Million Euro contracts, expansive budgets and trickle-down economics – the Tour de France Femmes impact
In the previous few years, ladies’s biking has been by waves of dramatic and wide-reaching change. Return to 2019, and also you’ll discover a scenario that was very totally different to in the present day: no actual Tour de France for ladies, no Paris-Roubaix, no WorldTour group standing, no minimal wage for ladies, and no large contracts. Quick ahead to in the present day, and the ladies’s peloton has all these issues and extra, with the trajectory solely heading upwards.
A part of that is all the way down to international tendencies in ladies’s sports activities – viewership is rising exponentially, business worth is up throughout the board – however a lot of it’s all the way down to some particular modifications in ladies’s biking. In 2022, Tour de France organisers ASO placed on the primary Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, the primary multi-day Tour de France race for ladies in many years, and the change stemming from simply this one race has been not possible to disregard.
By all accounts, the monetary standing of the game has skyrocketed in the previous few years, with sponsors investing extra money, group budgets rising, and riders incomes greater than ever. More cash is coming into the game, and extra is being spent inside it, as elevated professionalism means larger prices for groups and race organisers.
The headline figures all appear constructive, however simply how important has the affect of the Tour been? What else has modified since 2022? Are there any negatives hidden behind the positives?
It’s a fancy and wide-ranging matter within the sport, however the one recurring theme for all stakeholders – groups, races, sponsors, riders – is at all times visibility.
“The affect for all of the groups that take part within the Tour de France is basically necessary,” FDJ-SUEZ group supervisor Stephen Delcourt advised us. “For me, near 60 per cent of my visibility income is in the course of the Tour de France – it may very well be 50 one yr, 70 one other relying on the outcomes – however that’s the affect.”
For riders, the stature of the Tour supplied new alternatives, new ambitions. In accordance with her accomplice and supervisor Jan de Voogd, defending champion Demi Vollering’s Tour objectives started to kind after they noticed how impactful its precursor, La Course, was.
“Demi got here third [in La Course 2020] and he or she was on the rostrum with Lizzie Deignan and Marianne Vos. And we had been like ‘hey, that is cool, you see the Tour de France brand’, after which instantly Demi dreamt of the Tour,” De Voogd defined.
“Then the yr after in 2021 for SD Worx, she gained it. And that was the primary time we thought ‘okay, that is massive’ as a result of if you happen to win one thing to do with the Tour de France, that’s the factor everybody on the earth is aware of. Lots of people don’t know a lot about biking, and definitely not about ladies’s biking, however everybody is aware of the Tour de France.”
The subsequent yr, the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift got here, and issues started to alter, with extra eyes on ladies’s biking than ever earlier than.
“The published perspective was why it was so necessary that the Tour de France Femmes got here again,” De Voogd added. “It ought to be broadcast, there ought to be dwell protection, and whether it is to be seen by extra folks, then the manufacturers and the cash will observe, not the opposite approach round.”
Larger groups, greater budgets
By all accounts, lots of manufacturers and some huge cash has adopted for the reason that information of the relaunch of the Tour de France Femmes. In FDJ-SUEZ’s case, the numbers communicate for themselves. In 2014, that they had a finances of slightly below €400,000, Delcourt advised us. In 2020, the yr the primary ladies’s Paris-Roubaix was deliberate, that was €1.2 million, and in 2024 it’s €3.8 million. The expansion in ten years has been large, and Delcourt believes “100%” that the group wouldn’t be the place it’s if not for the Tour de France Femmes.
“Ten or 15 years in the past, it was not possible to consider the place we at the moment are,” he stated. “In the beginning of the group and for the primary ten years, it was solely volunteers on the group working across the riders. We talked about skilled groups, however that was solely in title, as a result of the riders weren’t skilled. However step-by-step we invested extra, we appeared for extra finances, and now FDJ-SUEZ has greater than 40 full-time staff, employees and riders, we’ve got greater than 120 sponsors.”
Although we don’t know all of the specifics for each group, it seems that the pattern is analogous throughout the board. Groups are continually gaining new sponsors, group closures have been uncommon, and rosters are steadily rising. In 2020, the common dimension of a WorldTour group was 13.7 riders, this yr, it’s 16.3. Groups are additionally spending extra on altitude camps, tools, media groups, the listing goes on.
