Saturday, December 17, 2005

Bruyneel Reacts to Split

Cycling News reports on Bruyneels reactions to the split between the Pro Tour and Grand Tour.
Bruyneel is Team Discovery's manager, Lance's former team, although I think he is still on contract till next year so it is his current team.
"Bruyneel analysed the business model of professional cycling with an astute observation, saying, "Do you realize that Pro Cycling is the ONLY top level professional sport where teams' revenues are generated only by sponsorship? All other major sports, above all football (soccer), have a huge amount of revenue from TV rights. In cycling, these rights are held by race organisers, and they don't want to share this revenue stream with anyone. But I believe they should, because the main actors on the stage of cycling, the stars and the other riders, are who are generating this TV money for the race organisers. It's the guys who are suffering, the guys who are on the road, trying to win a bike race who make the spectacle that people watch on TV, who generate the ratings so race organisers can have a revenue stream from TV advertising. It's just logical and fair that the cycling teams and riders get a slice of the TV money cake. And this revenue stream to the teams and riders would raise cycling to a higher and more professional level." "

I hate the split, I want them to find a way to make cycling a world wide phenomenon, like soccer. Unfortunately the current leaders of the bureaucracy cant get it together.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi. Thanks for the insights.

Steve
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