Breaking Away - "Top cycling teams explore creating new competitive league"

[fmk_RoI]

A number of major European cycling teams have been exploring plans to create a new competitive league in a move that could reshape the sport's landscape and allocate more funding for participants, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

External investors could help finance the project, two of the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the discussions are private. The venture could amalgamate new and existing races, one of the people said.

Teams include Ineos and Jumbo-Visma, potential investors include CVC.

Full report: Reuters

Is this Bakala's OneCycling project?

Will this get any further than previous breakaway attempts?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Any such movement probably shouldn't be taken seriously unless it has ASO, RCS and Flanders Classics onboard.

After all, IRL still won the American Open Wheel battle despite CART having better cars, better drivers and most of the best courses. Because IRL had the Indy 500, and the sponsorship and name value of that wound up trumping everything else. But only after an acrimonious few years that badly hurt all such racing for years to come and left both series in a weaker state than when the split happened.

The Tour de France - and the fact ASO also own two Monument Classics and major stage races - and the races owned by RCS and Flanders Classics - makes up so much of the core calendar and the events that have currency beyond the core cycling audience that they will trump the whole lot for sponsor attraction and without them being onside, any breakaway, no matter how many of the top riders and teams are onside, will be fighting an uphill battle.

 

[houtdffan]

Any such movement probably shouldn't be taken seriously unless it has ASO, RCS and Flanders Classics onboard.

After all, IRL still won the American Open Wheel battle despite CART having better cars, better drivers and most of the best courses. Because IRL had the Indy 500, and the sponsorship and name value of that wound up trumping everything else. But only after an acrimonious few years that badly hurt all such racing for years to come and left both series in a weaker state than when the split happened.

The Tour de France - and the fact ASO also own two Monument Classics and major stage races - and the races owned by RCS and Flanders Classics - makes up so much of the core calendar and the events that have currency beyond the core cycling audience that they will trump the whole lot for sponsor attraction and without them being onside, any breakaway, no matter how many of the top riders and teams are onside, will be fighting an uphill battle.

Don't need Flanders Classics

ASO and RCS on boards means you have all 3 GT and every monument except for RVV. plus 3 of the 4 major 1 week stage races

 

[Izzyeviel]

without the Tour it'll flop. Lessons to be learnt from the CART/TONY wars.

 

[Nick2413]

Does ASO etc actually own these races? Never really thought about it but was under the impression they were renting out the rights or similar.

 

[houtdffan]

Does ASO etc actually own these races? Never really thought about it but was under the impression they were renting out the rights or similar.

I believe they actually own the races

 

[Berniece]

I'm all for a new competitive league, but it won't be easy because a couple of organisations own a lot of the top races. But if there's enough money you can always create new races... What does TDF mean if Majka would win it, or Liege won by Van Gils. When other races in a different competition are won by the big 6.

They just need enough money to start those races, and proper media attention, then eventually RCS/ASO will fold and join the new league. I can imagine Flanders Classics being part of the new league from the beginning, because they are not afraid of challenging the status quo.

 

[pastronef]

even the political and regional and administrative links that ASO has with every prefecture and departement/county and its power and knowledge and exposure they have all over France will make it difficult for the race organizers and mayors in France to change their view. in France ASO is allmighty. they own the races.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

I'm all for a new competitive league, but it won't be easy because a couple of organisations own a lot of the top races. But if there's enough money you can always create new races... What does TDF mean if Majka would win it, or Liege won by Van Gils. When other races in a different competition are won by the big 6.

They just need enough money to start those races, and proper media attention, then eventually RCS/ASO will fold and join the new league. I can imagine Flanders Classics being part of the new league from the beginning, because they are not afraid of challenging the status quo.

The name recognition of the Tour is far, far superior to that of Pogacar, Vingegaard or any other rider in the peloton. To us it would matter if lesser names won the Tour after a split, to the median Tour viewer, not so much.

 

[Armchair cyclist]

Teams include Ineos and Jumbo-Visma, potential investors include CVC.

Full report: Reuters

Is this Bakala's OneCycling project?

Will this get any further than previous breakaway attempts?

