The Jumbo-Visma and Soudal Quick-Step “non-merger” fiasco, gave us a rare peek behind the curtain of the finances of the top World Tour teams.

It cannot be disputed, that Jumbo-Visma was the strongest team in the world tour the last two years. With their 2023 campaign being a historical one, that may not be met in our lifetime. And just weeks after completing this feat:

“As we can see, on its current path, even with a modest secondary sponsorship fee from Visma for 2024, without a major inflow of capital from new sponsors, the Jumbo-Visma team wouldn’t be able to get through the upcoming season without ending up in the red.”

-Spencer Martin (PezCyclingNews.com)

-Spencer Martin (PezCyclingNews.com)

The team is not able to be financially profitable, in the following season… Just let that one sink in.

But how did we get here and what can be done?

Brand Management

Bike manufacturers may be wizards of marketing, but the teams sure are terrible!

Let’s keep picking on Jumbo-Visma for a second. During the ’22 TDF we watched Sepp and Wout selflessly carry Jonas up the mountain (TDF ’22). Then ultimately outsmarting Pogi , before Jonas was fresh and ready for his attack, made me realize cycling was more than friends riding their bikes. And the tour was more than a bike race.

The following year, Jumbo-Visma swept all 3 Grand Tours and the Vuelta podium. It was a beautiful bookend to the historical season. Then what happens next? Jumbo leaves as their sponsor and the team is ready to jump on any floating debris in the water they can find. (No offense Soudal-Quickstep… but you have your own thing going on too.)

They’re probably going to be changing their colors and team name, and somehow leave the history of the Jumbo Visma brand behind them. A team needs to have an identity, a culture, and a personality. The #KillerBees were always attacking at the right moments, being tactical and working together to take down their opponent.

Sell that to us cycling fans… give us teams we can be loyal to. Sell us the history that is being made, the history that will be made in the future! You can sell as much kit real estate to sponsors as you want. But allow these teams to develop a brand to sell to the millions of fans around the world.

I tried to find the percentage of ticketsales and merch sales for a typical NFL (American Football) team. I couldn’t find a decent source, but I heard 28%, which makes sense when considering all the other ways team monetize the brand and product. Cycling events don’t typically have ticket sales, the sport seems to be completely reliant on television revenue in order to support the orgnaization.

Without a team building tradition, behind its colors and name, there is so much money left on the table. And with the embarrassing episode, we saw with Jumbo and Soudal… that’s money you need.

Invest In Your Product

With the death of GCN+ on 12/19, many locations around the world are scrambling to find out how they will be able to watch any UCI races moving forward.

In a sport where your dominating Goliath of a team, is struggling financially; making your product scarce is not the strategy I’d implement. it’s 2023, and the UCI needs to get with the times, from the perspective of adopting technology to make viewing the races easier and far less expensive to budget for.

Helicopters are dated, environmentally problematic, cumbersome, and have historically affected races. Drone pilots and cameramen can effectively offer a better viewing experience, lower the cost of running the event, appease the environmental activists…(maybe.), and a better solution for rider safety.

Take ownership of your feed, and sell the subscription yourself. There are low-cost options, that you can stream on their platform and run your subscription and content delivery through there! If the UCI has a shared YouTube account… I think we could knock this one out in 45 minutes.