jyl

Interesting that two of the three sports I follow are in financial distress. Formula One, where two teams are bankrupt and two more pretty close, and pro road cycling, where the world tour can't even maintain a full roster of teams.

F1's problems are down to terrible governance, basically. The sport makes a lot of money but half of it is siphoned off by Eccelstone and CVC, and the rest is being burned up by a very expensive engine spec. These are solvable problems, even though they might not be solved.

Pro cycling seems to have a worse problem. The sport just doesn't make enough money, with the sole exception of the Tour de France (and even the Tour doesn't make enough to solve the problem, not that the ASO is going to give up its income).

What would you do to fix it, if you had the powers?

cafzali

Several WorldTour teams have formed an organization to try and effectively tackle the issues. Chiefly, they want to shorten the race calendar, reduce the number of riders and make important financial model changes. The big problem with cycling is the organizers keep too much of the revenue and very little of it is shared with the very teams that make their product possible.

jyl

What I've read is that most of the races don't make any money, the race organizer even has to pay for TV coverage. The only race that is a really big money maker is the TdF. Some smaller races have disappeared. There is no admission or concessions revenue, so the only revenue most races get is sponsorship.

ThermionicScott 

I have ADD: which sport that you enjoy is doing well?

Giacomo 1 

I don't think cycling can ever charge fans to attend races like F1, NASCAR, NFL, MLB, etc., can

TV and scheduling is the key for cycling to increase revenues IMHO.

Cycling needs to have a coherent schedule like other sports do. Right now, it's just a bunch of individual races with different riders that have no connection to one another. You almost have to be lucky to find the race on TV, because there is no schedule, no rhyme or reason as to when they are televised or what one race means in relation to another, which is not much. Make a schedule of 10 races, or whatever number is right, and have the same riders compete in them, and then crown your champion, overall, mountain, sprinter, etc.. Have the races televised say, every Sunday at 2PM, for the duration of the series, so fans know when to watch. Fans need to know! It could draw interest and it might give riders of single day races a shot at the fame a TDF winner gets. I'm not sure a championship type system can work in cycling, but it might be worth considering crowning an overall champion instead of just winners of individual races. The Grand Tours and other Tours would remain.

This was just off the top of my head, but a championship system of some type could work. Heck, NASCAR went for it. But whether we go for a championship or not, I do know for sure that better regular scheduling and good use of TV makes sports like football, F1, NASCAR and others develop a fan base and guarantees continued growth. Fans and would-be fans will tune in if they know the when, where, why and how...

Leinster

They've tried all that, in multiple different formats. The Pernod Super Prestige was one of the biggest prizes in cycling, and was replaced with the UCI World Cup, which was replaced by the ProTour. Ok, they've never nailed the whole "Every Sunday at 2pm" thing, but the season-long-competition is a long-standing tradition in cycling.

A coherent schedule is a difficult thing to put together. It would be great if some way could be worked out to have a season where the best riders were competing against each other week in, week out, but the sport has evolved over a long time to have different events at similar times that suit riders of different skillsets. The end result is that riders pick and choose their events and there are only a handful of races in the year where all the best are going full bore with a chance of winning.

Giacomo 1 

Every sport that is anything higher than a niche sport has a tried and true schedule. Right now, cycling's TV schedule is about as good as darts, polker, or ski jumping.

Traditionally, you knew that for the last 50 years or so, you can watch football every Sunday at 1 and 4PM, so you made sure you were home to watch. They're blowing it now with the whole Sunday night, Monday night, Thursday night and Saturday game schedule and random overseas games. They're watering down what made them great, the dependable schedule. While they are making big bucks now, they will soon be over-exposed and the fans will tire of seeing the NFL 24/7.

I agree that it will be hard to put together a coherent schedule on the Pro circuit, but maybe a criterium format would spark interest. A criterium league, the American Criterium League, or ACL, featuring small teams of 5 riders that would race every weekend, or every other weekend, same time, same channel, same day, say 2PM, Universal Sports, on Sunday. Make the races short, say 1 1/2 hours each, make them fast, market the heck out of the teams, the riders, even the bikes they ride, which is something they don't do in the Pro ranks for some reason. Maybe even have a playoff system.

I realize something like this goes against traditional road racing, and it would take major backing and sponsorship to work, but we're beginning to see all types of organized sports leagues we never had before. These days, I can watch the MLS soccer, there's a lacrosse league, a rugby league, a beach volleyball circuit and all types of car racing formats, even pro bowling is now big time with hype and marketing and prize money like never before. So I have to believe there is room for some type of cycling if they can organize it better.

BamaBulldawg

This would be awesome, if Lance Armstrong ran this and announced it would be a sure bet. Someone email Lance with the idea so we can get this on TV.

jbenkert111

You absolutely have to market the sport and get solid, regular TV coverage. But, having said that, bike racing in any form will NEVER be popular in the US as long as foreign cyclist dominate the sport (running has the same problem). Look at when LA had his run of 7 TDF wins, the US was crazy about the sport and local races had a big up tick in paticipation. Now, because of what happen, bike racing doesn't even make a blip on the interest screen, and that includes me. I use to run a lot of races and then guys like Rogers and Shorter went away and were replaced by Africans, South Americans and Mexicans and I lost interest although I still like to run, I won't watch it on TV so I can see someone who's name I can't pronounce win. The bottom line is Americans will not support a sport unless Americans are at least competitive.

Voodoo76

Not to say this would not work today, but almost exactly that has been tried. The NCL in the 90's, even had an ESPN tie in (with Alexi and our own EventServices on the mic). Old joke was if you wanted to evacuate a down town hold an NCL race.

himespau 

Somehow you need to get the redneck fanbase involved. Move cyclocross to the spring (to avoid competing with football) and up-sell the beer hand ups, get budweiser to sponsor it, make sure the courses are as muddy as possible, and get cheer babes. Then slowly work to cross promote the same riders in road cycling. Oh, and it has to be an american thing with maybe a few random europeans scattered in possibly, but no more than a handful.

Giacomo 1 

I must have missed that league.

You bring up a good point though, you have to shut down a whole downtown area of a city, which many municipalities would be against unless there was a guaranteed pay-off. That's tough logistically without major resources.

ESPN is past niche sports like cycling and only televises the big sports nowadays. But it would be a perfect fit for Universal Sports, which makes it's living off of niche sports cycling. Heck, they televise everything from darts to grown men racing BMX bikes, so why not a pro cycling league?