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

[Libertine Seguros]

Last 15 World Championships:

2009 Mendrisio: 19 laps of a circuit
2010 Geelong: 82km run-in before entering circuit
2011 Copenhagen: 22km run-in before entering circuit
2012 Valkenburg: ~100km run-in before entering circuit
2013 Firenze: 107km run-in before entering circuit
2014 Ponferrada: 14 laps of a circuit
2015 Richmond: 16 laps of a circuit
2016 Doha: 151km run-in before entering circuit
2017 Bergen: 41km run-in before entering circuit
2018 Innsbruck: 84km run-in before entering circuit - leaving circuit for new circuit in last 25km
2019 Harrogate: 186km run-in before entering circuit
2020 Imola: 9 laps of a circuit
2021 Leuven: ~60km run-in before entering circuit, then leaving circuit to travel to another circuit before returning to original circuit
2022 Wollongong: 65km run-in before entering circuit
2023 Glasgow: 120km run-in before entering circuit

So only 4 of the last 15 World Championships have followed the Plugge program. And one of those was the 2020 Imola Worlds that was a special case due to pandemic restrictions. The original parcours in Martigny had 110km before entering the circuit.

 

[Berniece]

Last 15 World Championships:

2009 Mendrisio: 19 laps of a circuit
2010 Geelong: 82km run-in before entering circuit
2011 Copenhagen: 22km run-in before entering circuit
2012 Valkenburg: ~100km run-in before entering circuit
2013 Firenze: 107km run-in before entering circuit
2014 Ponferrada: 14 laps of a circuit
2015 Richmond: 16 laps of a circuit
2016 Doha: 151km run-in before entering circuit
2017 Bergen: 41km run-in before entering circuit
2018 Innsbruck: 84km run-in before entering circuit - leaving circuit for new circuit in last 25km
2019 Harrogate: 186km run-in before entering circuit
2020 Imola: 9 laps of a circuit
2021 Leuven: ~60km run-in before entering circuit, then leaving circuit to travel to another circuit before returning to original circuit
2022 Wollongong: 65km run-in before entering circuit
2023 Glasgow: 120km run-in before entering circuit

So only 4 of the last 15 World Championships have followed the Plugge program. And one of those was the 2020 Imola Worlds that was a special case due to pandemic restrictions. The original parcours in Martigny had 110km before entering the circuit.

Nowhere did Plugge say he only wants a circuit without a run in. He even literally discussed Tour of Flanders as an example where a small part is a circuit, and how well that work for them.

 

[Netserk]

Maybe race organisers know more about organising races than team managers do.

If they want to become race organisers and start new races, they're welcome. Just like race organisers are welcome to start new teams, but shouldn't tell Plugge how to do his job.

 

[CyclistAbi]

Milan Eržen: 2026 pet do sedem novih dirk serije One Cycling

Zamisel o novi kolesarski seriji One Cycling bi lahko zaživela leta 2026, je povedal eden idejnih vodij projekta Milan Eržen. Direktor ekipe Bahrain Victorious si želi, da bi se pod okriljem tega tekmovanja najboljši večkrat merili med seboj.

www.rtvslo.si

Now here one can read (listen) a lot of concrete info and not just some hearsay. So the project could start in the 2026 season and to consist of five to seven races. In 2025 season some pilot races could already be organized. Main ideas are shorter races, trying to involve more cyclists in the fight for the overall win, more fair distribution of money from the team perspective, that is for organizers and the teams to split the money from the TV rights in some way, some races to be held outside Europe (North and South America, China, India ...), main sponsor being PIF.

Format could include three days of racing. One day likely TT(T), the other two stages not being totally flat stages and not including long climbs in it. So more in the direction of classics and worlds. An example from 2023 season would be Flanders and Worlds RR.

For now the plan is to not overlap races from WorldTour with One Cycling racing.

Investments would be made in media platform that would unifying content in one place, accessible through an app. Addressing the younger generation on where last 15km of race and some recaps are viewed. So more digitalization would be one of the goals.

Now reading this i don't necessarily see it as immediate threat to traditional cycling. Here teams would likely send their top riders to compete and to make some money. On the long term i guess teams could use it as a leverage. To secure some percentage of the money from the "traditional racing league". We'll see.

 

[Ricco']

For now the plan is to not overlap races from WorldTour with One Cycling racing.

That's impossible. The only weekends without WT racing this year were the first 2 weekends of january, 3 weekends in february until the 17-18/02, and after this, the only other weekends without World Tour racing will be the NC weekend, the two week period of the Olympics and in October after Lombardia.

I'm assuming they want to have their races during the weekends, to have return on their investment.