Issues had been altering earlier than the Tour, however the launch of that race, and the accompanying broadcast offers, social media campaigns and normal visibility has skyrocketed issues.
“Now the velocity is basically, actually quick,” Delcourt stated.
The one query is that if every part is shifting on the identical velocity. Most groups seem like driving the wave properly, however there are considerations. Rider salaries are one: riders and brokers know that groups have greater budgets, and know they’re racing extra professionally, so some are asking for extra compensation, nevertheless it’s a difficult steadiness of budgets for group managers.
“It is a human response to at all times need extra. Everyone needs extra. We make investments quite a bit in altitude camps, diet, materials testing, et cetera, which they want as a result of they work quite a bit. After, for the wage, it is exhausting with the expectations as a result of the market [this year] was loopy with a excessive variety of high riders with out contracts for 2025, and on the opposite facet we should be actually vigilant in regards to the value, as a result of the price of every part is loopy. And I believe it may be exhausting to know why the prices improve like this,” Delcourt stated.
“It is simple to say ‘okay, I need to improve this rider’s wage or that rider’s wage’ as a result of one other group is providing extra money or one thing, however we’ve got lots of actually dangerous examples when groups need to observe the market with out securing their income and with out calculating and evaluating the price of each race, after which they get to the top of the season they usually’re not in a position to end it or proceed the yr after. So that’s my first job, to ensure we’ve got the finances to proceed.”
Are races stepping up?
As extra money is being invested into riders, groups and the big-ticket races, one space that’s maybe neglected is the races themselves.
Due to their standing as the most important race organisers in biking, plus the sponsorship they’ve secured for the ladies’s race, ASO can put some huge cash into the Tour de France Femmes. Different races, particularly ones who solely have a ladies’s race, should not have this luxurious, and the difficulties are starting to indicate.
“How is it doable to just accept that for the Giro and Vuelta, they pay for less than 5 employees?” Delcourt requested. “It’s not possible to just accept that. When you will have seven riders, two automobiles within the race, the minimal is 2 sports activities administrators with the UCI licence, you then want two mechanics – properly, now all the large groups have a bus and an enormous mechanics truck, so that you want a minimal of three mechanics, actually three sports activities administrators minimal, and you then want different assistants. Within the Giro when it was actually scorching, you want not less than 5 folks to assist in the feed zone and with water and ice.
“So we’ve got a minimal of fifteen employees. In my group, it was 23, as a result of we’ve got the communication groups et cetera, however the organiser pays for less than twelve folks [riders included],” he defined.
On the Giro, this meant that FDJ spent a further €12,000 of their very own cash simply to be on the race. On the Tour de France, the organisers pays for 9 employees members, and an additional €5,000. There’s nonetheless a niche that the group must cowl, nevertheless it’s a really totally different proposition.
In addition to making it tougher for groups to get essentially the most out of smaller races, this one instance reveals how totally different elements of the game should not rising on the identical price. Groups are greater and extra skilled and asking for extra, and the races can’t but match that.
It’s clear already that races are struggling to maintain up within the post-Tour de France Femmes world. Although now revived, the Girls’s Tour was the primary sufferer, a long-standing ladies’s race that just about disappeared after its organisers folded, however was saved by British Biking. Ronde van Drenthe, one other long-running occasion, won’t be returning in 2025, because the calendar turns into weighted in the direction of races with males’s equivalents.
For girls’s biking to actually progress and professionalise, one may argue {that a} culling of the races that may’t meet the brand new requirements is required. And this is perhaps proper, nevertheless it’s proof that the Tour de France impact just isn’t a common constructive for all, solely these that may sustain with the quickly rising expectations.
The million Euro query
If the Tour de France Femmes was a watershed second for ladies’s biking, the game had one other earlier this yr when rumours began to swirl that Tour de France winner Demi Vollering had been supplied a €1 million contract from UAE Workforce ADQ on the finish of 2023.
