Team Ineos Discussion thread

[Susan Westemeyer]

Cool it with the Scotland/England/nationalistic stuff. It is off topic and any further such postings will be deleted and posters banned.

Thank you.

 

[oldcrank]

Re: Team Sky Discussion thread

https://www.teamsky.com/article/sosa-settling-into-team-sky-life

 

[Robert5091]

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2...rns-cycling-will-suffer-if-team-sky-breaks-up

Sir Bradley Wiggins has warned cycling could take a step backwards if Team Sky close their doors at the end of next season.

Sky, who own and sponsor the team, announced last week they will end their investment in professional cycling at the end of 2019, leaving Sir Dave Brailsford scrambling to find new backing to keep the best-funded team in the sport together.

Wiggins, who became the first Briton to win the Tour de France when racing for Team Sky in 2012, has often been critical of his old employers since leaving in 2015, but said the end of the team would not be good news.

“People need to be careful what they wish for because if Sky go now the sport will be worse off for it,” Wiggins said on talkSPORT.

“(Cycling) won’t disintegrate but it won’t have the profile it has enjoyed now. This day was always going to happen because the sport is so backward in some ways, the people that run it. It’s not corrupt but it’s so backward. There’s no money in the sport.

“Sky brought money but I’m talking about sponsors in general aside from Sky. Rather than be grateful for a company like Sky people just hammered it.”

 

[deValtos]

Re: Team Sky Discussion thread

There's a good interview on the cycling podcast with some business guy (forgot his name) about the team sky sponsorship. Essentially saying because of the investment the team put into their commercial development they were able to keep providing a better return for the sponsor and hence kept getting bigger and bigger budgets.

I think people don't appreciate enough the structure that the team built facilitated their own growth and earned the increase in money. As opposed to they grew because of the money.

 

[Gigs_98]

Re:

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2...rns-cycling-will-suffer-if-team-sky-breaks-up

Sir Bradley Wiggins has warned cycling could take a step backwards if Team Sky close their doors at the end of next season.

Sky, who own and sponsor the team, announced last week they will end their investment in professional cycling at the end of 2019, leaving Sir Dave Brailsford scrambling to find new backing to keep the best-funded team in the sport together.

Wiggins, who became the first Briton to win the Tour de France when racing for Team Sky in 2012, has often been critical of his old employers since leaving in 2015, but said the end of the team would not be good news.

“People need to be careful what they wish for because if Sky go now the sport will be worse off for it,” Wiggins said on talkSPORT.

“(Cycling) won’t disintegrate but it won’t have the profile it has enjoyed now. This day was always going to happen because the sport is so backward in some ways, the people that run it. It’s not corrupt but it’s so backward. There’s no money in the sport.

“Sky brought money but I’m talking about sponsors in general aside from Sky. Rather than be grateful for a company like Sky people just hammered it.”

Yeah, since sky entered the sport interest in cycling dropped pretty much in every country except one but sure the sport will lose all it's enormous prestige built up solely by sky.
Seriously the logic why sky was good for the sport is so flawed. If a team makes a sport boring why on earth would it be good for the sport? Why do you think did leagues like the NFL introduce budget caps? When you say dominant teams are a problem in sports like F1 everyone agrees but as soon as you say the same about cycling you are a sky hater and irrational.

 

[Red Rick]

Wiggins is obviously talking like GB is the only cycling nation in the world.

I'd say the popularity of a sport in a country correlates pretty well with the popularity of it's pro athletes in that sport, and I guess it's mostly the more traditional cycling countries where there's a lot of popularity if there aren't the results to back them up, and those countries kinda flow between their own strong generations and weaker generations.

Sky didn't add much to the equation except money.

Wiggins only reaped the rewards off riding for Sky. Talking about it is his only chance to stay relevant to some degree. He is one of the last guys we should be listening to.

 

[macbindle]

It doesn't matter what you think of Team Sky, when they withdraw pro cycling will be €35 million poorer.

That is equivalent to the entire budgets of QS and Movistar, two major teams, at a time when teams are struggling to find sponsors and some have folded part way through the season.

Again, regardless of what you think of Sky, to claim that they have been inconsequential for pro cycling is nonsense. Never a fan myself, but Wiggins is right.

 

[Gigs_98]

Re:

It doesn't matter what you think of Team Sky, when they withdraw pro cycling will be €35 million poorer.

That is equivalent to the entire budgets of QS and Movistar, two major teams, at a time when teams are struggling to find sponsors and some have folded part way through the season.

Again, regardless of what you think of Sky, to claim that they have been inconsequential for pro cycling is nonsense. Never a fan myself, but Wiggins is right.

