DirtyWorks said:You are missing the point. It's not about viewers, it's about passing money from public to private hands. It's the Olympics model.
Let's imagine Corsica's entire budget was never fully disclosed and let's triple it to 6 million Euro for three stages. Let's imagine the British numbers are overstated and call it 20 million pounds. You are telling me 14 million pounds are for airfare?
I call it picking winners, you call it stage management. My world view is probably too pessimistic. In principal I think we agree.
I can see your logic here but it still glosses over the fact that the UK bids to host the Grand Depart this year pre-dated Wiggo's success by some time. The ASO and the local councils in Yorkshire may well have been in cahoots, but it's hard to see how Sky and British Cycling might fit in per one of your previous posts, since BC supported the losing bid!
The council in York is very cycling friendly, so it may be that one of their Big Cheeses has influenced things. Someone has persuaded the council to shell out on a superb permanent crit circuit (with the world's best tarmac) and an outdoor velodrome is being built this summer.
The justification for public money being used to fund the bid is that all manner of folk from outside Yorkshire will come up for the weekend, spend a fortune on food, beer and accommodation and thus benefit many local businesses. There doesn't seem to be too much complaint in the York area at least.