The current state of pro cycling - an appraisal

[thehog]

Wait what? Le Parisien was sold in 2010. It was a loss maker. It wasn’t sold it to pay other debts, it sold because it wasn’t within their national strategy. Strange person sometimes

Yes, it is strange isn't it, to accept that the Amaurys are in the business of maximising profits. My bad.

Hmmmmmm methinks you have no understanding of how this works. Had nothing to do with profit / loss. But that’s what you get when you go on hunches

 

[fmk_RoI]

Wait what? Le Parisien was sold in 2010. It was a loss maker. It wasn’t sold it to pay other debts, it sold because it wasn’t within their national strategy. Strange person sometimes

Yes, it is strange isn't it, to accept that the Amaurys are in the business of maximising profits. My bad.

Hmmmmmm methinks you have no understanding of how this works. Had nothing to do with profit / loss. But that’s what you get when you go on hunches

Keep digging Hog...you'll reach China soon.

 

[thehog]

Wait what? Le Parisien was sold in 2010. It was a loss maker. It wasn’t sold it to pay other debts, it sold because it wasn’t within their national strategy. Strange person sometimes

Yes, it is strange isn't it, to accept that the Amaurys are in the business of maximising profits. My bad.

Hmmmmmm methinks you have no understanding of how this works. Had nothing to do with profit / loss. But that’s what you get when you go on hunches

Keep digging Hog...you'll reach China soon.

Keep deflecting you’ll reach denial soon

La Gazetta :surprised:

 

[simoni]

Wait what? Le Parisien was sold in 2010. It was a loss maker. It wasn’t sold it to pay other debts, it sold because it wasn’t within their national strategy. Strange person sometimes

Yes, it is strange isn't it, to accept that the Amaurys are in the business of maximising profits. My bad.

Hmmmmmm methinks you have no understanding of how this works. Had nothing to do with profit / loss. But that’s what you get when you go on hunches

You'll have to go some to make the argument that any decision a commercial enterprise makes isn't about profit / loss.

 

[thehog]

Wait what? Le Parisien was sold in 2010. It was a loss maker. It wasn’t sold it to pay other debts, it sold because it wasn’t within their national strategy. Strange person sometimes

Yes, it is strange isn't it, to accept that the Amaurys are in the business of maximising profits. My bad.

Hmmmmmm methinks you have no understanding of how this works. Had nothing to do with profit / loss. But that’s what you get when you go on hunches

You'll have to go some to make the argument that any decision a commercial enterprise makes isn't about profit / loss.

Naturally outside of profit / loss is a company creates a strategy to streamline and create efficiencies.

In this case it was concentrate solely on sport. Le Parisian was a local paper of all news.

Groupe Dassault, owner of Le Figaro newspaper, is in talks to buy rival Le Parisien in what would be a controversial first step towards consolidation of France’s ailing national press.

Groupe Amaury, the family-owned company that includes L’Equipe and ASO, organiser of the Tour de France cycle race, has put Le Parisien, the biggest selling national news daily, up for sale for €200m ($269.5m) to concentrate on sport.

FMK tends to make up stuff now and then

 

[fmk_RoI]

Wait what? Le Parisien was sold in 2010. It was a loss maker. It wasn’t sold it to pay other debts, it sold because it wasn’t within their national strategy. Strange person sometimes

Yes, it is strange isn't it, to accept that the Amaurys are in the business of maximising profits. My bad.

Hmmmmmm methinks you have no understanding of how this works. Had nothing to do with profit / loss. But that’s what you get when you go on hunches

You'll have to go some to make the argument that any decision a commercial enterprise makes isn't about profit / loss.

Naturally outside of profit / loss is a company creates a strategy to streamline and create efficiencies.

In this case it was concentrate solely on sport. Le Parisian was a local paper of all news.

Groupe Dassault, owner of Le Figaro newspaper, is in talks to buy rival Le Parisien in what would be a controversial first step towards consolidation of France’s ailing national press.

Groupe Amaury, the family-owned company that includes L’Equipe and ASO, organiser of the Tour de France cycle race, has put Le Parisien, the biggest selling national news daily, up for sale for €200m ($269.5m) to concentrate on sport.

FMK tends to make up stuff now and then

Let's talk about making things up, shall we? A national paper that's a local paper? A paper that's not sold cause it was losing money but to concentrate on sports. You don't even pay attention to the nonsense you post, do you?