To come back to my previous example. When the NFL decided to make a salary cap there suddenly were millions of dollars less in the sport but the organization did it nonetheless because they knew the sport as a whole would benefit.

 

[46&twoWheels]

Re:

It doesn't matter what you think of Team Sky, when they withdraw pro cycling will be €35 million poorer.

That is equivalent to the entire budgets of QS and Movistar, two major teams, at a time when teams are struggling to find sponsors and some have folded part way through the season.

Again, regardless of what you think of Sky, to claim that they have been inconsequential for pro cycling is nonsense. Never a fan myself, but Wiggins is right.

not a problem for a sport like Cycling which has always survived as a niche sport for hardcore fans. It managed to survive the post Armstrong era with all its implications, let alone the post-Sky....Spain, Italy, France and Belgium/Ned are still the cornerstones of Cycling and always will provide that amount of riders/viewers/fans able to sustain the entire sport with a bit of help from arab/russian money.

Riders will have to adjust, salaries will probably go down as a result but competition will benefit as others have said already and other new fans will be drawn by the new playing-field.

 

[macbindle]

As to whether the sport would benefit depends on what you mean by the 'sport'.

Would it benefit British fans? Almost certainly not.
Would it benefit fans from other countries? Almost certainly yes, for the reasons you give upthread about boring racing.
Would it benefit pro riders? Definitely not.
Would it benefit ancillary staff? Definitely not.
Would it benefit progress in training technology? Many would say not.

As a fan (and a long-time one with an added hatred of all things Newscorp) I'm hopeful for far more mixed up racing. But I do worry about the long-term commercial viability of cycling as a sport.

 

[Gigs_98]

Re:

As to whether the sport would benefit depends on what you mean by the 'sport'.

Would it benefit British fans? Almost certainly not.
Would it benefit fans from other countries? Almost certainly yes, for the reasons you give upthread about boring racing.
Would it benefit pro riders? Definitely not.
Would it benefit ancillary staff? Definitely not.
Would it benefit progress in training technology? Many would say not.

As a fan (and a long-time one with an added hatred of all things Newscorp) I'm hopeful for far more mixed up racing. But I do worry about the long-term commercial viability of cycling as a sport.

But a sport more than anything else is an entertainment product so the benefit for fans isn't just some minor positive aspect. That's what it comes down to in the long run and more fans are what brings the money to the sport.

 

[macbindle]

That is true...
.....but you might be in danger of arguing against yourself here....Sky brought more money to the sport Ultimately they also brought a new legion of fans too (annoying ones )

I guess it would be interesting to see if, during the last 8 years, pro cycling has grown in terms of revenues and following.

 

[dacooley]

Re: Re:

As to whether the sport would benefit depends on what you mean by the 'sport'.

Would it benefit British fans? Almost certainly not.
Would it benefit fans from other countries? Almost certainly yes, for the reasons you give upthread about boring racing.
Would it benefit pro riders? Definitely not.
Would it benefit ancillary staff? Definitely not.
Would it benefit progress in training technology? Many would say not.

As a fan (and a long-time one with an added hatred of all things Newscorp) I'm hopeful for far more mixed up racing. But I do worry about the long-term commercial viability of cycling as a sport.

But a sport more than anything else is an entertainment product so the benefit for fans isn't just some minor positive aspect. That's what it comes down to in the long run and more fans are what brings the money to the sport.

So... let me guess more riders like Nibali bring more money to the sport than more riders like froome do?

 

[pastronef]

Re: Re:

As to whether the sport would benefit depends on what you mean by the 'sport'.

Would it benefit British fans? Almost certainly not.
Would it benefit fans from other countries? Almost certainly yes, for the reasons you give upthread about boring racing.
Would it benefit pro riders? Definitely not.
Would it benefit ancillary staff? Definitely not.
Would it benefit progress in training technology? Many would say not.

As a fan (and a long-time one with an added hatred of all things Newscorp) I'm hopeful for far more mixed up racing. But I do worry about the long-term commercial viability of cycling as a sport.

But a sport more than anything else is an entertainment product so the benefit for fans isn't just some minor positive aspect. That's what it comes down to in the long run and more fans are what brings the money to the sport.

So... let me guess more riders like Nibali bring more money to the sport than more riders like froome do?

I´d say Nibali fans here in Italy, and cycling fans in general have always been a lot. juts think about the boom cyclind in UK thanks to Sky. hundred thousands people. riding and following and filling the streets and velodromes

 

[Gigs_98]

Re: Re:

As to whether the sport would benefit depends on what you mean by the 'sport'.

