thinking. - Winner-take-all (or much: the 1st-place finisher is awarded about 20% of all prize money) economics. - Business-vs-talent returns: most riders earn minimum wage. - Patronage/sponsorship models and risks. - "Buying" success. - Tradition and mythology vs. business.
- teruakohatu 6y ago
  > - Business-vs-talent returns: most riders earn minimum wage. Where so you get this from? There is a mandated minimum that is around the median salary of my country, so much higher than minimum wage of most countries. New young riders in the UCI Pro Tour level reportedly get a fair bit more than the minimum, on the Tour they are not usually fielding a more experienced team and earn more. If they prove themselves the earnings go up fast. Cycling pays little compared to basketball, football etc. but they are well paid compared to the general population at Tour level.
  - rmason 6y ago
    If he read the article it says the mandated minimum wage for a rider is $35,000, but most riders make more than that. You might have a hard time living in say California on that wage but in parts of rural Europe you could get by comfortably. You definitely could in Michigan.
    - boomboomsubban 6y ago
      That depends on how much of the work related expenses are handled by the team. If they have to pay for their own travel, that'd be several grand right there. Plus, it wouldn't be surprising if the team mandates where you live.
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      How can you get by comfortably in Michigan with a $35k income when health insurance deductibles are $5k+ and out of pocket maximums are $6k to $8k and premiums are ~$2.5k+ per year? Plus federal income, FICA, state income, sales taxes, and Michigan’s famously high car insurance prices? Add on saving for retirement / emergency healthcare expenses. Doesn’t leave much for a comfortable day to day life, especially if you have or intend to support a family.
walrus01 6y ago
From a nerd/technical point of view, one of the great challenges of the tour de france is the live HD video feed from the helicopter camera platforms to the broadcast/editing studio. Considering the mountains and terrain often in the way, the distance of the route, and the fact that the event relocates itself every day. It was considerably less difficult in the 480p analog days. Here's an older example of the aerial camera work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSmhgOFGl_M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSmhgOFGl_M Also the live video feeds from the camera operators that ride pillion on motorcycles chasing the riders. That presents its own unique technical challenge.
- iso947 6y ago
  480p? France used 576 25i in analog days. And why would analog be any easier than digital? A WMT will give acceptable pictures for this type of shot at about 5mbit which is far less than 8MHz. You can get about 40mbit on an 8MHz channel which gives cracking pictures even at 2160 50p
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    Analog is easier than digital because the signal degrades gracefully, whereas with digital it is all-or-nothing. So raw bit rate is not quite as important as the degree to which you are losing packets.
    - iso947 6y ago
      Digital comes with tons of error correction - especially if you use the entire 8mhz. While analog degrades with just slight issues, digital remains rock solid past the point an analog signal would be unacceptable to put out in air.
Cyclone_ 6y ago
Didn't realize there was that big of a difference between 1st 2nd and 3rd in terms of prize money. That might partially explain why a rider in 2nd doesn't try and make a move on the last stage - they would risk blowing up and moving down to 3rd
- stevenwoo 6y ago
  The article discusses this at the bottom a bit but prize money at any pro bike race is treated like a team bonus and shared. The article does say it’s all about sponsor exposure - from final podium place/stage win/jersey - the riders make more money in exhibition races post TdF where the top riders (based on TdF yellow/polka dot/green) are paid appearance fees.
  - Ichthypresbyter 6y ago
    Exhibition "races" only in the very broad sense. The post-tour criteriums are almost as fake as pro wrestling- the riders have agreed beforehand who is going to "break away" and cross the line first, though occasionally one of the local amateur riders they have in there to make up the numbers will decide to have a go: https://cyclingtips.com/2016/08/when-the-post-tour-crits-dont-go-to-plan/ https://cyclingtips.com/2016/08/when-the-post-tour-crits-don... In terms of the economics of these races, they are much better spectator events as they take the form of laps around the centre of a small city. The audiences still doesn't pay, but it's much easier to go watch- so the city will pay the race organiser, both to put their city on the map and for the economic benefit of all the food and drinks the spectators buy, often from stalls or trucks that have paid the city for a license... http://www.alpsandes.com/posts/2016/7/28/jurgenmettepenningen http://www.alpsandes.com/posts/2016/7/28/jurgenmettepenninge...
