In just over a month Red Bull will make its official entry into cycling – with its 60 million euro investment – and next year i World Tour budgets will go even further into the red. In the red of results, because it is clear that with a team that can have a budget of sixty million euros, a maximum of two teams will be able to compete, a maximum of three: UAE Emirates, Visma-Lease a Bike and Ineos, which already have budgets exceeding 40 million euros. An even higher leap, which will make much of the World Tour movement a side dish, formations that will have the sole purpose of participating, with costs that will however continue to be around 15/20 million euros.
The value of the 18 top teams this year will be 499 million euros. Last year, teams were spending 473 million, 430 in 2022, while in 2021 they reached 379 million when, however, there were 19 people running, as per the source Sun 24 Hours. The average budget rose from less than 20 million to 27.7 million in a few seasons. And in the second series, the Professional one, what is the situation like? In 2024 the 17 ProTeams will spend something like 143 millionwhile in 2021 the 19 formations cost only 87 million, again from the source Sun 24 Hours. Average budgets rose from 4.6 to 8.4 million, and there’s no point in me telling you that our teams (Polti Kometa, VF Group Bardiani CSF Faizané and Corratec Vini Fantini) they are well below not only the 8.4, but the 4.6. This is to say what? That our team managers are in any case absolute virtuosos, who manage to set up more than competitive formations with very limited budgets. Well done to them and the sponsors are very good who have decided in any case to invest in our sport, with the hope that they will have the possibility in the future to expand their sponsorship to try to reduce the gap.
To close this overview of numbers, here we come to the compensation. The minimum salary of a professional cyclist is 70 thousand euros. The average annual salary is around 220 thousand euros. The budget of the first-tier women’s movement consists of 15 teams (there were 9 in 2021) has quadrupled: from 15 to 57 million. Increasingly important numbers for a market that remains the same: good but not very good. For both boys and girls we are close to the breaking point. With the arrival of Red Bull, some riders and many agents will certainly be smiling: but for how long?
THE STARTING POINT. Safety, safety, this is and will be the watchword at the Giro d’Italia too. As always, more than ever, as it should be. Many are questioning themselves and taking action, from the UCI to the organizers, from the riders to the team managers. It’s clear that something needs to be done, because the safety emergency really seems to be before everyone’s eyes, especially in light of the latest accidents involving top-level riders, such as Vingegaard and Evenepoel.
It is clear that when it comes to safety, everyone is equal, from the most modest of followers to the absolute champion. But it is equally true that “human capital” exists for a team and not just for an insurance aspect. It exists because losing a top-class rider for a few months or a season is much more serious than losing an honest pedal toil. And this is why the discussion is becoming increasingly heated and intense, not from today, but for a few months. It is no coincidence that it was born quietly, without much fanfare – and we don’t understand why – an organism called SafeR (it’s written exactly like that): an association which includes the AIGCP, the association of sports groups, the CPA world association of runners, that of the organizers AIOCC and the women’s union UNIO as well as, clearly, the UCI, the mother of the whole movement. We talk about safety and discuss bicycles, wheels, disc brakes and tubeless tires and so on and so forth.
Everyone has their say and the problem is probably a set of problems, given by all these things put together and more. For example, the riders have their responsibility, as world champion Mathieu Van der Poel clearly said, explaining without mincing words that with these bicycles, which are increasingly smoother and more performing, you need to know how to ride. The age of kids turning professional is increasingly lower, there is less school, less practice and this can have an impact, but one of the things that strikes me is the group, increasingly large with runners, especially teams. There is a lot of talk about safety and not about the fact that in a Grand Tour there are twenty-two teams involved, with eight riders each.
Twenty-two formations that have their own strategy, but it is enough to say to stay in front to take a certain climb that all hell happens. Perhaps it would be time to work on this aspect. That, as far as I’m concerned, it is the starting point of all reasoning.
Editorial from tuttoBICI in May
