Fus087 said:When the Dutch fed introduced minimum salaries for Conti teams a few years back, we saw a dramatic drop in the number of Dutch Conti teams.
They simply couldn't afford it.
The money in cycling is small compared to many other sports, and ridiculous given the amount of exposure the Tour gets (and some other races regionally, but the Tour worldwide).
Small teams are often having a hard time just getting the wheels to turn around for the whole season.
They'll often look for whatever ways to minimize their costs, some times in ways you wouldn't believe - like taking homemade sandwiches across the whole country in order to save money on food at the race venue.
Sometimes, that will include asking a rider to find a sponsor for the team in exchange for a ride. Not necessarily evil-intended, but just out of necessity.
The combination of a minimum number of riders in a team, and a minimum salary will have an influence at the world tour level, but i have no real idea how many riders at WT level make the minimum. Though currently I believe the minimum is 36300 euro gross. I would think if the minimum wage changed, the exposure stays the same, therefore sponsors money wouldn't change, but rider costs are less, so either the team makes more money, or they then reinvest this money into rider performance ie new kit, drugs, research more comfortable transport etc, or into their top riders who getting the exposure. There would be a small lowering of cost to sponsors, but i think the marginal cost reduction would be borne 100% by the cheap riders obviously, and the marginal savings made spread through the system, landing mostly on the top riders.
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