- Doctor_Fegg 6y ago
  You couldn’t make a move on the last stage anyway. It’s set up for sprinters and a GC contender would have no chance of distancing the peloton.
  - vbsteven 6y ago
walrus01 6y ago
The more you learn about the bike industry the uglier it looks. For example Trek married itself to Lance Armstrong, in the era before he was proven to be a massive dope cheat. Trek at the time and their legal department caused millions of dollars of damages to Greg LeMond and his bike business he had licensed to trek. It turns out LeMond was speaking the honest factual truth all along about what an absolutely terrible human being Armstrong was. All later admitted by Armstrong, and by members of the former US Postal team in sworn depositions.
- Lio 6y ago
  I don't think that Trek has ever apologised for how they treated former TdF winner Greg LeMond. > "for years, Greg LeMond has done and said things that have damaged the LeMond brand and the Trek brand as a whole"[1] Given that they regarded LeMond's whistle blowing as against what Trek stands for you have to ask your self, what does Trek stand for? 1. https://web.archive.org/web/20120609190914/http://www.trekbikes.com/pdf/media/en/Trek_PressRelease_FINAL.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20120609190914/http://www.trekbi...
  - walrus01 6y ago
    Yes exactly. They rode that Armstrong/livestrong/US postal/discovery team pony for as long as they could, as hard as they could, as long as it kept selling bikes and provided a huge benefit to the bottom line. Trek also managed to take the brand name licensed to them by one of the people who can reasonably lay claim to the title of "inventor of the mountain bike", Gary Fisher, and run it into the ground. Other major brands are almost as bad. Giant was the sponsor for the T-Mobile team of the late 1990s and early to mid 2000s in the Jan Ullrich era, which was just as rife with organized doping. They knew full well about the doping allegations (also all later proven and admitted by the team members once retired) and did nothing as long as the financial figures looked good. Every single sponsor of the uci protour teams from 1990 to about 2015 knew how absolutely ingrained systemic doping and cheating was, and continued to funnel money into the western European Continental cycling races and team corporations.
fiftyacorn 6y ago
The cycling model is flawed because their is no distribution of screen rights amongst teams. Basically the race and teams ownership are separate. As a result you have a few big teams and the rest scrambling for pennies Some teams have tried to access the viewing money but the lack of solidarity amongst teams has failed. Also the owners of the tdf own a lot of the big races
- fnord123 6y ago
  > Basically the race and teams ownership are separate. This isn't a problem per se. For example, this is how it works in football in most countries and I think most people would agree that football would be enhanced by following a US cartel system.
  - marliechiller 6y ago
    i dont think they would...
  - fiftyacorn 6y ago
    The issue is sharing the rights money. The current situation favours big teams and aso who own tdf A distribution of money would also allow money to develop woman's cycling and the sport globally It's been tried by Oleg tinkov and Jonathan vaughters. Ultimately tinkov left the sport
  - Saint_Genet 6y ago
    Absolutely not. Almost no one would.
    - fnord123 6y ago
      Yikes. I meant to write "would not be enhanced". I need a subeditor. :(
  - PostPlummer 6y ago
    > I think most people would agree The fans: yes, the obscure & filthy rich owners of the big teams would not. I would give my left arm when we would equalise the playing field where it comes to signing football players.
jakub_g 6y ago
Most interesting part for me: > ... riders must formulate their Tour de France strategy around maximizing visibility for sponsors. > Winning the tour is fantastic — but not necessary — for brand exposure. Often, you’ll see lesser-known riders break away from the pack to give sponsors media time, even if it isn’t technically the best thing to do. > “The entire Tour is about getting eyes on the company on your jersey,” an ex-pro who wished to remain anonymous told us.
- tokai 6y ago
  Riders from the wildcard teams are especially prone to go for suicide breakaways. It was a huge source of confusion when there wasn't any breakway the other day in the tour. It's literally worth hours of commercial air time.

