Hmm …

I guess he must have some idea of the costs involved but not sure how much he’d really be prepared to dip into his own pocket. Fully commendable though.

Maybe it’ll come down to what’s on offer from sponsors and prize money to see what sort of return is on the table. Can’t see anyone (as in the Teams, not just Wiggo as an investor) splashing out millions on a team only to see a 50% loss year on year.

What say you lot?

With the interest in cycling at the moment, he might get some decent sponsors?

What happened to Nicole Cook?

General figure for a women’s team is about half a million euros a year – for a top quality squad.

Each of Sky’s buses cost 750K Euros.

From
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/general/others/emma-pooley-the-great-cycling-gender-divide-8142351.html

He might, but IMO there needs to be a return to make it worthwhile. I’ve no idea how salaries, prize money and sponsorship etc compare between men and women other than to assume the latter as exponentially more substantial than the former.

If the quality of the women’s Olympic road race is anything to by then it would make exciting viewing.

Lizzie on the bike show said it’d ‘only’ cost £450k a year for a women’s team to Jeff banks.

I say good on him, personally I’d love to see a women’s tour circuit along side the men’s. They train just as hard so why can’t they have the same prizes and exposure.

What happened to Nicole Cook

I’ve a horrible feeling she didn’t help the equity of female cycling in this country for a while. For a good few years she was the lead woman on the road and should have been the nucleus for a Great British trade team to form around but it seems she is the Kevin Peterson of women’s cycling and is about as popular as cold sick with her fellow professionals for some reason. Never met her properly personally but know a good few who have known her and it seems pretty universal – weird.

Really hope this happens and sadly the cache of a male tdf winner behind it might what’s needed to get the other sponsors in which does rather prove Pooley’s point.

I met Nicole with my son at her homecoming celebration in her village after her win in the Olympics .She could not have been nicer and spent a large part of the afternoon being photo`ed with kids and signing autographs

I’m sure she is perfectly lovely to the fans etc but it was more about her ability to maintain a relationship with team mates that seemed to come up with all the folk more knowledgeable than me that knew her. Just not a team player.

There’s a bit of a movement to provide crowdsourced funding to a women’s team. Stefan Wyman (Matrix/Prendas Owner/Manager) seems to behind it – more info here

Good link, OMITN – will be interesting if more is published next week. I can’t help but think they are aiming too low – there are a lot of very well off people into road cycling who wouldn’t even blink at £1000, let alone £100.

They train just as hard so why can’t they have the same prizes and exposure.

That’s a bit naive, in some sport like tennis that could be said to be true, and equal prize money is well deserved. In cycling the grand tours as well as the one day classics create a whole different level of training demands that the women currently don’t have.

For women’s cycling to get anywhere near the exposure as men’s, they would need to have women’s tours in parallel to the men’s. Which would be actually great, imagine watching the end of the men’s stage in the TdF, then an hour later, the end of the women’s. But I am not sure how it could logistically be achieved.

Nevermind Nicole, Emma Pooley should be the nucleus for a GB team.

That’s a bit naive, in some sport like tennis that could be said to be true, and equal prize money is well deserved.

Well, apart from the fact that their matches are much shorter as they play fewer sets 😈

I can’t see why Richard Branson doesn’t step up and offer some sponsorship.

After Wiggo’s win at the tour, Branson posted a blog on his website saying how proud of British cycling he was and made the comment

“And – through gritted teeth – congratulations to Sky for sponsoring the team. When the contract finishes, come see us at Virgin Media!”

Surely it’s good PR for him to step up and support the poor relative that is women’s cycling?

Branson did a great job of sponsoring a British F1 team for about one season before he realised it wasn’t going to get much press and backed out of it for a Russian concern.

I’d much rather Team Sky just created a women’s team. Surely they can pick up the assets of the Drink Leontien team for a song, repaint everything and run it all from the same service course in Belgium as the world tour team. Seeing how a lot of the European races for women run just before the men’s equivalent, it would show benefits for scouting the routes for some stage races. Lets assume 1M pounds to get it to a level where they’d be happy with it, it’d seem like a PR bargain for them, particularly as they could guarantee TV time for the races

A female racer has said something similar to me regarding Nicole and her lack of popularity amongst fellow women. Never met her but I do like her winning mentality.