Now, it’s necessary to notice that the veracity of this hearsay has by no means been confirmed by any of the events concerned, and Stephen Delcourt – the boss of the group who’s closely linked with Vollering for 2025 – stated on the time, and maintains now, that no group may feasibly afford such a wage.
So it could have been simply that, a hearsay, even a negotiating software. However the truth that it felt plausible, and will properly have been a risk sooner or later, speaks volumes to the place ladies’s biking is correct now. The thought of a Tour de France winner incomes seven figures appears inside attain, and never outlandish, as it could have been just a few years in the past.
The large query is: how did we get thus far, the place one million euros for Vollering felt believable? Why is it the Dutchwoman who’s more likely to be the highest-paid rider within the peloton? Why her as an alternative of world champion Lotte Kopecky, or possible best of all time Marianne Vos? The plain reply is that Vollering has gained the Tour as soon as, and is the favorite to do it once more in 2024, so she is on the centre of all of the heightened visibility and business worth that the Tour brings.
Nonetheless, in line with De Voogd, there’s one other factor that has helped Vollering to get the place she is: her picture and her model. Conversely, that by no means meant harnessing sponsorship wherever doable, however being cautious, thought-about and never pushed by cash.
“After Demi’s early successes, we instantly began to get consideration from manufacturers, simply small ones, however we at all times had a technique or a imaginative and prescient that we wouldn’t do this, as a result of it distracts from her enterprise, and her enterprise is to be the most effective on the earth. For Demi it was like ‘I need to change into the most effective rider on the earth and be myself. I am genuine, and I’m being me. I can’t be an influencer, recommending totally different merchandise. And that was genuine, I believe, particular and on the identical time so regular. Large manufacturers recognise this and search for these genuine characters with their sturdy, engaged following.”
This picture, as genuine as it could be, is certainly curated. On Vollering’s Instagram, the place she has 244,000 followers, you’ll see a fastidiously chosen number of moments. Yoga, mountaineering along with her canine, tenting, her private hashtag on the backside of most captions. What she posts feels deliberate, and it’s. She has taken the visibility that comes with successful the Tour and grown it into a good greater private model.
“Folks began to love it and began to observe her,” De Voogd added. “So we noticed that she acquired extra consideration and extra following. However you need to do it, you need to put up. I do know lots of ladies – and males, nevertheless it’s perhaps much less necessary for them as a result of they’ve an enormous viewers and broadcasting – however I do know lots of ladies who’re doing wonderful, fascinating stuff, however they don’t put up it. I don’t suppose social media ought to be your life, however it’s a software it’s best to use to get that wider viewers and a spotlight, and most significantly to inform your story.
The information that basically cemented Vollering’s standing as not simply an athlete however as a star and sporting persona was her announcement as a Nike athlete earlier this yr. That is one thing she and De Voogd had dreamt of for a very long time, turning down different potentialities to carry out for Nike. They performed the lengthy sport and ended up securing probably the most necessary sponsorship offers lately – an actual first for ladies’s biking, and a logo of simply how a lot the game’s standing has modified.
Trickle down economics or a widening hole?
Whereas massive salaries, expanded budgets and high-profile races are one thing to be celebrated, it’s additionally patently clear that for the time being, the most important monetary positive aspects are restricted to only a few riders, races and groups.
Business curiosity from manufacturers and sponsors is rising, nevertheless it stays about business worth – so publicity and revenue. Manufacturers need to make investments their cash within the groups and races that can give essentially the most return. Meaning massive races, well-known names, and profitable groups. While some firms have been extremely beneficiant with their help of ladies’s biking, even when it was not the place it’s now, sports activities sponsorship just isn’t a charitable pursuit, and most firms will observe the place the revenue or profit is – which is the highest of the pyramid.
Whereas the WorldTour groups appear extra secure than ever, Continental outfits are nonetheless scrambling from yr to yr, counting on little cash and unpredictable race invitations. Lifeplus-Wahoo, for instance, misplaced their Trek sponsorship when the model moved over to launch the Trek-Segafredo group, and this yr missed out on Tour choice, which they advised Biking Weekly instantly meant exhausting conversations with sponsors.