114 points by rmason 6y ago

It's also an opportunity to develop amd test new technology, but it wasn't mentioned in the article. https://www.bloomberg.com/press-releases/2019-07-04/ntt-and-a-s-o-continue-to-transform-and-revolutionize-the-fan-experience-of-the-tour-de-france-with-new-technology-deal https://www.bloomberg.com/press-releases/2019-07-04/ntt-and-...

jariel 6y ago

There are no spectator fees because it's not a spectator sport. 3 hours of traffic and waiting ... And then the anticipation ... The 'zoom ... zoom zoom zoom' - in 1 minute it's over. That's it. On the last leg in Paris, you get 5x that, but still. It's nice to see once but 'paying' for so many reasons is out of the question. Nice to see a newspaper find a way out of the scourge ...

chrisseaton 6y ago
> 3 hours of traffic and waiting ... If it isn't a spectator sport... why do you have to wait in traffic to get to it? Seems like a 'nobody goes there it's too busy' sort of argument?
- TylerE 6y ago
  It's a giant party. No one goes to the Kentuky Derby to watch the horses run for 90 seconds - that's much better done on TV.
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    > It's a giant party. So... it's a spectator sport?
    - jariel 6y ago
      It's an 'event' and the furthest thing from 'spectator sport' because there is literally almost nothing to spectate. Its 3 hours of 'prep' because the courses are usually way out there, way far away from anything, and near the route traffic is upside down, maybe there is parking maybe there is none, nobody knows. It doesn't happen at a 'venue' that's designed for sport, it happens out there in the French boondocks. So you make a day of it ie sightseeing. It's an excuse to get out and see the country.
  - walrus01 6y ago
    Related: http://grantland.com/features/looking-back-hunter-s-thompson-classic-story-kentucky-derby/ http://grantland.com/features/looking-back-hunter-s-thompson...
- Someone 6y ago
  Many want to watch it on a steep climb, where the riders are going slowest and are spread apart most, giving you optimal viewing time. Such climbs often are over the only decent roads up the mountain, and those roads will be closed down an hour or so before the riders arrive. There also will be competition for the best spots (in the outside of corners, where you can overlook the road) Because of that, for many, it’s easily 3 hours of (traffic and waiting), even ignoring traffic time. But that need not be bad. You bring food and drink, sit in nice weather (hopefully), and watch the stage on tv.
- cranekam 6y ago
  OP might have been referring to the hours of police/officials/advertising caravan that precede the riders. You can’t just show up 10 minutes before the race passes. On a typical mountain stage the roads are closed mid-morning so anyone who wants to see it either has to drive up in advance (up to a week on the really famous climbs) or ride/walk up on the day then wait for the aforementioned traffic to pass before seeing the race. But it’s okay: it’s a big party. You hang out with new friends, you wait for the media helicopters to appear, and then you see the riders, albeit briefly, producing inhuman levels of effort. Then you go home and watch the race for real on TV, happy with your day out. On flat terrain in the middle of a stage you might be able to just park up and wait for 30 minutes but you’d also be missing the spectacle surrounding the race itself.
- michaelt 6y ago
  > why do you have to wait in traffic to get to it? Because someone's closed a bunch of roads :) Seriously though: You can sell tickets at the starting and finishing lines, or by putting a loop in the course and sending the riders past the spectators 10 times. But for the rest of the course, the riders will shoot past in a few seconds. Look at this density of spectators: https://youtu.be/2ytb_ajLCFw?t=160 https://youtu.be/2ytb_ajLCFw?t=160 You can't sell a 'party atmosphere' or pad the entertainment out with dancers and marching bands and food trucks because the spectators are spread out over the entire course. And even if you decided to charge for tickets despite that - the course isn't fenced off, so people without tickets can just walk in. And if you added fences and bouncers checking tickets, you'd need loads of them because the course is far too long to funnel everyone through a single entrance like a music festival does. And even if the fences and bouncers somehow made economic sense, you've gone from blocking a section of road for an hour as the race goes past to blocking it for a day or two as the fences get built.
PedroBatista 6y ago
Your views of a “spectator sport” might be skewed by Nascar or other good for tv Americanized sports with plenty of scoring and announcer drama. On-TV cycling is a “hang” and on the side of the road even more.
- pmontra 6y ago
  Well, no. I went seeing some stages of the Giro d'Italia. Time trials are awful on TV but great on the street because you see every single athlete passing by you. Normal stages are great on TV (3+ hours of live feed) but awful on the street because you don't see anything and you know little of what's going on. However in both cases it's great to be at the start, maybe a couple of hours in advance, or at the arrival, especially after the end. Ciclocross is different. They have as much as 100k paying people (on venue) in the Netherlands and in Belgium. It's also great to be able to move around the track and see the cyclists in different spots. Probably this is possible only in smaller events. I have experience of races in Italy. MTB, no direct experience. Looks great on TV and YouTube. And if all cycling would go on pay TV, goodbye. I'll be a little sad but I'll look at something else. I'll keep cycling tough.
mft_ 6y ago
In my experience, many (if not most) sports aren’t really great to watch as a spectator, versus on TV... if your goal is appreciation of the actual sporting event taking place. Bike racing? As you say, it’s hours if not days of effort and travel, for about five minutes of seeing the riders zoom past. Motorsport? At least they’re on a circuit and go past lots of times, but it’s actually very hard to have a tactical appreciation of what’s going on from the side of a track. Sports within a stadium (for example soccer, cricket) are better, but it’s still very hard to have a decent appreciation of what’s going on second to second, versus a decent TV presentation. Small court sports (e.g. basketball, tennis, badminton, etc.) are probably the best but there you are very dependent on the quality of the seating position you purchase. But... this ignores the enjoyment of the travel and being present at the event. Yes, you get a much better appreciation of the racing watching the Le Mans 24 hour race (or indeed a TdF stage) on TV. But travelling, camping, barbecuing, partying, experiencing the event, with friends? That’s a life experience that far transcends enjoyment of the sport of self.

