Is there a need for a 'salary cap' in cycling?

[Ryo Hazuki]

A rider like Phil isn't even paid anything close to what he is worth for the sponsorship and brand that is BMC as it is now. Yet you want a salary cap to balance things - which is noble enough - but such a cap is taking the pis* on an elite athlete.

not to mention. it means helpers will get paid even less than the pathetic 50.000 euros they get now.

 

[the asian]

Rather than an individual salary cap limit a team's salary budget. That way a team cannot buy up multiple talents like BMC did. Perhaps have a maximum percentage of the budget fir rider salaries?

Even though in theory the idea sounds good, implementing it will be quite difficult.
If there is any Salary cap agree that it should be on a team's budget, but accompanied with a minimum wage.
The most difficult thing to monitor would be endorsements by individual cyclists set up by the team.

The main argument for a salary cap is that along with the WT points requirement some traditional teams like Euskatel and even the French teams will struggle for survival or will have to change their long standing values.

 

[ingsve]

Yes, introduce a salary cap for teams and put it at 100 million € per year.

 

[on3m@n@rmy]

Yes, introduce a salary cap for teams and put it at 100 million € per year.

love it... translation = no salary cap

 

[auscyclefan94]

A rider like Phil isn't even paid anything close to what he is worth for the sponsorship and brand that is BMC as it is now. Yet you want a salary cap to balance things - which is noble enough - but such a cap is taking the pis* on an elite athlete.

I am still rather neutral on a salary cap as I believe the practicality of it may still be difficult.

not to mention. it means helpers will get paid even less than the pathetic 50.000 euros they get now.

Not necessarily. It means that the top riders will get less and potentially that the domestiques could get more. It depends on if you have an individual cap on each rider or and overall team cap.

 

[Yingge]

And the penalty for a Salary Cap breach?

For example, say that next month the UCI (or whoever would administer (a nightmare in itself) such a cap), discovered that Sky had breached the cap for the 2012 season - and thus removed all results obtained by Sky in 2012 from the books. Wiggins and Cav of course would be the biggest losers, all because their Management stuffed up. A bigger mess than when a Clinic related matter causes results to be retrospectively reworked.

ACF will know what a mess the Cap caused in the Rugby League in Australia, when two teams got caught a few years apart. One went from top to bottom of the ladder at the stroke of a pen, the other retrospectively lost 2 premierships. The players suffered due to the mismanagement of those above. The same would happen in cycling if it was implemented.

 

[auscyclefan94]

And the penalty for a Salary Cap breach?

For example, say that next month the UCI (or whoever would administer (a nightmare in itself) such a cap), discovered that Sky had breached the cap for the 2012 season - and thus removed all results obtained by Sky in 2012 from the books. Wiggins and Cav of course would be the biggest losers, all because their Management stuffed up. A bigger mess than when a Clinic related matter causes results to be retrospectively reworked.

ACF will know what a mess the Cap caused in the Rugby League in Australia, when two teams got caught a few years apart. One went from top to bottom of the ladder at the stroke of a pen, the other retrospectively lost 2 premierships. The players suffered due to the mismanagement of those above. The same would happen in cycling if it was implemented.

On your 2nd point, you can't compare Rugby League with Cycling. Rugby is a team based sport, cycling is more so an individual sport so a salary cap breach could not warrant taking away race victories.

 

[Ferminal]

(1) Budget cap > Salary cap

(2) Cycling isn't in a position of luxury whereby it can cap investment for the sake of perceived sporting reasons.

(3) Next to zero enforceability, given that the cycling world is already proficient in dealing with large sums of money "off the books".

 

[Michele]

Finally someone understanding the real facts (point 3).

 

[Ryo Hazuki]

(1) Budget cap > Salary cap

(2) Cycling isn't in a position of luxury whereby it can cap investment for the sake of perceived sporting reasons.

(3) Next to zero enforceability, given that the cycling world is already proficient in dealing with large sums of money "off the books".

point 3 exactly. most teams pay many of their top riders of the books. that;'s been part of cycling as long as cycling teams exist.

 

[Stibolino]

In my opinion there is no need for a salary cap in cycling.
I understand this issue because you have 18 WorldTour teams, competing on highest level and the WorldTour System is a little bit similar to the franchise systems of the sport league system in the US sports (NBA, NFL, MLB...), so far so good...

But actually cycling is a sport of specialization. (Climbers, Sprinters, Cobblestone and so on...). and so Teams put there focus on one or two terrains. For example Sky is now focused on GrandTour and OmegaPharmaQuickstep on spring classics. So every team is trying to build up a capaple team to reach their objectives in its specialization. But all of this tries have their limit. For example a Tour de France contender never would go at the moment to Sky, where it would be uncertain to be the number one, so he would choose an other team.

Besides history has shown that all of these experiments of these "super-teams", teams that came out of nothing with a big financial background, failed more or less.... Astana 2009, Radioshack & Leopard 2011 plus the merger this year so far or the Sky & Cav issue this year.

So a star rider is always looking to have all advantages and support on his side and dont want to share this with a rival of the same terrain in one team.

And all these facts will arrange for cycling that there will be allways enough contenders and competition and no concentration of all potencials on one ore two teams

 

[Fergoose]

Seeing a superdomestique on TJV canter to 2nd place at the last TdF and again at this Dauphine I'd have to say this a debate that should still be happening. In their defence TJV do seem to use their funds to identify, nurture and retain talent rather than just pinch the best talent from other teams, but having clearly 2 of the 4 strongest GC riders on a team (a fit Bernal and Pog being the others) isn't a situation that is healthy for the sport as a spectacle. This has to have been the most snooze inducing Dauphine in history (and I've not even mentioned WVA being able to win a stage, throw away a stage and wear the leaders jersey).

 

[CyclistAbi]

If anything then i vote for salary cap to go and for Rogla to get a raise. And if that doesn't happen. I guess he will still manage just fine.

 

[Kaptain Kool]

Vingegaard has 1 GC win and it was in a 2.1 race. I'm pretty sure more than 3 active cyclists have better GC records.

 

[Netserk]

Vingegaard has 1 GC win and it was in a 2.1 race. I'm pretty sure more than 3 active cyclists have better GC records.

And Froome won his first stage race in 2013. Must have been a horrible stage racer before that?

 

[Kaptain Kool]

And Froome won his first stage race in 2013. Must have been a horrible stage racer before that?

lol there's a gap between "horrible" and not top 4. If you don't win any WT stage races, you aren't a top 4 GC rider. Pretty simple.

 

[Netserk]

So Froome wasn't a top-4 GC rider before his Romandie victory in 2013?