Stefan Wyman (and iDave I think) had about 150 people yesterday according to Twitter but they were after 500 at £100 each. Rapha were asking for £1,000 a couple of years ago towards the mens team but I do not know how popular that was.

With the Olympics this is the time to strike, you could help sponsor a team for the price of a Rapha top and still have change for a few posho coffee’s!

Be interesting to see how it goes but if it goes ahead commitment for 3 years or the Olympic cycle should be sought imo. Ladies teams have particularly suffered with sponsors dropping out after a year.

Good link, OMITN – will be interesting if more is published next week. I can’t help but think they are aiming too low – there are a lot of very well off people into road cycling who wouldn’t even blink at £1000, let alone £100.

Well…. if only there was some sort of large online community of well-heeled cycle enthusiasts. Hmmmm. If only….

I reckon the STW community could rustle up a significant chunk. I’d gift £100, I’d ‘invest’ more if there was a chance partial return – even with a risk/likelihood I’d get non back. Either way I’d just chuck the money in, I wouldn’t want any sponsors niknaks and perks in return.

Cooke was the dominant force for something like ten years on the national scene and had some good international results too, obviously the 2008 olympics being one of them. i cant remember who she was riding for but the majority of the other top GB women were all riding for Garmin Cervelo and a bit of a division formed to say the least. Cooke had some really bad luck after the olympics when she signed for Cippolini only for that deal to fall through and effectively have to sponsor herself for a season which put her back a bit.

I think it was the 2010 Nationals where the women in Garmin basically rode for one person (Pooley?) and Cooke was fighting on her own, Cooke lost and she thought it was unfair voicing her opinions, some pepole agreed, others did not.

personally I think that a lot of the GB women have issues around team selection and riding as a team, its not just Cooke but Laws, Houvenhagel etc. GB need to start looking at the likes of Barker and Garner who although very young, dont have the baggage and can form the nucleus of a stronger more unified team..

and iDave I think

Ooooh idave and crowd funding, I’m out.

Regarding Atlaz comments I have no insight into the cost of a women’s race team. I do recall a few years ago (I think it was Bob Stapleton at htc High Road) saying that the cost of the anti-doping procedures for the men’s team was greater than the whole budget for the women’s team.

It might cost ‘only’ £1m but how many subscriptions does Sky have to sell to cover this? At the end of the day any sponsor is looking to increase sales.

With regards to the sponsorship/investment thing, do some research on Justin Wilson the British motor racing driver and his similar scheme in the US…. from memory I dont think anyone has received a return on their investment and thats with a global tv audience and big sponsors ready to throw cash at roundy-roundy indycar racing where the odds on a return at the time of investment appeared to be suitably high….

After iDave’s conduct on here, I wonder how much of an asset he will be to the team-financial screw ups seem to go hand in hand with starting a cycling team. It’d be good to see a few more women’s cycling teams crop up, but I can’t see the sport ever becoming too much bigger than it already is. Compulsory women’s teams from all of the world tour men’s teams would be a start…

It might cost ‘only’ £1m but how many subscriptions does Sky have to sell to cover this? At the end of the day any sponsor is looking to increase sales.

It’s a good question about sports sponsorship in general. I’ve never (knowingly) bought something because of a link between a sports team and a product but it’s hard to tell how it impacts you subconsciously. My feeling is that a lot of marketing sponsorship is more or less classed as intangible benefit to the brand rather than a conversion rate. That said I would NEVER give Sky my money irrespective of how much they support cycling in the UK because of how they’ve behaved for a long time. Has anyone on STW bought a Sky sub purely because of their support?

how many subscriptions does Sky have to sell to cover this? At the end of the day any sponsor is looking to increase sales.

Although Sky sponsors a british based team their market isn’t only the UK – they’ve a lot of media interests in other countries, Italy in particular, where cycling is a bit more popular, so screentime with a winning team isn’t doing their interests any harm there.