adamjb 6y ago

"The Economics of Professional Road Cycling" which they cite about halfway through is absolutely worth the read if you're the kind of cycling fan who enjoys a good academic paper.

dredmorbius 6y ago

Themes rhat can be pulled from this: - Creative business models: L'Auto's original inspiration. - Routing and right-of-way economics: playing towns off one another for course rights. - Advertising. - Risks of authoritarian collaboration and/or short-term thinking. - Winner-take-all (or much: the 1st-place finisher is awarded about 20% of all prize money) economics. - Business-vs-talent returns: most riders earn minimum wage. - Patronage/sponsorship models and risks. - "Buying" success. - Tradition and mythology vs. business.

teruakohatu 6y ago
> - Business-vs-talent returns: most riders earn minimum wage. Where so you get this from? There is a mandated minimum that is around the median salary of my country, so much higher than minimum wage of most countries. New young riders in the UCI Pro Tour level reportedly get a fair bit more than the minimum, on the Tour they are not usually fielding a more experienced team and earn more. If they prove themselves the earnings go up fast. Cycling pays little compared to basketball, football etc. but they are well paid compared to the general population at Tour level.
- rmason 6y ago
  If he read the article it says the mandated minimum wage for a rider is $35,000, but most riders make more than that. You might have a hard time living in say California on that wage but in parts of rural Europe you could get by comfortably. You definitely could in Michigan.
  - boomboomsubban 6y ago
    That depends on how much of the work related expenses are handled by the team. If they have to pay for their own travel, that'd be several grand right there. Plus, it wouldn't be surprising if the team mandates where you live.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    How can you get by comfortably in Michigan with a $35k income when health insurance deductibles are $5k+ and out of pocket maximums are $6k to $8k and premiums are ~$2.5k+ per year? Plus federal income, FICA, state income, sales taxes, and Michigan’s famously high car insurance prices? Add on saving for retirement / emergency healthcare expenses. Doesn’t leave much for a comfortable day to day life, especially if you have or intend to support a family.

walrus01 6y ago

From a nerd/technical point of view, one of the great challenges of the tour de france is the live HD video feed from the helicopter camera platforms to the broadcast/editing studio. Considering the mountains and terrain often in the way, the distance of the route, and the fact that the event relocates itself every day. It was considerably less difficult in the 480p analog days. Here's an older example of the aerial camera work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSmhgOFGl_M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSmhgOFGl_M Also the live video feeds from the camera operators that ride pillion on motorcycles chasing the riders. That presents its own unique technical challenge.

iso947 6y ago
480p? France used 576 25i in analog days. And why would analog be any easier than digital? A WMT will give acceptable pictures for this type of shot at about 5mbit which is far less than 8MHz. You can get about 40mbit on an 8MHz channel which gives cracking pictures even at 2160 50p
- jacquesm 6y ago
  Analog is easier than digital because the signal degrades gracefully, whereas with digital it is all-or-nothing. So raw bit rate is not quite as important as the degree to which you are losing packets.
  - iso947 6y ago
    Digital comes with tons of error correction - especially if you use the entire 8mhz. While analog degrades with just slight issues, digital remains rock solid past the point an analog signal would be unacceptable to put out in air.

Cyclone_ 6y ago

Didn't realize there was that big of a difference between 1st 2nd and 3rd in terms of prize money. That might partially explain why a rider in 2nd doesn't try and make a move on the last stage - they would risk blowing up and moving down to 3rd