Important subject to raise: sneaky tactic to link to your own work on another site, that eventually carries a link to useful information about a previous breakaway attempt in the 27th paragraph.

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

Organizing bike races seems pretty hard and I assume the organizers are very depending on goodwill from local/regional/national Governments to close roads and get enough police support etc. I wonder if a breakaway league might struggle to get the same goodwill that traditional races have.

I kind of expect a potential breakaway league ending up doing races on short, closed circuits, one single mountain that is easy to close of for a couple of hours etc.

 

[pastronef]

question is: do we need a breakaway league? do we risk of seeing the Hammer Series comeback? please NO. NO NO

 

[KenFiamingo]

If the end result of this excercise would be a league of any kind, then i'm afraid only the consultancy firm will have benefitted from it.
The target should be about finding synergies and innovation between teams and race organizers. IMO they need to have Flanders Classics on board. Mainly because they're the smallest player so they would defnitely be interested in this potential mutual benefit. And secondly, given how FC remodelled races over the last decade, it seems like they would be more open to innovation and change.
So rather than positioning it as a new league, wich basically means you isolate yourself from the rest, it should be about finding joint revenue models that allow organizers to gradually jump on the bandwagon (given that it provides value). IMO showing sustainable growth is the only way to have a shot at pollinating the rigid ASO & RCS overtime.

 

[QueenStagiaire]

If I want to see a league, I can just watch football.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Does ASO etc actually own these races? Never really thought about it but was under the impression they were renting out the rights or similar.

There are some races ASO is just the organiser for (such as the Volta a Catalunya and Eschborn–Frankfurt) but the core races (the Tour, Roubaix, Liège, Dauphiné etc) it owns.

There is a claim floats about time to time that RCS doesn't own the Giro, it's actually leased from the family that does, but I'm not sure if anyone's ever properly stood that story up.

That said, there's nothing to stop someone coming along and organising a race that goes from Paris to Roubaix, or another race that does a circuit of France. Names would be a problem, and ASO's cosy relationship with local government might get in the way, though.

 

[fmk_RoI]

ASO and RCS are not needed for a breakaway league. To break the whole sport away from the UCI, sure, yes, not going to happen without them on board, but a league? Not needed. You're looking at Velon 2, it's hammertime ...again.

Of course, Velon failed as its central idea of "let's organise it in the carpark!" isn't really all that appealing. But ..... consider this.

First time round on the breakway leagues, CVC was partnered with Wouter Vandenhoute. When that failed he created Flanders Classics. Maybe FC could do a better job than Velon when it comes to organising new races - could atleast find better looking carparks - were Vandenhoute inclined to pick up where he left off and get back into bed with CVC.

On the downside there, though, is FC is doing well with women's racing, and that's not likely part of any breakaway (it wasn't last time), so would they want to jeopardise relationships there?

Given the 'success' of the UCI's track Champions League in creating something out of nothing (I still can't work out if its real or just a Saturday night light entertainment show, Strictly Come Cycling, but it's into its third season, so it's got legs) and the fact that the National Cycling League in the US has exceeded expectations by not actually failing in its first year, maybe you can see why some think the time is ripe to raise the breakway idea from the dead.

The NCL has done well in one key area (and just one key area - it's pretty much sucked at everything else): attracting wealthy investors with high profiles. That seems to be a thing currently: look at Alpine in F1, look at the Disneyfication of Wrexham in soccerball. There are fools out there eager to be separated from their wealth, even if just for the tax write off and the prospect of a streaming slot.

Whatever the logic, though, Velon failed, and its long march to the European Commission with the complaint that the UCI bullied them out of being must surely hang like a cloud over any attempt to launch a Velon 2.0. Or maybe they just hope to fail better this time out, and scare ASO and RCS into upping their appearance fees.

 

[fmk_RoI]

So rather than positioning it as a new league, wich basically means you isolate yourself from the rest, it should be about finding joint revenue models that allow organizers to gradually jump on the bandwagon (given that it provides value).

They tried that with the Tour de Suisse, the Velon teams promising to bring their A-teams in return for a greater share of the TV revenue, which was excpected to grow on the back of a more competitive race.