Plus, we're not counting the time needed to travel and adjust to new time zones that events in South America and Asia would require.

So or this are just some nice sentences to appease folks who are afraid of ending cycling as we know it or they are counting with UCI goodwill.

 

[roundabout]

Feels like a do-over of the Hammer Series. IIRC they also wanted to go to South America before the whole thing went bust.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Nowhere did Plugge say he only wants a circuit without a run in. He even literally discussed Tour of Flanders as an example where a small part is a circuit, and how well that work for them.

A race where... guess what? They charge fees for getting prime viewing spots.

Feels like a do-over of the Hammer Series. IIRC they also wanted to go to South America before the whole thing went bust.

Definitely. Three days of racing with "much shorter, more explosive" action? One day TTT and two days of short, circuit based racing? It's SSDD from an idea that should never have been conceived, should have been aborted, and suffered a swift euthanasia. But the teams liked it because they covered as much distance in 3 days as one stage of a real, actual race, and they can pick and choose the hosts based on who pays them most and put all the races in oil-rich autocracies where they can minimise the chances of having to race when it's rainy, or cold, or anything that Adam Hansen might not like.

I guess they were hoping people would be clamouring for the return of the Hammer Series post-pandemic because it was the only thing the teams' previous attempt at a power grab had had to offer, but since there appears to be practically zero interest in that, they have to dress it up differently and try again.

 

[Berniece]

A race where... guess what? They charge fees for getting prime viewing spots.

Obviously… they want to earn more and make the model more sustainable. It has to come from somewhere, and one of the revenue streams can be exactly that.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Obviously… they want to earn more and make the model more sustainable. It has to come from somewhere, and one of the revenue streams can be exactly that.

I said that this was clearly what they were targeting, and you shot me down. Now that it becomes clearer that this is what they were targeting, you are now suggesting that of course this was what they were saying all along.

At this point One Cycling could announce that they would drop a nuclear bomb on the Carrefour de l'Arbre to make sure Roubaix never happened again and you would argue that it was a good thing because some rich businessmen might be able to get richer if they put some cobbles on a circuit in Saudi Arabia.

 

[proffate]

Obviously… they want to earn more and make the model more sustainable. It has to come from somewhere, and one of the revenue streams can be exactly that.

how is the model NOT sustainable? How long has Liege been going?

"Sustainable" is just a code word for "PAY ME".

 

[roundabout]

Yeah, all the 'sustainable' shtick is rubbish. I don't see anywhere in the plans that teams would be moving away from sponsorship and relying fully on an even/equal split of TV rights money.

A team with the biggest sponsor/backer would make others 'unsustainable' even in the proposed criterium-y ticketed ppv world.

 

[theyoungest]

In a podcast Richard Plugge (CEO of Visma-LAB) talked a bit more about ONE-cycling. Major take aways:

• ONE-cycling is for everyone, not a select few teams
• They are currently at a standstill
• There are more investors than only Saudis
• He doesn't understand why we don't do more circuit races like we do for the World Championship, because logistically it's a nightmare to make a route of 200km. It would be more interesting financially too.

Translation in english:

Richard Plugge: 'Er komt een moment dat ook de Tour niet meer van A naar B kan over 200 kilometer'

Visma | Lease a Bike-ploegbaas Richard Plugge heeft

www-indeleiderstrui-nl.translate.goog

Dear God, what a horrible translation. When will these websites realize that simply running an article through Google translate isn't good enough?

I said that this was clearly what they were targeting, and you shot me down. Now that it becomes clearer that this is what they were targeting, you are now suggesting that of course this was what they were saying all along.

At this point One Cycling could announce that they would drop a nuclear bomb on the Carrefour de l'Arbre to make sure Roubaix never happened again and you would argue that it was a good thing because some rich businessmen might be able to get richer if they put some cobbles on a circuit in Saudi Arabia.

You go into this with the prejudice that Plugge is all about money, and you reason back from there. When the clear reason he gives for having local laps is that a 200 k race in public space is getting increasingly hard to organize. Which it is. In the Netherlands (as you may know, the country where Plugge is from) there are hardly any pro races left. And the only one of any importance, Amstel Gold, is in jeopardy. You may not care about the actual facts on the ground and stay the hopeless romantic that a lot of cycling fans are, but for Plugge it is obviously of greater importance that the sport he operates in continues to, you know, exist.

 

[Berniece]

I said that this was clearly what they were targeting, and you shot me down. Now that it becomes clearer that this is what they were targeting, you are now suggesting that of course this was what they were saying all along.

At this point One Cycling could announce that they would drop a nuclear bomb on the Carrefour de l'Arbre to make sure Roubaix never happened again and you would argue that it was a good thing because some rich businessmen might be able to get richer if they put some cobbles on a circuit in Saudi Arabia.