 

[thehog]

Please do keep up. It does get boring proving FMK wrong time and time again

Le Parisien (French pronunciation: ​[lə.pa.ʁi.zjɛ̃]; French for "The Parisian") is a French daily newspaper covering both international and national news, and local news of Paris and its suburbs. It is owned by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE, better known as LVMH.

 

[Mamil]

One: all right smarta*s

You want a civil debate, try adopting a civil tone.

Your posts are the epitome of obnoxiousness, yet you expect civility from others?

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Pot and kettle, my friend.

Still waiting on what you think the true figure is for Tour TV revenues...

 

[Mamil]

I find it highly unlikely that a commercial organisation is deliberately failing to take advantage of every possible revenue stream. Their interests are to make as much money as possible (and give as little as possible away).

I don't discount the idea that they're incompetent and not getting best value for their product but the idea that they aren't trying their best just doesn't make sense to me.

Whatever the reason, if the figure of 50 million euros for Tour TV rights is even close to accurate then it's absurdly low, and far below what it should be for an event that is broadcast live in over 60 countries, and in some format in many more. The Australian broadcaster of the last rugby league world cup paid almost $10 million AUD just to broadcast the 5 week event in Australia, where only a part of the country even watch the sport. And this for a game that only 5 countries actually take seriously. Another broadcaster was recently paying $100 million AUD to televise each Australian summer cricket season - about 15 games over 35 days - again just to Aus audiences, and the new deal starting this year is worth far more again. Or take tennis - the Aussie broadcaster pays $60 million AUD per year just to show the 2 week event in Australia.

In 2018, 50 million for a global event is pathetic. Incredibly small. The ASO is not making anywhere near as much as they could or should be in this area.

 

[IndianCyclist]

The only new race that has captured the imagination of the fans and riders is Strade Bianche because of its unique parcours. The race org should look into what makes this more popular than just dishing out more of the same formulaic stages

 

[fmk_RoI]

One: all right smarta*s

You want a civil debate, try adopting a civil tone.

Your posts are the epitome of obnoxiousness, yet you expect civility from others?

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

You're the one moaning about my posts. So now we know you're a hypocrite as well.

Still waiting on what you think the true figure is for Tour TV revenues...

It's not for me to put a figure on it. You're the one calling for TV revenue sharing when even Vaughters has admitted there's no real money there. You're the one putting up figures that can easily be knocked down. It's for you to get the figure right. The funny thing here is I seem to know more about your sources than you do...

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re:

The only new race that has captured the imagination of the fans and riders is Strade Bianche because of its unique parcours. The race org should look into what makes this more popular than just dishing out more of the same formulaic stages

So in short, races are too formulaic, we need to copy the formula of Strade Bianche?

 

[fmk_RoI]

Whatever the reason, if the figure of 50 million euros for Tour TV rights is even close to accurate then it's absurdly low, and far below what it should be for an event that is broadcast live in over 60 countries, and in some format in many more.

This is one of those lines that keeps getting repeated. Here's a challenge: make a list of the sixty countries it's allegedly broadcast live in. It shouldn't be hard, should it?

 

[King Boonen]

Who produces the TV footage? Do ASO? Is so is this being taken into account in the value of the of the rights, so actually the rights sell for something like 200m but it costs 150m to produce so the sale only makes ASO 50m?

 

[thehog]

Re:

Who produces the TV footage? Do ASO? Is so is this being taken into account in the value of the of the rights, so actually the rights sell for something like 200m but it costs 150m to produce so the sale only makes ASO 50m?

ASO don’t produce the footage. They own the rights to the footage. They lease it out to Stade 2.

 

[King Boonen]

Re: Re:

Who produces the TV footage? Do ASO? Is so is this being taken into account in the value of the of the rights, so actually the rights sell for something like 200m but it costs 150m to produce so the sale only makes ASO 50m?

ASO don’t produce the footage. They own the rights to the footage. They lease it out to Stade 2.

So how do Stade2 make their money?

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re:

Who produces the TV footage? Do ASO? Is so is this being taken into account in the value of the of the rights, so actually the rights sell for something like 200m but it costs 150m to produce so the sale only makes ASO 50m?

