You shouldn’t say that. There are people out here telling themselves Pogacar is ruining cycling in order to cope, while in reality, he is saving it and significantly boosting ratings whenever he races now. Don’t ruin their bubble like that.
Does anyone actually have a detailed breakdown of the Giro viewership? Not disputing the claim but I looked a while ago and was unable to find a reliable one, just some chatgpt nonsense. I've seen Bruyneel claiming it was down but it just felt like he was going off vibes.
Good question indeed, but without paying too much attention to it, you can see several in each race thread he participates in for instance. Not that there is anything wrong with it per se—my guess is that it's some sort of defense mechanism, and at this point, what else can they say? So I get it. Just funny when, in reality, it's the opposite.
As I said: "By all means question whether it is misguided concern": maybe van Hooydonck was ill-informed, or just guessing, in his comments about viewing figures. I've not seen the original context of these comments: does anyone know it? I'm guessing it was not a considered article written as the fruits of research, and more likely an off the cuff comment when asked something along the lines of "Will the Giro be worse off without Pogacar this year?"
You are not wrong.
Giro 2023 was worse than Giro 2024.
he's not correct at all. viewership in ANY race pogacar is not in attendance will automatically be lower. on a personal basis, i certainly hardly watch any races pogacar is not competing in, as do almost everyone in my cycling group. pogacar is the person responsible for any increases in viewership, despite what NVH thinks. perhaps he's lowkey upset that the viewership is lower for races that his soulmate buddy JV is competing in. this year's giro with no pogacar will likely have a significantly lower watch rate than 2024. hardly any of my family in italy even knew it was starting this week, or were interested as they were last year.
The frustration of Tadej’s rivals is turning into anger, and the conversations are starting to resemble Facebook comment sections—even though we’re talking about former professionals. Every race Tadej has ridden this year has been extremely exciting and watchable, with the exception of the UAE Tour (and even there, he tried to spice up the sprint stages in the middle of the desert) and Liège-Bastogne-Liège, where apparently someone thought Chicone (?) might beat him or something. FW is the same every year, Strade was interesting, and RVV, MSR, Paris-Roubaix, and Amstel were all incredibly entertaining. All thanks to Pogacar, who always announces his race calendar first and dares to race on “foreign terrain.” But then LBL happens (which, objectively, was dull due to Remco’s weakness rather than Tadej’s dominance), and suddenly everyone forgets the five fantastic races before that. No one mentions E3 or Gent-Wevelgem, where MvdP and Mads attacked even earlier than Pogacar did at LBL—because Pogacar wasn’t involved.
And with dominance, you also attract the opposite. I would even say that in cycling, with Pog it’s less pronounced, with Pogacar being some sort of boy wonder in general. Considering how much he actually dominates, it would be natural for him to face way more scrutiny by opposing fans and in general etc than he actually gets imo.
Weather was miserable and almost nothing happened for more than 10 days between Remco withdrawing after winning the TT at the end of week 1 and the TT on the penultimate day.
I just hope he doesn’t lose any silly time early on that sees him fall into being a super domestique as I think he has the highest ceiling of all the UAE Giro roster.
The more they need him the more they pay. Not as much as pogi for sure. But they needed him to shape the race and make it more interesting
Because sprint stages don't effect GC and so, in the economy of a three week race, the teams with potentially winning sprinters must be "greedy." And such stages are less of an audience draw, so it doesn't take much out of the till when one sprinter dominates, but actually adds to the introites. By contrast, if every GC stage goes to one rider beyond the necessary that team has its hands in the till too much and folks will start to lose interest in the final outcome, which is a foregone conclusion. In a sport where nothing happens of significance for most of the race, killing the suspence is not good business.
What? Sprint stages with a break fighting for the stage would be way more exciting and woulf bring more audience for sure. So it's really the opposite. Less people sees flat stages because they are boring until the last 5 km.
| POGAČAR Tadej | 1438 |
| VINGEGAARD Jonas | 1010 |
| ROGLIČ Primož | 929 |
| EVENEPOEL Remco | 795 |
| AYUSO Juan | 773 |
| JORGENSON Matteo | 755 |
| ALMEIDA João | 733 |
| SKJELMOSE Mattias | 712 |
| MARTÍNEZ Daniel Felipe | 649 |
| LANDA Mikel | 648 |
| CICCONE Giulio | 643 |
| MARTINEZ Lenny | 626 |
| MAS Enric | 621 |
| VANEETVELT Lennert | 620 |
| YATES Adam | 620 |
| BUITRAGO Santiago | 584 |
| LIPOWITZ Florian | 574 |
| RODRÍGUEZ Carlos | 573 |
| VLASOV Aleksandr | 554 |
| BERNAL Egan | 539 |
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