Would it benefit British fans? Almost certainly not.
Would it benefit fans from other countries? Almost certainly yes, for the reasons you give upthread about boring racing.
Would it benefit pro riders? Definitely not.
Would it benefit ancillary staff? Definitely not.
Would it benefit progress in training technology? Many would say not.

As a fan (and a long-time one with an added hatred of all things Newscorp) I'm hopeful for far more mixed up racing. But I do worry about the long-term commercial viability of cycling as a sport.

But a sport more than anything else is an entertainment product so the benefit for fans isn't just some minor positive aspect. That's what it comes down to in the long run and more fans are what brings the money to the sport.

So... let me guess more riders like Nibali bring more money to the sport than more riders like froome do?

I'm not talking about riders like Froome I'm talking about teams like Sky. If Froome wins his tours for any other team there would still be hype in Britain but maybe racing wouldn't have been so controlled and the global interest for cycling therefore be higher. And that's the important point, you don't need a team like sky to create a hype. Someone will win the tour de france anyway and people in the winner's country will go mad anyway. But it seems like some people think Britain has reserved the right for creating a hype for themselves. If the next tour de france dominator comes from Germany the exact same thing that happened in Britain will suddenly happen in Germany and if after that the next tour dominator comes from Japan the same kind of hype will appear in Japan and on and on it goes. I'm not doubting that team sky folding will have a negative impact on cycling in Britain but so what? Are we supposed to reserve the top spot of the tdf podium for Britain so the Brits don't stop watching the Tour? Cycling will continue and I think globally team sky leaving the sport will rather lead to more interest in the sport than the opposite.

 

[macbindle]

Re: Re:

As to whether the sport would benefit depends on what you mean by the 'sport'.

Would it benefit British fans? Almost certainly not.
Would it benefit fans from other countries? Almost certainly yes, for the reasons you give upthread about boring racing.
Would it benefit pro riders? Definitely not.
Would it benefit ancillary staff? Definitely not.
Would it benefit progress in training technology? Many would say not.

As a fan (and a long-time one with an added hatred of all things Newscorp) I'm hopeful for far more mixed up racing. But I do worry about the long-term commercial viability of cycling as a sport.

But a sport more than anything else is an entertainment product so the benefit for fans isn't just some minor positive aspect. That's what it comes down to in the long run and more fans are what brings the money to the sport.

So... let me guess more riders like Nibali bring more money to the sport than more riders like froome do?

I'm not talking about riders like Froome I'm talking about teams like Sky. If Froome wins his tours for any other team there would still be hype in Britain but maybe racing wouldn't have been so controlled and the global interest for cycling therefore be higher. And that's the important point, you don't need a team like sky to create a hype. Someone will win the tour de france anyway and people in the winner's country will go mad anyway. But it seems like some people think Britain has reserved the right for creating a hype for themselves. If the next tour de france dominator comes from Germany the exact same thing that happened in Britain will suddenly happen in Germany and if after that the next tour dominator comes from Japan the same kind of hype will appear in Japan and on and on it goes. I'm not doubting that team sky folding will have a negative impact on cycling in Britain but so what? Are we supposed to reserve the top spot of the tdf podium for Britain so the Brits don't stop watching the Tour? Cycling will continue and I think globally team sky leaving the sport will rather lead to more interest in the sport than the opposite.

That is a bit of a straw man. Nobody is suggesting that the British have a right to podium the TdF. They have dominated it since '12, with British riders on a British team, but those days are over. Sitting here in the UK I don't see much wailing going on, anywhere. British people are pretty sanguine when it comes to sporting victory as they understand its ephemeral nature.

Easy come, easy go.

 

[Gigs_98]

Re: Team Sky Discussion thread

I might have gone over the top there but I know nobody is suggesting that, I was just trying to say that cycling isn't so dependent on the recent british success that there should rather be a dominant british team on top of the podium every year than no dominant team competing at all.

 

[Koronin]

The ONLY people Sky's budget brought money into the sport for was Sky employees. No one else. Heck we've seen several teams fold since Sky has been here. Ratings have dropped everywhere except for GB. Thus Sky is actually bad for the sport. The big difference between ratings dropping outside the US during US Postal/Lance era and the ratings dropping outside GB during the Sky/Froome era is simply the market size. The US market during that era could make up for the ratings dropping in all other countries due to the sheer size and population of the US. GB cannot make up for that ratings drop. Also the budgets of other teams in the peloton have NOT increased due to Sky's presence. Thus it has NOT helped riders who are not employed by Sky. Heck, Landa has talked about the fact that he took a very large pay cut to leave Sky. He could have stayed at Sky and at his currently salary or an increased salary, but he choose to go to Movistar for a much reduced salary.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re:

As to whether the sport would benefit depends on what you mean by the 'sport'.

