That’s not TV rights though, Tinkoff/Velon are talking about getting money back from the TV rights. There aren’t any…
Sorry, I misunderstood where you were coming from; I was referring to the value of Sky’s investment in terms of TV exposure.
It’s quite an interesting scenario. Tinkoff wants more money coming from the sport because it costs so much for him to run his team and he thinks the TdF is the key to this since it is the only race that actually makes any real money (Vuelta makes a loss, Giro some money, spring classics some money but not stellar).
But 80% of the costs of running a team are riders wages, it doesn’t cost much to hire a couple of mechanics, coaches and drive a few buses round Europe and these expensese are mostly covered by race fees already. There would still be enough riders if you paid then 50% less. So you could argee the issues with team budgets are the teams fault, the agree to pay their staff that much. But then you have organisations like Sky who see £24 million as a bargain for having their name on Bradley Wiggins t-shirt so why shouldn’t he get a significant proportion of this money. And then you have playboy team owners like Oleg and Andy Rhis who are happy to stump up that cash to join the party.
One issue is there aren’t enough companies who are able to get the marketing value that Sky do. Sky’s message is more than just, “look at our name on this shirt”, its also a CSR message about getting people cycling and it’s also based the popularity created by the Olympic success. Soudal aren’t selling £24m worth of extra silicon sealant because their name is on a team jersey.
A sallary cap is being suggested by Jonathan Vaughters, which would solve the cost issue in one easy step but teams like Sky don’t like this as it just means their sponsors get a spactularly good deal and their riders aren’t able to realise their true value as a billboard and a brand ambasador.