Because you are saying it’s ONLY going to be a circuit, and I’m saying no because neither is Tour of Flanders.

how is the model NOT sustainable? How long has Liege been going?

"Sustainable" is just a code word for "PAY ME".

First of all a lot of race organizers have issues with their financials. They have to rely on A LOT on volunteers. On top of that is the business model of a team not sustainable.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Dear God, what a horrible translation. When will these websites realize that simply running an article through Google translate isn't good enough?


You go into this with the prejudice that Plugge is all about money, and you reason back from there. When the clear reason he gives for having local laps is that a 200 k race in public space is getting increasingly hard to organize. Which it is. In the Netherlands (as you may know, the country where Plugge is from) there are hardly any pro races left. And the only one of any importance, Amstel Gold, is in jeopardy. You may not care about the actual facts on the ground and stay the hopeless romantic that a lot of cycling fans are, but for Plugge it is obviously of greater importance that the sport he operates in continues to, you know, exist.

If his motive is purely altruistic and based out of fear that race organisers will no longer be able to organise races, then why is his project all about diverting funds from the race organisers who are apparently the people that need it most, and to the teams, i.e. to him and his cronies?

And if this idea is so wonderful and is going to revolutionise cycling and create a super sustainable business model that will work for everybody, then why is it so similar to a model which was already tried, garnered little to no interest, died off (admittedly due to circumstances outside of its control) and saw nobody mourn its death or clamour for its return?

 

[roundabout]

the business model is not sustainable at the level x

scale the needs down to level y, it would probably become more sustainable with sponsors being more easily replaceable

 

[theyoungest]

If his motive is purely altruistic and based out of fear that race organisers will no longer be able to organise races, then why is his project all about diverting funds from the race organisers who are apparently the people that need it most, and to the teams, i.e. to him and his cronies?

And if this idea is so wonderful and is going to revolutionise cycling and create a super sustainable business model that will work for everybody, then why is it so similar to a model which was already tried, garnered little to no interest, died off (admittedly due to circumstances outside of its control) and saw nobody mourn its death or clamour for its return?

Only if you're wilfully misconstruing his intentions you'd come to the conclusion that he's trying to turn the Tour of Flanders into the Hammer Series. Speaking of which, have people turned away en masse from the Ronde since the introduction of the local laps? Because if so, I must have missed it.

And yes, he's trying to bankrupt the race organizers. That's exactly what he's trying to do. His sole purpose is to get filthy rich off of this evil scheme, sell his shares, and move to the Bahamas.

 

[pastronef]

I'm just not against it until I've heard everything properly about what they are trying to do. I don't like immediately shooting something down, without knowing the full details. It's an added bonus to see ASO being brought down a notch.

it will not EVER happen

 

[proffate]

Because you are saying it’s ONLY going to be a circuit, and I’m saying no because neither is Tour of Flanders.

First of all a lot of race organizers have issues with their financials. They have to rely on A LOT on volunteers. On top of that is the business model of a team not sustainable.

Literally who cares if the business model of cycling guarantees that a particular team will last forever? Only Plugge and other team admins. Plugge wants to own or run some multi-billion dollar dynasty like Manchester United, but why would the fans give a rat's tail about Plugge?

The spectacle goes on and qualified racers never have a problem finding a paycheck.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Only if you're wilfully misconstruing his intentions you'd come to the conclusion that he's trying to turn the Tour of Flanders into the Hammer Series. Speaking of which, have people turned away en masse from the Ronde since the introduction of the local laps? Because if so, I must have missed it.

And yes, he's trying to bankrupt the race organizers. That's exactly what he's trying to do. His sole purpose is to get filthy rich off of this evil scheme, sell his shares, and move to the Bahamas.

I don't think he's trying to turn the Tour of Flanders into the Hammer Series.

I'm seeing his plan as an attempt to bring back the idea that the Hammer Series was, selling tickets to the circuit, short races where endurance - the essence of the sport - is marginalised because it's too much like hard work, and race organisers just organise these events out of their own pockets and the teams can pocket all of the money, because they can just sell it to the highest bidder and hold the whole calendar in sportswashing totalitarian states if they need to in order to swim in cash like Scrooge McDuck because they think packaging it like F1 could make cycling into a huge cash cow with millions watching and desperate to pay €30 to stand by the roadside in Riyadh or Manama or wherever.

As ever, they've got so starry-eyed about the money they could make off of a hypothetical audience that they've forgotten that there are people who watch the sport the way it is. Because we don't matter to them, because we're already maxing out what we're spending on our Visma memorabilia and we're not going to be as keen to spend a load of money to stand on a roadside because we've already experienced years of paying nothing but the cost of getting there to stand there. A new audience, they can tell them that that's how it is and they might be more receptive.

