Should Pro Cycling Teams Build Stronger, Franchise-Like Brands?

[Carolin Schloßer]

Hi!

I'm currently conducting research for my Master's thesis on fan preferences in professional road cycling and how a consistent team identity (same team name, logo, colors) might influence team identification and fan engagement.

As we all know, pro cycling teams often change names and identities as sponsors come and go. I'm curious to hear your thoughts:

Would you prefer teams to have a more consistent identity (like football franchises), or do you think cycling's sponsor-based model works just fine?

I've created a short survey to explore this topic further — it only takes a few minutes, and your input would be incredibly valuable:


Survey - Professional Road Cycling - Fans


Thank you so much for your time and for helping me better understand what makes cycling fans tick!

Carolin

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

There is one big difference between cycling and football, and that is that football takes place in a fixed location, where teams charge supporters to come and watch. Cycling does not have that and a lot less money flows from supporters, to the team. A lot of the money flow gets stuck at ASO and UCI. Teams don't have the luxury since the sport also, again unlike football, does not revolve around transfer fees (yet). There is less financial margin and teams sometimes have to jump from one sponsor to the next just to survive.

Due to being less popular, one way of enticing sponsors, is for the team to carry the main sponsor's name. Hence the name changes when the sponsor changes. This is also completely different from (most) football teams.

A strong brand makes sense for regions where cycling is popular. If nobody in Sri Lanka cares about it, then local brands will have little to gain by sponsoring it.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

In theory, I would prefer it if, for example, Caisse d'Epargne Abarca had changed to Movistar Abarca (that being the example that best comes to mind where the name of the team owner entity is known and long term).

But it's not a strong preference, and I wouldn't want to see teams forgo much sponsorship income for it. And when teams already have three sponsors in their name, a 'timeless' identifier would be overkill. There is also the complicating factor that sometimes the sponsors also buy the team, rather than just paying them to carry their name.

Similarly, some degree of consistency in colours of design would be nice: I guess the double stripe that has passed through various guises from Giant to Picnic, or the argyle that occasionally re-emerges in EF kits would be examples. But it is to be expected that companies with aggressively defended corporate identities would want to feature their brand colours.

I'd struggle to say there's much more to the issue than that: good luck trying to turn it into a masters' thesis.