Would it benefit British fans? Almost certainly not.
Would it benefit fans from other countries? Almost certainly yes, for the reasons you give upthread about boring racing.
Would it benefit pro riders? Definitely not.
Would it benefit ancillary staff? Definitely not.
Would it benefit progress in training technology? Many would say not.

As a fan (and a long-time one with an added hatred of all things Newscorp) I'm hopeful for far more mixed up racing. But I do worry about the long-term commercial viability of cycling as a sport.

Actually, there's a decent case that it would benefit pro riders. Not just in that you'd have more even matchups that increase the evenness of prize money, but in other ways too. Without a single overarching, overpowered team bogarting large amounts of the prize money and TV time in the biggest profile events, opportunities to gain sponsor airtime, prize money and coverage for other teams increase manifold. Not just because you'd have more teams able to fight at the front rather than everybody sitting in line behind the controlling team, but you'd see the leaders fighting head to head for more of the stage with fewer superdomestiques being lined up in the same team, plus you'd have more stages liable to be left to the breakaway, and there would be the possibility of a return to currency of the old tactic which we saw in the Vuelta for the first time in years, of shipping the jersey to an unthreatening breakaway because you don't want to expend your energy defending it - which means smaller teams have more reason to continue to fight deep into the race, attack aggressively in breaks and pursue secondary classifications for the TV time it achieves. When one team waits until the sprinters' days are over, then takes the lead in either the first long TT or the first mountain and then holds it for two weeks comfortably, that isn't an option. If more teams are getting more airtime, and their riders have more chances to achieve something visible or win more prize money in the highest-exposure events, then their earning potential increases.

Yes, Sky leaving leaves a huge financial hole in the total sponsorship income of the sport, but it's not like that budget was a big financial windfall spread across teams - it was all invested in the one team. It's pure Supply Side Jesus fallacy to argue that that is automatically good for the sport because the total amount of money invested was higher - "look, Pilate! Average income is going up!"

 

[myrideissteelerthanyours]

Re: Re:

It doesn't matter what you think of Team Sky, when they withdraw pro cycling will be €35 million poorer.

That is equivalent to the entire budgets of QS and Movistar, two major teams, at a time when teams are struggling to find sponsors and some have folded part way through the season.

Again, regardless of what you think of Sky, to claim that they have been inconsequential for pro cycling is nonsense. Never a fan myself, but Wiggins is right.

To come back to my previous example. When the NFL decided to make a salary cap there suddenly were millions of dollars less in the sport but the organization did it nonetheless because they knew the sport as a whole would benefit.

I don't know if anyone cares but the dramatic shift in NFL salaries after salary cap had less to do with the salary cap rule than other regulations that were eliminated.

When the NFL adopted salary caps it replaced a rule that mandated any team that signed another team's out-of-contract player to a free-agent deal must compensate the player's former team with players, draft picks, and/or cash.' By limiting free agency the NFL prevented bidding wars among its teams to obtain top talent and thus, the union claimed, unfairly suppressed player salaries.

Abolishing this rule brought salaries down more than instituting the cap because while the 49ers had more than double the cap in salary, most teams were far under the cap and an additional rule that they must spend 80% of the cap in salaries compelled them to participate in free agency which in turn became way way more competitive. The effect was shorter average careers, smaller average salaries, and more skill players that receive biggest-ever contracts to compete with every team for every players in free agency. Every year someone gets the biggest contract ever. Every year most NFLers are treated as expendable and team loyalty is a sad joke.

 

[Bot. Sky_Bot]

Re:

The ONLY people Sky's budget brought money into the sport for was Sky employees. No one else. Heck we've seen several teams fold since Sky has been here. Ratings have dropped everywhere except for GB. Thus Sky is actually bad for the sport. The big difference between ratings dropping outside the US during US Postal/Lance era and the ratings dropping outside GB during the Sky/Froome era is simply the market size. The US market during that era could make up for the ratings dropping in all other countries due to the sheer size and population of the US. GB cannot make up for that ratings drop. Also the budgets of other teams in the peloton have NOT increased due to Sky's presence. Thus it has NOT helped riders who are not employed by Sky. Heck, Landa has talked about the fact that he took a very large pay cut to leave Sky. He could have stayed at Sky and at his currently salary or an increased salary, but he choose to go to Movistar for a much reduced salary.

Great post. But without mentioning Valverde?

 

[Gigs_98]

Re: Re:

It doesn't matter what you think of Team Sky, when they withdraw pro cycling will be €35 million poorer.

