My biggest concern is the Ineos logo is terrible.

I’m not really bothered who sponsors the team. Do people get this het up about football team sponsors?

Football teams are location based though, you know the team by it’s town / city. The home venue is often the most sought-after for naming rights (like the Etihad Stadium (Man City), Bet365 Stadium (Stoke City) and Ricoh Arena (Coventry City)) so you’ve got a near-permanent named venue shouting your company literally from the rooftop.

While players and sponsors might come and go, the “team” remains the same – you’ll always be a United fan (for example!).

Cyling doesn’t work in anything like the same way, the sponsorship model isn’t far off being broken and there are a number of ethically and morally rather dubious sponsors but with team names changing on an often yearly basis, it’s much harder to find and retain a committed fan base and much harder to market stuff to them when your “stadium” is the open road.

Reported as a done deal with immediate effect – well from April 1st funnily enough!

Do they need a fan base? Do people buy things in the same context now?

Liverpool are sponsored by Standard Chartered for example, I’ve never bought their items.

Dimension Data, lotto jumbo, dekuninki or whoever, Bora, nah, nothing.

No more iffy-jiffy bags, minimum order size 32kg or 500kg tote bag!

I’m not really bothered who sponsors the team. Do people get this het up about football team sponsors?

Yeah. sometimes. Wonga sponsored Newcastle United for a while, which went down very badly. Arsenal has a Visit Rwanda sleeve badge this season, which is kind of mystifying. Man City is owned by a repressive Arab state, though nobody seems particularly bothered. There are a lots of gambling firms sponsoring football clubs generally. But I’d agree with Crazylegs that footy fan loyalty is to the club, while the sponsor is generally ‘just passing through’.

Cycling as a sport is messed up financially. The Tour de France is way too important and the teams see virtually none of the revenue from it or other races, which basically makes them pretty much 100% dependent on sponsorship.

Women’s team ? Still no word from misogynist Dave on that one eh

Ineos will be more than the main sponsor, they have bought the team lock stock and jiffy bags

Women’s team ? Still no word from misogynist Dave on that one eh

Is it mandatory ? If not, then why should he/they ? Imagine the actual costs of a womens team compared to the revenue you’d get from advertising/sponsors ?

Weeksy, it is because Dave B. had previously voiced that there would be a women’s team, then seemed to gently forget…..

I think it’s a Catch 22, all the time they have this current business model, with no revenue coming from TV rights, no revenue coming from spectators or the like, then with rising costs of going to races and paying increasing riders wages (not helped by Sky/Ineos), then the teams are going to need these big companies to step in. it’s ridiculous that a team like Quick-Step had the most race wins last year, but struggled to find a backer for this year.

Women’s team ? Still no word from misogynist Dave on that one eh

I’m not sure failing to set up a women’s team makes someone a ‘misogynist’.

Cyling doesn’t work in anything like the same way, the sponsorship model isn’t far off being broken and there are a number of ethically and morally rather dubious sponsors but with team names changing on an often yearly basis, it’s much harder to find and retain a committed fan base and much harder to market stuff to them when your “stadium” is the open road.

Interesting post crazy legs, but do we think having fixed team names would really generate that much additional fan interest? Is the nature of the sport just more conducive to “supporting” individuals?

Sky were often touted as the prime example of a team that had established a fanbase (looked down on by “proper fans” of course), but I haven’t met many of these mad-keen Sky fans and I think they’re largely a construct or proxy for prejudices against BC/Sky. I may be wrong of course.

I’m a reasonably knowledgeable fan of road cycling and like most I develop admiration for individual riders, I’m kind-of a Quik-Step fan – but I’m quite able to carry that across with their new sponsor whose name I can’t spell yet.

🙂

Bit torn on the Ineos news generally.

Wanted them to have a lower budget, but also think Lappartient needs to STFU.

Hmmm.

Cycling doesn’t work in anything like the same way, the sponsorship model isn’t far off being broken and there are a number of ethically and morally rather dubious sponsors but with team names changing on an often yearly basis, it’s much harder to find and retain a committed fan base and much harder to market stuff to them when your “stadium” is the open road.