That said I would NEVER give Sky my money irrespective of how much they support cycling in the UK because of how they’ve behaved for a long time.

+1

iDave upset a few people has he? Missed that. Can’t just be the no banana’s thing on his diet I suppose.

It’s a good question about sports sponsorship in general. I’ve never (knowingly) bought something because of a link between a sports team and a product but it’s hard to tell how it impacts you subconsciously. My feeling is that a lot of marketing sponsorship is more or less classed as intangible benefit to the brand rather than a conversion rate. That said I would NEVER give Sky my money irrespective of how much they support cycling in the UK because of how they’ve behaved for a long time. Has anyone on STW bought a Sky sub purely because of their support?

My thoughts exactly. Hell will freeze over before I’ll hand a right-wing media empire 40 quid a month to watch sports on TV, but I doubt Sky expect to see their sponsorship of pro cycling lead directly to increased subscriptions, its more about association and ubiquity of the brand. More than once this season, my son has been given a Sky-branded baseball cap after finishing a race, posters on his bedroom wall of Cav and Wiggo all have prominent Sky logos on them. The logo has positive associations for him.

Back to the original topic, there’s probably never been a better time to create an increased profile for female pro racing than now, good to hear someone like Wiggins talking about it.

iDave upset a few people has he? Missed that. Can’t just be the no banana’s thing on his diet I suppose.

It was his use of misplaced apostrophes.

there’s probably never been a better time to create an increased profile for female pro racing than now, good to hear someone like Wiggins talking about it.

Only in Britain, for most of the world the image of cycling is Lance Armstrong drug dealer, not a good time for getting sponsorship.

It was his use of misplaced apostrophes.

I thought it was his misplacement of other peoples money.

That said I would NEVER give Sky my money irrespective of how much they support cycling in the UK because of how they’ve behaved for a long time.

aside from any moral standpoint, for much more selfish reasons…. I’ve never taken sky as for all that money they charge they don’t really make very much telly.

Back to the original topic, there’s probably never been a better time to create an increased profile for female pro racing than now, good to hear someone like Wiggins talking about it.

Although he’s not keen to embrace the celebrity his success is bringing him – I have to say he’s using the limelight really quite well in this respect. Both in the respect that his success has given him the public ear, but the success of women riders has been well represented this year too. The womens races both on the road and track were utterly thrilling to watch at the Lymipics, so much so its the prinicple reason I bough tickets for the worlds in november. Apart from stepping out from a wake last week to watch the tour go by (that must have been perplexing for the peleton to see two mourners at the roadside) it’ll be the first time I’ve spectated at a sports event in about 30 years.

Ooooh idave and crowd funding, I’m out.

And

After iDave’s conduct on here, I wonder how much of an asset he will be to the team-financial screw ups seem to go hand in hand with starting a cycling team.

I’d tend to agree. However, it does seem to be primarily coming from Stefan Wyman, who is already a DS (though with what pedigree I don’t know).

I can afford to risk £100, but it would have to go in on certain provisos. And I agree that £50k is a drop in the ocean. Can’t see it working out, but would be interesting if it, say, contributed to funding women’s racing at a more local level.

I can afford to risk £100, but it would have to go in on certain provisos. And I agree that £50k is a drop in the ocean. Can’t see it working out, but would be interesting if it, say, contributed to funding women’s racing at a more local level.

I agree with that.

The biggest problem with womens cycling in Britain isn’t the lack of sponsors at the elite level of the sport (lottery funding helps fill that void) but rather at grassroots level. Womens races up and down the country are struggling because of a lack of entries leading to events being cancelled and then when they do run often it is with a very small fields despite riders coming from hundreds of miles around to race. That in itself means it is not a good environment to attract new racers because the standard of the top women racing is likely to be so far ahead of the newcomers. Without the grassroots getting sorted – and there are no easy answers there – then having a well funded elite team is not going to add much when the existing elite riders are already doing pretty well at an international level.

So why is it that more women don’t want to compete? Surely most clubs have female members and so it’s more a question of numbers and how to attract them. I know most sports tend to be more male oriented but I think as much as Wiggins seems a great bloke, fixing a societal problem might be beyond him.