 

[fmk_RoI]

What does TDF mean if Majka would win it, or Liege won by Van Gils. When other races in a different competition are won by the big 6.

It would mean exactly what it means today, a spectacle more than a sport, a race that creates heroes and is not created by heroes. If the Giro can survive someone like TGH winning it, I think the Tour could cope with a second-rate rider taking the win. Especially if he was French.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I'm all for a new competitive league, but it won't be easy because a couple of organisations own a lot of the top races. But if there's enough money you can always create new races... What does TDF mean if Majka would win it, or Liege won by Van Gils. When other races in a different competition are won by the big 6.

They just need enough money to start those races, and proper media attention, then eventually RCS/ASO will fold and join the new league. I can imagine Flanders Classics being part of the new league from the beginning, because they are not afraid of challenging the status quo.

That was what was thought when CART and IRL split in the 90s. CART had all the drivers, the best teams, the best circuits. Surely with all of that, with IRL making do with fewer cars, smaller teams, lower budgets and less star power, it would be a decisive win for CART, right?

But IRL had the Indy 500. And although the Indy 500 had a few years of less talented drivers and weaker teams contesting it, the fact remained that there was a large contingent of the audience that only watched the Indy 500, and CART/Champ Car could never counter that. In the end, within 5 years, CART teams were racing the full CART season but entering IRL as wildcards to enter the Indy 500, and within ten years CART was bankrupt and IRL won the war, but the sport was forever worse because of it, having diluted its own product and resulted in fans defecting, largely to NASCAR, or just walking away. CART tried to create its alternative, the US500, but it was a catastrophic failure.

Do not underestimate the power of the Tour de France; its position as the only bike race many casuals have heard of, or think matters, means that trying to sell to sponsors that they will get major airtime in some kind of Major League Cycling or the Global Cycling Premiership is good and all, but trying to sell to sponsors that they will get major airtime in the Tour de France is better, because even old man advertising executives who know nothing about the sport of cycling know what the Tour de France is.

And the other thing is that a breakaway league would face obstruction at every turn if it didn't have ASO and co on board. ASO would probably protect their trademarks, just like how the Grande Boucle Féminine wasn't allowed to be called a Tour when ASO weren't inviting it, or how the Route de France wasn't allowed to have a yellow leader's jersey. Organising a replacement Tour de France would probably be a problem; ASO would strong-arm stage hosts or threaten to blacklist them if they host the renegade race.

Things like the Champions' League and the Premiership had the benefit that just having the teams on board meant they got the whole product. That's not possible with cycling because you don't just need the teams and riders, you need the organisers because the teams and riders do not own the race locations or the events' histories. It's not even like F1 or MotoGP where the races have the same format, you can just move them around to different circuits; races come in different shapes and sizes built around the geography that they are based upon. Grand Tours and Classics have the format they do because of the countries that host them, you can't just set up a three week race in, say, Saudi Arabia and call it a Grand Tour. Attempts so far to shake up the racing formats (usually in recent years with the sole intention of making sure Jonathan Vaughters stays relevant), like the Hammer Series, have struggled to hit upon a formula that works enough to be worth replicating; that's not to say that an idea that works isn't out there, but nothing has stuck yet.

Any kind of breakaway league without the support or at least the tacit agreement to exist of the major organisers will be doomed to becoming a minor races competition; but then if they have to build the season around the existing Classics and GTs, then I'm not sure it's different enough to what we have now that it would be worth the work that it would take to develop until years down the line, and there's always the risk that it collapses in on itself before ever reaching that point.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Some of the teams ought look at what CVC has done with rugby.

 

[Peter von]

So the whole point of a break away league would be that the teams usurp power from the big organizers, so they can get them to share tv money, right?

It's hard to see ASO going along with this.

But I suspect more than anything the teams are doing this to try to pressure organizers and UCI and not actually thinking they will actually break away. That strategy worked really well for the legacy clubs of European football.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Jumbo-Visma team manager Richard Plugge issued a short statement to Cyclingnews.

”It’s obvious that cycling is a sleeping giant and deserves an improved business model," Plugge said.