Interesting post crazy legs, but do we think having fixed team names would really generate that much additional fan interest? Is the nature of the sport just more conducive to “supporting” individuals?

If the budgets being discussed are anything like right its going to unbalance the ProTour even further than it is at the moment.

The only way things will change is if the teams receive some of the TV revenue but this has been tried before but the UCI backed down before ASO blinked. It would take boycotting Le Tour, the Vuelta, and the Giro + several monuments before anything will change. Unfortunately there isn’t enough solidarity within the sport for this to happen (although it might be an opportunity for a Frenchman to win Le Tour)

its going to unbalance the ProTour even further than it is at the moment.

You have to wonder if there’s a point of diminishing, or even regressive, returns in sponsoring cycling?

Sky are viewed by many fans globally as robotic and monolithic, buying success in the Grand Tours. Now it’s probably safe to assume that devoted cycling fans are probably not the core demographic being targeted by sponsors, but some of this sentiment leaks out into the wider culture – eg. Jiffy-gate etc.

Would Sky have got more out of their sponsorship if they’d spent £5m/year less and left the racing a bit tighter as a result?

Does unbalanced mean that only Quick Step can win the classics, Roubaix is open for grabs, Astana will win bag full of stages, and Sky will have a strong team for at least one maybe two of the Grand Tours?
I’m sure all the road cycling fans will agree, the road calendar is awesome and doesn’t start and end in July.

Sagan, Dumoulin, Fugslang, Viviani, Alaphilippe, Groenewagon, Bob Jungels, Stybar, Sam Oomen, Alexey Lutsenko, Primoz Roglic, Yates brothers to name a few, I think Pro racing is in a very good place with Sky / Ineos in it. Exciting racing in the vast majority of races . I honestly feel Pro Racing is in a really strong position in terms of riders and teams. Maybe BMC and Trek should have spent wiser over the last few years, maybe it would be better to see Dumoulin being the sole focus of attention at Sunweb (not shared with Matthews) – 2019 Giro will be Tom’s race.

Sky have undoubtedly performed well in Grand Tours, but even the last 2 years they’ve been exciting affairs. If Movistar had a cohesive unified team they could have won at least one recent Tour. Sky winning last years Giro, that wasn’t dominance, that was utter utter mad brilliance by one rider. Wow, goosebumps just thinking back to that race! (yes the move was set up by the team on that stage – but it was 21 days of not knowing who was going to win)

I’m lucky enough to attend quite a lot of races in Europe, Sky are actually well liked outside of the people who want to be on TV. I’ve met many an ardent European race fan and they have mainly been very positive about Sky. Quickstep dominate the Classics, its awesome to watch. Quickstep have a top sprinter and a great lead out train, people tend not to mention that, but most of the time its awesome to watch.

Really looking forward to San Remo. I will be sat down with a nice Italian Beer, Pizza and cheering on the breakaway. Can’t wait!!
Edit to add I’m not particularly a sky fan, I just love exciting road racing.

Women’s team ? Still no word from misogynist Dave on that one eh

As BWD said, not having a Women’s team isn’t misogynist.
Whether he wanted to or not, he couldn’t set one up now anyway becasue of UCI rules around team set-up dates, rider transfer windows and the fact that the race season is already underway. Also, there is not exactly a smorgasbord of talented yet unattached female World Tour riders out there so if you’re going to set up a Women’s team it’ll involve buying riders from existing teams. Which you can only do during the transfer window.

There are exceptions for if teams go bust mid-season, there are (supposedly) bank guarantees to ensure that riders still get paid although in the case of Aqua Blue that didn’t seem to happen with any degree of urgency.

Nice post Woodster. I agree with all of it.

Billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe can buy Team Sky, sponsor the Americas cup, and fund fracking.

But he 'cannot justify' upgrading his chemical plants so they don't pollute our air and water.

What a guy.https://t.co/rp9nWp2ZXt

— Caroline Lucas (@CarolineLucas) March 25, 2019

Well put

cycling sponsorship is mostly the ceo or someone who is a fan and gets to put into the sport.