I mean, they might not actually exist, but if they do, then they might be more receptive.

 

[Berniece]

Literally who cares if the business model of cycling guarantees that a particular team will last forever? Only Plugge and other team admins. Plugge wants to own or run some multi-billion dollar dynasty like Manchester United, but why would the fans give a rat's tail about Plugge?

The spectacle goes on and qualified racers never have a problem finding a paycheck.

There are people who are fan of teams and not only riders

 

[Unchained]

how is the model NOT sustainable? How long has Liege been going?

"Sustainable" is just a code word for "PAY ME".

Liege- Bastogne- Liege 1892 Most of the races had World War interruptions

 

[pastronef]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1758123098887311795

View: https://twitter.com/marcopinotti/status/1758123098887311795

 

[Shakes]

Cycling is held back by legacy. Let's take a step back and look at GCN+ folding. Unfortunately audience was small but on here and elsewhere there were numerous posts with people wondering how to watch cycling now. Some needing multiple subscriptions and every organiser sells it individually and thus to different parties. At, I think, actually very low prices.

Negotiation position is better when it's bundled. This could raise money for teams and organisers. A bigger pie, not just a redistribution of the existing pie. If invested in quality of the broadcast (and it can't hurt to see how to spice things up on in some events to attract bigger audience) we customers also benefit. It can raise more sponsors for organisers, as potential audience might be bigger and during broadcasts (which should lead to higher payments for broadcasts).

A downside is for us viewers. Since there is a route that its paid by more sponsorships/advertisers of broadcasts. Another avenue is by raising costs of viewing cq subscriptions to the stream. However, simply said that would just be the market. I'd rather have cyclists getting paid better than a second division average footballer being paid more than the number 20 in cycling.

I think there is a case to be made for one cycling. Although I expect them to mess it up. Customers also seem to easily be pulled in by ASO "you can't do anything without le tour" which just stymies progress. Which is a shame for the sport. Now and twenty years from now.

 

[Netserk]

Are there other sports with as many events where they're all bundled (at the highest level)?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I think there is a case to be made for one cycling. Although I expect them to mess it up. Customers also seem to easily be pulled in by ASO "you can't do anything without le tour" which just stymies progress. Which is a shame for the sport. Now and twenty years from now.

It's kind of too late to put the genie back in the bottle, though.

Where there is one event that has become synonymous with the sport, that event holds sway. The people that you need to convince aren't the types posting on a cycling board because we're the ones already watching the whole package and the smaller races. It's the type of people who watch once a year, in July, and need a refresher course about suitcases of courage and little petrol engines and big diesel engines every season. The audience for Le Tour is so much bigger than the rest of the calendar that being on the startlist there is crucial to the outreach for sponsors, hence why One Cycling needs the Saudi sportswashing money, because the commercial sponsors will still want the eyes on their product provided by Le Tour.

Just as the World Rally-Raid Championships are run by FIA and FIM, but in conjunction with ASO as they had to homologate regulations with those at the ASO-run Dakar Rally, because that's the one Rally Raid event people outside of its own tiny niche are aware of and pay attention to.

Similarly, FIA's GT series died the death because their regulations diverged from ACO, who organise the 24h du Mans. Nobody wanted to run expensive GT1 or GT2 cars if they couldn't go to Le Mans, the one time a year that sportscars get global coverage. The current WEC again is organised specifically by ACO with FIA sanctioning as a result of extensive work to agree regulations because nobody wanted to run sportscars outside of the budget GT3 class unless they were able to get the coverage that Le Mans provides. Winning Le Mans is still far more prestigious than winning WEC anyway.

And, as mentioned before a few times, the best example is the AOWR split, with Indycar winning despite having worse cars, worse drivers, lower budget teams and less international coverage than Champ Car. Because Indycar had the Indy 500 and so much of the audience of casuals that only watched AOWR once a season did so because the Indy 500 has name value far above and beyond the rest of the sport.

If an ongoing cycling series with a world ranking was really going to succeed, you'd have thought there would have been more efforts by big stars to protect leads in the World Cup ranking, or the ProTour, or the World Tour. There have been many attempts to set up a world calendar in a way so that the Tour becomes a focal point more like, say, the Holmenkollen 50, or the Monaco Grand Prix, rather than the Indy 500 or the Le Mans 24 Hours. Instead, although the World Cup did have a brief run of relevance, by and large teams ignore these and compete toward their own goals, with the eventual World Tour ranking being a kind of guide as to who did best at year end rather than anything that teams and riders actually contest.