In some methods, the poor visibility of ladies’s biking a decade in the past was a leveller. So little racing was broadcast, it meant everybody was on an analogous enjoying discipline by way of visibility. Now, if you happen to’re a group doing a program of largely non-televised, non-WorldTour races, it’s exhausting to see how you would entice curiosity from a model that might make investments elsewhere, and see their brand broadcast to the world in the course of the Tour de France Femmes.
A model like Canyon, for instance, funnels some huge cash into ladies’s biking, supporting three WorldTour groups, essentially the most of any bike model. “We’re striving for a steadiness in our investments in female and male professional sports activities,” the model’s VP Company Communications, Tina Hunstein-Glasl, stated. However, that’s centered on the high.
“We give attention to extremely aggressive groups and athletes, which additionally consists of encouraging new skills and upcoming stars,” Hunstein-Glasl stated. “For instance with CANYON-SRAM Technology and the Fenix-Deceuninck Growth group we’re in a position to help a various group of extremely formidable ladies who’re keen to spend money on their future and the way forward for biking by breaking new grounds, hopefully creating into skills for future feminine WorldTour groups.”
There may be an argument to be made that cash coming into the game at any stage might be good for the entire pyramid, straight or not.
“Folks will say ‘it’s so unfair for the underside’ however I don’t suppose so,” De Voogd stated. “If there’s extra on the high, extra will even go to the underside. A Nike deal for ladies’s biking is nice, as a result of it would get extra consideration, an even bigger viewers, and it’ll solely raise athletes larger. I believe lots of ladies within the peloton know that, they usually suppose ‘yeah, that is nice for us’ they usually solely will raise up their sport’.”
When whispers of a doable €1 million contract first emerged, it was met in sure corners with virtually criticism, as some argued that if there’s cash like that within the sport, it ought to be shared round extra equally – why ought to so many battle while wealth accrues on the high?
The thought of 1 rider incomes such a determine while others are paid so little does bristle, nevertheless it’s an inequality and disparity we see in males’s sport, with a lot much less consternation.
“I’d say it was like sexism in a approach,” De Voogd stated of the destructive dialogue round a doable million-euro contract. “Pogačar may renegotiate his contract and it may come out that he was making, say, €20 million a yr, I don’t know, however he’s actually value it, and in comparison with different sports activities, you would say he’s nonetheless not incomes sufficient. However then they’re stunned {that a} lady may make one million in a yr. Why ought to that ever be an issue?”
The fact for the underside of the pyramid
In concept, De Voogd’s query is truthful, and the assertion that it ought to assist everyone seems to be correct. Rumours of million-euro salaries make the game look critical, skilled and priceless, which it’s, and that ought to profit the game as an entire. The issue is, the materialisation of that may be sluggish. Trickle-down economics can work, however these on the backside can discover themselves ready a very long time for the trickle to succeed in them.
Whereas sponsors, races and groups wish to shout in regards to the massive and promising numbers, organisations like The Cyclists’ Alliance are doing the exhausting work to uncover the much less shiny truths. In 2023, their annual survey revealed some regarding numbers.
WorldTour riders acquired a mandated minimal wage in 2023, however at Continental stage, the monetary scenario is regarding. Forty per cent of riders in Continental groups acquired no wage in any respect on the time of the survey, and most of those who did acquired lower than €10,000 a yr, within the season when the WorldTour minimal wage grew to over €30,000. The variety of riders receiving no wage was up on the 2022 figures, at a time when issues are supposed to be getting higher, not worse. Within the TCA’s personal phrases: “The disparities between riders within the World Tour and riders exterior the World Tour proceed to develop wider.” The advantages should not but trickling down the pyramid.
For the reason that introduction of WorldTour stage, the launch of the Tour de France Femmes, and the rumours of giant offers and salaries, we’ve been advised that this can all profit the game as an entire. In 2022, the Tour did change every part, and lots of groups and riders have felt an enormous enhance, whereas these exterior of the higher echelon have been promised higher is coming.
It could be on its approach, however in 2024, the underside rung of ladies’s biking continues to be very a lot ready for that supposed profit to reach.