stevenwoo 6y ago
The article discusses this at the bottom a bit but prize money at any pro bike race is treated like a team bonus and shared. The article does say it’s all about sponsor exposure - from final podium place/stage win/jersey - the riders make more money in exhibition races post TdF where the top riders (based on TdF yellow/polka dot/green) are paid appearance fees.
- Ichthypresbyter 6y ago
  Exhibition "races" only in the very broad sense. The post-tour criteriums are almost as fake as pro wrestling- the riders have agreed beforehand who is going to "break away" and cross the line first, though occasionally one of the local amateur riders they have in there to make up the numbers will decide to have a go: https://cyclingtips.com/2016/08/when-the-post-tour-crits-dont-go-to-plan/ https://cyclingtips.com/2016/08/when-the-post-tour-crits-don... In terms of the economics of these races, they are much better spectator events as they take the form of laps around the centre of a small city. The audiences still doesn't pay, but it's much easier to go watch- so the city will pay the race organiser, both to put their city on the map and for the economic benefit of all the food and drinks the spectators buy, often from stalls or trucks that have paid the city for a license... http://www.alpsandes.com/posts/2016/7/28/jurgenmettepenningen http://www.alpsandes.com/posts/2016/7/28/jurgenmettepenninge...
Doctor_Fegg 6y ago
You couldn’t make a move on the last stage anyway. It’s set up for sprinters and a GC contender would have no chance of distancing the peloton.
- vbsteven 6y ago

walrus01 6y ago

The more you learn about the bike industry the uglier it looks. For example Trek married itself to Lance Armstrong, in the era before he was proven to be a massive dope cheat. Trek at the time and their legal department caused millions of dollars of damages to Greg LeMond and his bike business he had licensed to trek. It turns out LeMond was speaking the honest factual truth all along about what an absolutely terrible human being Armstrong was. All later admitted by Armstrong, and by members of the former US Postal team in sworn depositions.

Lio 6y ago
I don't think that Trek has ever apologised for how they treated former TdF winner Greg LeMond. > "for years, Greg LeMond has done and said things that have damaged the LeMond brand and the Trek brand as a whole"[1] Given that they regarded LeMond's whistle blowing as against what Trek stands for you have to ask your self, what does Trek stand for? 1. https://web.archive.org/web/20120609190914/http://www.trekbikes.com/pdf/media/en/Trek_PressRelease_FINAL.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20120609190914/http://www.trekbi...
- walrus01 6y ago
  Yes exactly. They rode that Armstrong/livestrong/US postal/discovery team pony for as long as they could, as hard as they could, as long as it kept selling bikes and provided a huge benefit to the bottom line. Trek also managed to take the brand name licensed to them by one of the people who can reasonably lay claim to the title of "inventor of the mountain bike", Gary Fisher, and run it into the ground. Other major brands are almost as bad. Giant was the sponsor for the T-Mobile team of the late 1990s and early to mid 2000s in the Jan Ullrich era, which was just as rife with organized doping. They knew full well about the doping allegations (also all later proven and admitted by the team members once retired) and did nothing as long as the financial figures looked good. Every single sponsor of the uci protour teams from 1990 to about 2015 knew how absolutely ingrained systemic doping and cheating was, and continued to funnel money into the western European Continental cycling races and team corporations.

fiftyacorn 6y ago

The cycling model is flawed because their is no distribution of screen rights amongst teams. Basically the race and teams ownership are separate. As a result you have a few big teams and the rest scrambling for pennies Some teams have tried to access the viewing money but the lack of solidarity amongst teams has failed. Also the owners of the tdf own a lot of the big races

fnord123 6y ago
> Basically the race and teams ownership are separate. This isn't a problem per se. For example, this is how it works in football in most countries and I think most people would agree that football would be enhanced by following a US cartel system.
- marliechiller 6y ago
  i dont think they would...
- fiftyacorn 6y ago
  The issue is sharing the rights money. The current situation favours big teams and aso who own tdf A distribution of money would also allow money to develop woman's cycling and the sport globally It's been tried by Oleg tinkov and Jonathan vaughters. Ultimately tinkov left the sport
- Saint_Genet 6y ago
  Absolutely not. Almost no one would.
  - fnord123 6y ago
    Yikes. I meant to write "would not be enhanced". I need a subeditor. :(
- PostPlummer 6y ago
  > I think most people would agree The fans: yes, the obscure & filthy rich owners of the big teams would not. I would give my left arm when we would equalise the playing field where it comes to signing football players.

jakub_g 6y ago

Most interesting part for me: > ... riders must formulate their Tour de France strategy around maximizing visibility for sponsors. > Winning the tour is fantastic — but not necessary — for brand exposure. Often, you’ll see lesser-known riders break away from the pack to give sponsors media time, even if it isn’t technically the best thing to do. > “The entire Tour is about getting eyes on the company on your jersey,” an ex-pro who wished to remain anonymous told us.

tokai 6y ago
Riders from the wildcard teams are especially prone to go for suicide breakaways. It was a huge source of confusion when there wasn't any breakway the other day in the tour. It's literally worth hours of commercial air time.