UCI Bans Lewis Buchanan For OnlyFans Sponsorship

In a video on his youtube channel over the weekend, Pro racer Lewis Buchanan revealed he’d received communication from the UCI informing him that due to his sponsorship deal with the online pay to view content platform he would not be allowed to race in UCI sanctioned events this year.

Lewis featured in a news item we ran earlier this year when he announced his sponsorship deal with the Onlyfans website.

OnlyFans is a website that allows content creators to create content that is only available to their paying fans. Since it’s creation it has become a home for adult content creators who can forge a living by interacting with their fans and creating content in a private space that many adult performers claim is a much safer environment for sex workers. Regardless of the original intentions of the platform creators, OnlyFans has become synonymous with porn which is something the platform has actively tried to address recently with scores of sponsorship deals with professional athletes around the world.

It’s clear however, that the UCI is having none of that and considers the association with OnlyFans to be a breach of it’s athlete terms and conditions, which lewis quotes in his video.

Buchanan claims to have contacted the UCI who are not willing to talk with OnlyFans directly to try and find a resolution. Buchanan claims the UCI rules only prohibit association with pornographic ‘products’ and after reading out the relevant paragraph in the UCI terms and conditions he was provided, counters that OnlyFans is not in fact a product, concluding that the UCI are ‘very uneducated.’

We have reached out to the UCI for comment and this story will be updated as new information becomes available.

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Mark Alker

Singletrack Owner/Publisher

Mark has been riding mountain bikes for over 30 years and co-owns Singletrack, where he's been publisher for 25 years. While his official title might be Managing Director, his actual job description is "whatever needs doing" – from wrangling finances and keeping the lights on to occasionally remembering to ride bikes for fun rather than just work. He's seen the sport evolve from rigid forks to whatever madness the industry dreams up next, and he's still not entirely sure what "gravel" is. When he's not buried in spreadsheets or chasing late invoices, he's probably thinking about his next ride.

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