That is equivalent to the entire budgets of QS and Movistar, two major teams, at a time when teams are struggling to find sponsors and some have folded part way through the season.

Again, regardless of what you think of Sky, to claim that they have been inconsequential for pro cycling is nonsense. Never a fan myself, but Wiggins is right.

To come back to my previous example. When the NFL decided to make a salary cap there suddenly were millions of dollars less in the sport but the organization did it nonetheless because they knew the sport as a whole would benefit.

I don't know if anyone cares but the dramatic shift in NFL salaries after salary cap had less to do with the salary cap rule than other regulations that were eliminated.

When the NFL adopted salary caps it replaced a rule that mandated any team that signed another team's out-of-contract player to a free-agent deal must compensate the player's former team with players, draft picks, and/or cash.' By limiting free agency the NFL prevented bidding wars among its teams to obtain top talent and thus, the union claimed, unfairly suppressed player salaries.

Abolishing this rule brought salaries down more than instituting the cap because while the 49ers had more than double the cap in salary, most teams were far under the cap and an additional rule that they must spend 80% of the cap in salaries compelled them to participate in free agency which in turn became way way more competitive. The effect was shorter average careers, smaller average salaries, and more skill players that receive biggest-ever contracts to compete with every team for every players in free agency. Every year someone gets the biggest contract ever. Every year most NFLers are treated as expendable and team loyalty is a sad joke.

I generally agree with most of this post but let's please not forget that my argument was not about introducing the NFL systems to the cycling world but that less money spent by rich teams isn't necessarily a bad thing. If you don't want to use the NFL as an example than just use another one that fits better to the argument. The point is, if a few teams having way more money than others is seen as a problem in other sports why shouldn't we see it as a problem in cycling. If in other sports that problem is solved by cutting down the amount of spent money why is less money being spent in cycling a catastrophe?

 

[Koronin]

Re: Re:

The ONLY people Sky's budget brought money into the sport for was Sky employees. No one else. Heck we've seen several teams fold since Sky has been here. Ratings have dropped everywhere except for GB. Thus Sky is actually bad for the sport. The big difference between ratings dropping outside the US during US Postal/Lance era and the ratings dropping outside GB during the Sky/Froome era is simply the market size. The US market during that era could make up for the ratings dropping in all other countries due to the sheer size and population of the US. GB cannot make up for that ratings drop. Also the budgets of other teams in the peloton have NOT increased due to Sky's presence. Thus it has NOT helped riders who are not employed by Sky. Heck, Landa has talked about the fact that he took a very large pay cut to leave Sky. He could have stayed at Sky and at his currently salary or an increased salary, but he choose to go to Movistar for a much reduced salary.

Great post. But without mentioning Valverde?

Yeah, no reason to. Mentioning Landa was important to help with what I was trying to explain. Valverde didn't fit into this particular discussion.

 

[oldcrank]

Re: Team Sky Discussion thread

What's old is new again. The BP logo has undergone a makeover
since it appeared on the kits of Tommy Simpson and Eddy Merckx.
Will we see BP back as a sponsor of a professional cycling team?

 

[Nirvana]

Today i had finally time so i watched the last three Radiocorsa in a row, in all three Beppe Conti's indiscreto was about Sky. The first time he said that his sources told to him that Sky wants Thomas as only leader for the Giro and Bernal as backup for Froome at the Tour, Froome will skip the Vuelta in case of a victory in France to be fresher in 2020 for his sixth. The second time he talked about the possible destinations of the riders in case of the folding of the team, Bernal has a lot of offers but he prefers to replace Quintana at Movistar (since last winter he reiterates almost every week that Quintana wants to leave Movistar), Thomas could go to UAE that was interested in him already last winter, CCC wants Kwiatkowski but he has a lot of doubts regarding the level of the team whereas Froome doesn't have offers, but he also added that before the announcement of Sky ending his sponsorship Brailsford had already made of offer to Nibali (him + his brother, Slongo and Pallini only, no support riders) that absolutely wants to leave Bahrain because apparently they are running out of money (McLaren is only technical support, no money) and they are late with payments to riders. The third time he said that in Colombia the government is in search of sponsors to save the team and build the future around Bernal, in this case they'll keep Froome that has a lot of fans in Colombia but not Thomas and other stars are in doubt with this scenario because the budget will be reduced and the team will have a certain number of colombians.

The disclaimer is, as always, that not everything he says is true but between the figments of his immagination usually there are some good rumors and even some exclusives, like Gaviria to UAE last summer well before everyone else, when no one would have put a penny on this scenario.