France Télévisions (France 2, France 3) pays ASO for a package of events that includes the Dakar Rally, marathons and bike races. They pick up the principal tab for the Tour's broadcast, which ASO then sells on. Les Echos in 2014 put the production costs at about €10m. Advertising revenue earned by France Télévisions during the Tour at that time was put at €10m. That's not a break-even position, as you need to consider the cost to France Télévisions of buying the broadcast rights from ASO. Which is hard to pin down as all we have is a figure for the full package, which in 2014 was in or around €25m, increasing annually by about 2%, so call it €27m today for the French rights for that package and you probably wouldn't be far wrong. (Some people like to treat that €25m as if it was a massive BOGOFF deal, buy the Tour for €25m, get all these other events free! Some people are idiots.) The reason France Télévisions are happy to run at a loss on the Tour's broadcast is they feel it's a prestige event they have to broadcast in order to be able to charge the advertising prices they do the rest of the year. A commercial decision, in other words.

 

[King Boonen]

Re: Re:

Who produces the TV footage? Do ASO? Is so is this being taken into account in the value of the of the rights, so actually the rights sell for something like 200m but it costs 150m to produce so the sale only makes ASO 50m?

France Télévisions (France 2, France 3) pays ASO for a package of events that includes the Dakar Rally, marathons and bike races. They pick up the principal tab for the Tour's broadcast, which ASO then sells on. Les Echos in 2014 put the production costs at about €10m. Advertising revenue earned by France Télévisions during the Tour at that time was put at €10m. That's not a break-even position, as you need to consider the cost to France Télévisions of buying the broadcast rights from ASO. Which is hard to pin down as all we have is a figure for the full package, which in 2014 was in or around €25m, increasing annually by about 2%, so call it €27m today for the French rights for that package and you probably wouldn't be far wrong. (Some people like to treat that €25m as if it was a massive BOGOFF deal, buy the Tour for €25m, get all these other events free! Some people are idiots.) The reason France Télévisions are happy to run at a loss on the Tour's broadcast is they feel it's a prestige event they have to broadcast in order to be able to charge the advertising prices they do the rest of the year. A commercial decision, in other words.

Thanks, makes a lot of sense.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

Who produces the TV footage? Do ASO? Is so is this being taken into account in the value of the of the rights, so actually the rights sell for something like 200m but it costs 150m to produce so the sale only makes ASO 50m?

France Télévisions (France 2, France 3) pays ASO for a package of events that includes the Dakar Rally, marathons and bike races. They pick up the principal tab for the Tour's broadcast, which ASO then sells on. Les Echos in 2014 put the production costs at about €10m. Advertising revenue earned by France Télévisions during the Tour at that time was put at €10m. That's not a break-even position, as you need to consider the cost to France Télévisions of buying the broadcast rights from ASO. Which is hard to pin down as all we have is a figure for the full package, which in 2014 was in or around €25m, increasing annually by about 2%, so call it €27m today for the French rights for that package and you probably wouldn't be far wrong. (Some people like to treat that €25m as if it was a massive BOGOFF deal, buy the Tour for €25m, get all these other events free! Some people are idiots.) The reason France Télévisions are happy to run at a loss on the Tour's broadcast is they feel it's a prestige event they have to broadcast in order to be able to charge the advertising prices they do the rest of the year. A commercial decision, in other words.

Thanks, makes a lot of sense.

But not a lot of money...

 

[King Boonen]

Re: Re:

Who produces the TV footage? Do ASO? Is so is this being taken into account in the value of the of the rights, so actually the rights sell for something like 200m but it costs 150m to produce so the sale only makes ASO 50m?

France Télévisions (France 2, France 3) pays ASO for a package of events that includes the Dakar Rally, marathons and bike races. They pick up the principal tab for the Tour's broadcast, which ASO then sells on. Les Echos in 2014 put the production costs at about €10m. Advertising revenue earned by France Télévisions during the Tour at that time was put at €10m. That's not a break-even position, as you need to consider the cost to France Télévisions of buying the broadcast rights from ASO. Which is hard to pin down as all we have is a figure for the full package, which in 2014 was in or around €25m, increasing annually by about 2%, so call it €27m today for the French rights for that package and you probably wouldn't be far wrong. (Some people like to treat that €25m as if it was a massive BOGOFF deal, buy the Tour for €25m, get all these other events free! Some people are idiots.) The reason France Télévisions are happy to run at a loss on the Tour's broadcast is they feel it's a prestige event they have to broadcast in order to be able to charge the advertising prices they do the rest of the year. A commercial decision, in other words.

