Mayomaniac wrote:Brullnux wrote:oldcrank wrote:Kind of sad to see that the ill-advised pursuit of the
"low-hanging fruit" of tracks medals, "that nobody
except the Brits and the Aussies care about" has
financially crippled the national body of a once
proud and dominant traditional cycling nation.
What are you talking about?
Italy spending a lot of money on their track cycling program, I don't think that's the big problem.
The biggest problem overall is the fact that the WC has become waaay to expensive, it's as expensive Tour de France grand depart and that gives you way more coverage and eyeballs, you can have a few Giro starts for the same amount of money and the WC is mostly a race that only the hardcore fans and the riders care about, the kind of exposure that you get for that amount of money isn't that great.
Yep.
‘Can’t rule out a loss’
The event had a budget of NOK 156 million. BT estimated that total costs may hit around NOK 220 million. “The receipts haven’t been tallied yet, and we’ll have to see what’s come in, but I’m worried,” Hansen admitted to BT. “I can’t rule out there will be a loss. It’s demanding to host a world championships, but the public has been fantastic. I hope those who have any influence can see that this has been a fantastic promotion of Bergen, of Western Norway and the whole country, and that they won’t let the cycling federation bleed afterwards.”
...
Salte is worried the budget fiasco will hurt the cycling sport in Norway. “It’s a special situation, the federation will have to fire some of its people,” Salte said. “The payroll is the only area where they can save money.” He also claimed the federation should have been better prepared for currency exchange costs. When Bergen 2017 was granted the rights to host the world championships in 2017, a licensing fee of EUR 7 million from the international cycling federation (UCI) was attached. “They should have paid that earlier (when the Norwegian krone was stronger). Instead they put it off.” That means the EUR 7 million now costs nearly NOK 65 million instead of the NOK 50 million that was budgeted.
State officials, meanwhile, reminded reporters that the state already has contributed NOK 52 million in funding for the event, NOK 12 million more than initially requested. They weren’t at all sure there would be any willingness to bail out the organizers now.
It's btw quite clear, that we are on the same way like FIFA and IOC. Lappartient was elected by all african nations in UCI, so they will get a WRC in the not too distant future. South Africa, Egypt, Tunisia, Rwanda and Morocco are interested.
In the classic cycling countries there is no money for stuff like that anymore. Same with Summer/Winter games, where one candidate after the other gets rejected by the population.