In this week’s AIRmail newsletter, The Outer Line takes an in-depth look at trending cycling news: Back to modern racing at the Dauphiné, court ruling on NCAA case, more elite teams for Maryland, pro cyclists contracts, still no “Plan B” for Rwanda…
# Catch up on pro cycling – and its context within the broader world of sports – with AIRmail … Analysis, Insight and Reflections from The Outer Line. You can subscribe to AIRmail here, and check out The Outer Line’s extensive library of articles on the governance and economics of cycling here. #
Key Takeaways:
- Crazy Opener at the Dauphiné
- Women Race in England, Spain and the U.S.
- Courts Rule on Collegiate Athlete Pay
- Maryland Classic Announces More Teams
- Pro Cyclist Contracts and Salaries
- Update on the Rwanda World Championships
A surprise win for Tadej Pogačar on stage 1 of the Dauphiné
After three weeks of “old-school” racing at the Giro – with veterans outsmarting younger counterparts and dedicated climbers leveraging high mountains to open time gaps on more powerful rivals, pro cycling returned to its modern era as the Critérium du Dauphiné kicked off on Sunday. Despite the presence of a seemingly routine opening sprint stage, the sport’s four biggest stars, Tadej Pogačar, Jonas Vingegaard, Mathieu van der Poel, and Remco Evenepoel – none of whom are sprinters – swept the top four spots. The unlikely result of Pogačar winning a sprint stage was created due to a late break, caused by a scorching Vingegaard attack, which pulled clear the three biggest GC contenders, along with Van der Poel (returning to racing just two weeks after breaking his wrist at the Nové Město MTB World Cup). The stage confirmed that Pogačar continues to be capable of things previously thought impossible for a Grand Tour GC contender, and that Jonas Vingegaard appears to be fully recovered from his crash at Paris-Nice in the spring. This portends a thrilling GC battle upcoming at the Tour de France, and served as a stark contrast to the Giro battle, where carefully managed watts and patience won the day. This stage once again confirmed that in cycling’s new order the top contenders can treat nearly every stage like a one-day Classic, leaving precious few scraps for the rest of the peloton.
The big stars attacked in the finale
Meanwhile in women’s pro cycling, the weekend schedule was also packed and three races provided insightful contrasts of the state of the sport. In Spain, Demi Vollering and her ever-improving FDJ-Suez team dominated yet another mountainous stage race, sweeping the three stages of the Volta a Catalunya Femenina with Vollering winning on the summit finish and taking the overall. Simultaneously, at the Tour of Britain, their teammate, Ally Wolaston, took the overall win with a razor thin four second advantage over a more balanced and star-laden field than that which contested the Catalunya event. The racing in Britain was held over four days and lacked a Tour de France-scale mountaintop finish; however, the punchy hills produced Cat Ferguson’s first Women’s WorldTour race win (stage 3, on home soil no less). Narrow roads and damp conditions led to unfortunate crashes which took down then-race leader Kristen Faulkner, and sent others like Liege winner Kim Le Court to hospital. Meanwhile, over in the U.S., the Tulsa Tough weekend was contested by a highly competitive field of the continent’s best racers not racing in the European-centric WWT, with riders from L39ION, Cynisca, and Twenty28 each taking a race in the three-day series and Alexis Magner (Cynisca) winning the points omnium.
Cat Ferguson won a wet stage 3 of the Tour of Britain
Each of the three races was well run, particularly the Tour of Britain, given its course management complexities, but the overlap and talent distribution left each race at a disadvantage – and mirrored many problems of the men’s WorldTour. Vollering – the sport’s woman of the moment and preeminent challenger for the Tour de France Femmes – was racing in front of sparse crowds, a field predominantly featuring lower-level talent, and with underwhelming live broadcast coverage. Britain’s event was much more competitive and featured four different stage winners, exciting and tactical racing in front of typically large British crowds and produced a surprise GC winner … but Vollering’s absence detracted from the event’s competition and broadcast value. However, Tulsa Tough quietly stole the show with its live production and streaming presentation and real-time fan and announcer interaction within the streaming platform. Interaction within the real-time race content has been an underserved engagement factor in general for pro cycling; YouTube might not be perfect (unless you are looking for a pirate stream of a major pro race), but the Tulsa organizers utilized it to hold +/- 25,000 live viewers during the showcase events, demonstrating innovative and highly coordinated drone coverage of the action. Tulsa’s excellent weekend highlights that women’s racing doesn’t have to look like the men’s WorldTour script to be successful – but with all three races overlapping, the dilution of product scarcity is following the men’s racing script too closely to be effective.
The Tour of Britain Women was a success
As we are now within three months of the World Championships, additional news outlets are highlighting Rwanda’s direct role in fomenting the conditions for another violent pan-African conflict. In the latest news cycle, evidence has shown that as early as 2021, Rwanda began actively training and supplying the M23 rebel group in the DRC, and in subsequent years – as M23 forces and Rwandan soldiers wearing M23 uniforms attacked DRC forces – the detachments would displace villages and surrounding civilian populations to prevent identification of the Rwandan participants. Currently, up to 500,000 of these displaced persons are in refugee camps near the DRC provincial capital of Kivu. Rwandan forces continually flow into and out of the DRC in support of the M23 offensive, which threatens to escalate into another civil war. Having leveled proof of Rwanda’s military and strategic involvement, the report also points to Rwanda’s unwillingness to give up land it has ostensibly taken in the Kivu, which could be a major impasse to any regional peace agreement, given the area’s mineral wealth and arable land that are central to Rwanda’s power play. That impasse, and the likelihood that fighting could continue to escalate during peace talks, means that the World Championships are increasingly likely to take place within earshot of a war zone for the first time in modern history. And as yet, the cycling community is unaware of any official “plan B” for the event.