Thanks, makes a lot of sense.

But not a lot of money...

Yeah, which seems to be the case for ASO in general.

2016 accounts show 220m revenue and profits of 46m for ASO. Unless there is some fiddling going on between companies under the EPA header it's hardly game changing money, even in such an under-financed sport as cycling. That's also assuming every other sport ASO are active in is happy for all the profits to be shared with cycling (and of course you somehow convince shareholders that it's a good idea...).

 

[thehog]

Re: Re:

Who produces the TV footage? Do ASO? Is so is this being taken into account in the value of the of the rights, so actually the rights sell for something like 200m but it costs 150m to produce so the sale only makes ASO 50m?

ASO don’t produce the footage. They own the rights to the footage. They lease it out to Stade 2.

So how do Stade2 make their money?

France2 my mistake. They sell advertising, like any broadcaster showing sport. Is that not obvious?

 

[King Boonen]

Re: Re:

Who produces the TV footage? Do ASO? Is so is this being taken into account in the value of the of the rights, so actually the rights sell for something like 200m but it costs 150m to produce so the sale only makes ASO 50m?

ASO don’t produce the footage. They own the rights to the footage. They lease it out to Stade 2.

So how do Stade2 make their money?

France2 my mistake. They sell advertising, like any broadcaster showing sport. Is that not obvious?

Simplistically yes, but in an actual discussion no, not really seeing as it's likely a loss-leader. FmK provided a much more detailed description.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

2016 accounts show 220m revenue and profits of 46m for ASO. Unless there is some fiddling going on between companies under the EPA header it's hardly game changing money, even in such an under-financed sport as cycling. That's also assuming every other sport ASO are active in is happy for all the profits to be shared with cycling (and of course you somehow convince shareholders that it's a good idea...).

Any time I'd put that question to Vaughters he'd always try to intimate that there was financial jiggery-pokery going on, but any time he was asked to back that up he'd just switch to bantz mode. FUD beats facts, for him. This was around the time he was being quoted saying "ASO may get as much as $200 million from TV rights, while the 22 Tour de France teams typically have an annual budget of $10 million each from sponsorships".

ASO's shareholders are just the family, the widow and the son and the daughter, since Lagardère cashed in his chips. Though I think Krzentowski may have a minority stake in one of the ASO subsidiaries. You're right about all the other sports, but also look at their cycling revenue: a larger and larger portion of it is coming from the Freds' market, sportives. Why should EF Education First get a share of ASO's revenue from them? And why should EF Education First get a share of Roc des Alpes / Roc d'Azur's revenues? What's next, cycling teams demand a share of your local bike shop's revenue?

 

[simoni]

Re: Re:

With regard to rights in other countries, the only vaguely contemporary info I can find for the UK is http://www.sportspromedia.com/news/tour_de_france_gets_live_spot_on_itv

which reckons US$750,000 for 3 years of ITVs TDF coverage (2009).

Now, given the way things have gone in UK since then you can probably assume that the price has gone up but I doubt it would be by much because there doesn't seem to be the competition amongst broadcasters. Eurosport have always been there and seem set to continue in the near future but BBC and sky never seem to have shown much interest - BBC have said they don't have space in July (I can't find the link to this off hand but they have Wimbledon for one which they aren't going to sacrifice) and C4 don't seem too focused on sport any more so ITV are probably getting a bit of a steel.

And that sums the situation up really. Whilst the TDF is the biggestannualsportingevent etc.etc. even in a comparatively booming cycling market like UK there simply isn't the interest to make broadcasters get significantly on board and create a bidding war. Most other countries, with significantly smaller markets will be the same. The quoted $50m feels plausible to me even if the 60 countries is true!

Its football transfer deadline day today here in the UK and there will probably be more media output covering the transfer of flesh and blood between clubs in a single day than there is in cycling in a year.

 

[King Boonen]

Also, it's worth pointing out that after possibly the most successful period of time for multiple riders from one nation since France in the late 70's to mid 80's, the coverage is still relegated to ITV2. A channel shared with the likes of Jeremy Kyle, Take Me Out and as many Love Island extension shows as they can cram in.