"For all stakeholders, but especially for the (WorldTour) teams. The only way to get there, is by cooperation."

link

Plugge is also the manager of the Jumbo-Visma team and has reportedly been working on the venture capital plans and a wider ‘OneCycling’ reform project with the UCI and race organisers. The venture capital project and OneCycling project appear to have similar aims but with very different strategies.

 

[Berniece]

That was what was thought when CART and IRL split in the 90s. CART had all the drivers, the best teams, the best circuits. Surely with all of that, with IRL making do with fewer cars, smaller teams, lower budgets and less star power, it would be a decisive win for CART, right?

But IRL had the Indy 500. And although the Indy 500 had a few years of less talented drivers and weaker teams contesting it, the fact remained that there was a large contingent of the audience that only watched the Indy 500, and CART/Champ Car could never counter that. In the end, within 5 years, CART teams were racing the full CART season but entering IRL as wildcards to enter the Indy 500, and within ten years CART was bankrupt and IRL won the war, but the sport was forever worse because of it, having diluted its own product and resulted in fans defecting, largely to NASCAR, or just walking away. CART tried to create its alternative, the US500, but it was a catastrophic failure.

Do not underestimate the power of the Tour de France; its position as the only bike race many casuals have heard of, or think matters, means that trying to sell to sponsors that they will get major airtime in some kind of Major League Cycling or the Global Cycling Premiership is good and all, but trying to sell to sponsors that they will get major airtime in the Tour de France is better, because even old man advertising executives who know nothing about the sport of cycling know what the Tour de France is.

And the other thing is that a breakaway league would face obstruction at every turn if it didn't have ASO and co on board. ASO would probably protect their trademarks, just like how the Grande Boucle Féminine wasn't allowed to be called a Tour when ASO weren't inviting it, or how the Route de France wasn't allowed to have a yellow leader's jersey. Organising a replacement Tour de France would probably be a problem; ASO would strong-arm stage hosts or threaten to blacklist them if they host the renegade race.

Things like the Champions' League and the Premiership had the benefit that just having the teams on board meant they got the whole product. That's not possible with cycling because you don't just need the teams and riders, you need the organisers because the teams and riders do not own the race locations or the events' histories. It's not even like F1 or MotoGP where the races have the same format, you can just move them around to different circuits; races come in different shapes and sizes built around the geography that they are based upon. Grand Tours and Classics have the format they do because of the countries that host them, you can't just set up a three week race in, say, Saudi Arabia and call it a Grand Tour. Attempts so far to shake up the racing formats (usually in recent years with the sole intention of making sure Jonathan Vaughters stays relevant), like the Hammer Series, have struggled to hit upon a formula that works enough to be worth replicating; that's not to say that an idea that works isn't out there, but nothing has stuck yet.

Any kind of breakaway league without the support or at least the tacit agreement to exist of the major organisers will be doomed to becoming a minor races competition; but then if they have to build the season around the existing Classics and GTs, then I'm not sure it's different enough to what we have now that it would be worth the work that it would take to develop until years down the line, and there's always the risk that it collapses in on itself before ever reaching that point.

Interesting, I don't know that much about other sports that tried to reform the business model. I do believe in the strength of having power users/watchers behind you. If the opinion of most journalists, hardcore cycling watchers, is that the new league would be better, I can imagine them being able persuade the general public to focus on the new league. Even more so if they have the more attractive riders that people love to watch.

Depends how all of it is framed, and how the public reacts to it I think. Not sure if you can easily compare an American sport with cycling, mostly because there's already a big cultural difference.

 

[Mayomaniac]

If this means getting big names at the Giro you can Bet on the fact that RCS and mainly Vegni will bend backwards to get on their good Side.
Aso is a whole different kind of beast...

 

[Ricco']

As time passes, I am more and more under the impression that individuals closer to the cycling core (staff or fans) overvalue mainstream interest in cycling.

And I'm personally starting to get to a point where all this corporate attempts to mercantilise cycling give me more dread than appeal. Even more when there are the teams that have been having almost all the big results in the past years that are behind it.