No ‘Plan B’ for Rwanda
Major League Baseball’s broadcast rights are about to change hands, presumably with a record financial haul for the league – and the structure might temporarily resemble pro cycling’s fractured network model. According to multiple outlets, league commissioner Rob Manfred may break up the rights among several parties in the short term through 2028 before centralizing the local markets and national TV rights to better reach the fan base in the U.S. and abroad. MLB is achieving record viewership in its Asian distribution (due to the impact of generational talent Shohei Ohtani and several other top Japanese players) and its two major U.S. broadcast partners, Fox Sports and ESPN, are experiencing record viewership spikes this season. ESPN, in particular, must be kicking itself at giving up the majority rights ownership in question now that the upswing in viewership isn’t just a spike, but a solid trend.
Major League Baseball
However, ESPN’s situation highlights a growing divide between league and niche sports media rights valuation: broadcast partners have become overburdened with prestige league sports rights such that niche sports lose market value. ESPN may simply be too invested in NFL and collegiate football rights to be able to support an MLB content exclusive at this time – a factor which may impact Formula 1 when it negotiates its next media rights deal, for example. Warner Bros Discovery even split off the entirety of its TNT Sports holding into a new and heavily debt ridden entity to prevent it from further eroding WBD’s stock value. Commissioner Manfred hinted at three different suitors for various parts of the former ESPN rights package, which could lead to the pro cycling conundrum of maintaining multiple content subscriptions to follow the sport’s complete schedule. Can the MLB maintain its momentum with this risky media rights gamble? Manfred might have received a lot of heat for introducing the pitch clock and other innovations to break up baseball’s time-hardened traditions, but he hasn’t made a financial misstep yet and it will be instructive to see the new broadcast structure and long-term consolidation strategy.
Big teams for Maryland
The Maryland Cycling Classic – America’s highest-ranked UCI race – announced additional WorldTour and Pro teams for the upcoming early September race in Baltimore. In addition to Lidl-Trek, EF Education First and Jayco-AlUla, four additional top-level teams will participate, including Israel-Premier Tech, Team TotalEnergies, Tudor Pro Cycling and UNO-X Mobility. In addition, ProTeams participating will include Solution Tech – Vini Fantini and Novo Nordisk along with Continental Teams Team Skyline and Team Petrolike. Other teams previously announced were Project Echelon, Hustle Pro Cycling, Team Medellin and Team USA. These teams represent a broad spectrum of both European and South American countries, as the event prepares for just its third running in six years – having lost two years to the COVID pandemic and last year’s event to the Baltimore harbor bridge collapse.
The Maryland Cycling Classic – America’s highest-ranked UCI race
The House v. NCAA legal case was settled late last week, and it is poised to totally reshape the totality of collegiate athletics and elite sports economics. Among the key issues settled were revenue sharing between university athletics departments and the athletes, roster spots and scholarships, and remuneration of former collegiate athletes who had either sued or were part of other class action lawsuits demanding “back pay” for their representation in NCAA sports. However, two critical issues were left open-ended in the agreement: the status of athletes as employees – which opens the door for further athlete and labor rights litigation – and Name/Image/Likeness (NIL) controls. In the ruling, the presiding judge separated the athletes’ rights issues because of the validity of the labor issues, which means that additional litigation will undoubtedly ensue on behalf of the athletes to gain classification as “employees” of the universities (with potential ramifications for the IOC and UCI regarding athlete rights). This will be met by an equally forceful push by NCAA lobbyists to seek Congressional laws that exempt college athletes from employee status and reduce freedom of movement of the athletes to transfer between schools.
The top NCAA teams | ©CBS Sports
The ruling’s approach to NIL bears further examination for its potential influence on elite sports, and potentially competitive cycling. There are new rules in place for NIL “collectives” – referring to large pools of NIL cash maintained by non-university patron entities on behalf of schools, such as collegiate “booster” organizations. In particular, a system will be implemented to verify an athlete’s fair market value to prevent NIL stewards from manipulating the transfer market to “buy out” athletes. But other than these guidelines, the ruling essentially opens the door for unfettered NIL investment and disbursement however the schools and their boosters see fit, and this leaves the door open for new investment in club-level sports like collegiate cycling. This model has already been adopted by schools for popular regional club events which are competed at a high skill level by professional-level participants. Could the National Collegiate Cycling Association participating schools experience a similar boost? The framework in place could benefit in two directions: funding to enhance existing programs and invigorate under-supported schools, and recruitment of top talent coming from the interscholastic (NICA high school) system. We will continue to examine this topic as the House v. NCAA ruling shakes out in the coming weeks.
Cycling’s big earners
There was an excellent summary and overview covering the details of a typical cycling contract published this week. After serving as the Editor of several different cycling websites, Daniel Benson developed an independent Substack presence, and has quickly established himself as the sport’s leading authority on rider transfers/movements and contracts. In this discussion, he describes a detailed 30-page contract for one of the sport’s top riders, including base salary amounts, signing and performance bonuses, the timing and duration of the typical contract, and all kinds of restrictions on the rider’s public behavior and presentation. Together with Sporting Intelligence, Benson has also put together a comprehensive article summarizing typical pay levels for cyclists vis-à-vis professional footballers and other athletes – arguing that many pro cyclists are paid more than most people realize.
Long contracts – Big money?
# Catch up on pro cycling – and its context within the broader world of sports – with AIRmail … Analysis, Insight and Reflections from The Outer Line. You can subscribe to AIRmail here, and check out The Outer Line’s extensive library of articles on the governance and economics of cycling here. #
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