Million Euro contracts, expansive budgets and trickle-down economics – the Tour de France Femmes impact
In the previous few years, girls’s biking has been via waves of dramatic and wide-reaching change. Go again to 2019, and also you’ll discover a scenario that was very totally different to at present: no actual Tour de France for ladies, no Paris-Roubaix, no WorldTour staff standing, no minimal wage for ladies, and no large contracts. Fast ahead to at present, and the ladies’s peloton has all these issues and extra, with the trajectory solely heading upwards.
Part of that is right down to world traits in girls’s sports activities – viewership is rising exponentially, business worth is up throughout the board – however a lot of it’s right down to some particular modifications in girls’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, staff 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 increased prices for groups and race organisers.
The headline figures all appear constructive, however simply how vital has the affect of the Tour been? What else has modified since 2022? Are there any negatives hidden behind the positives?
It’s a posh and wide-ranging matter within the sport, however the one recurring theme for all stakeholders – groups, races, sponsors, riders – is all the time visibility.
“The affect for all of the groups that take part within the Tour de France is admittedly essential,” FDJ-SUEZ staff supervisor Stephen Delcourt instructed us. “For me, near 60 per cent of my visibility income is throughout 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 provided new alternatives, new ambitions. According to her companion and supervisor Jan de Voogd, defending champion Demi Vollering’s Tour objectives started to type 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 received it. And that was the primary time we thought ‘okay, that is huge’ as a result of in the event you win one thing to do with the Tour de France, that’s the factor everybody on the planet is aware of. Lots of people don’t know a lot about biking, and definitely not about girls’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 vary, with extra eyes on girls’s biking than ever earlier than.
“The broadcast perspective was why it was so essential that the Tour de France Femmes got here again,” De Voogd added. “It needs to be broadcast, there needs to be stay protection, and whether it is to be seen by extra folks, then the manufacturers and the cash will observe, not the opposite means round.”
Bigger groups, larger budgets
By all accounts, quite a lot 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 converse for themselves. In 2014, that they had a funds of slightly below €400,000, Delcourt instructed us. In 2020, the yr the primary girls’s Paris-Roubaix was deliberate, that was €1.2 million, and in 2024 it’s €3.8 million. The development in ten years has been large, and Delcourt believes “100%” that the staff 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. “At the start of the staff and for the primary ten years, it was solely volunteers on the staff working across the riders. We talked about skilled groups, however that was solely in identify, as a result of the riders weren’t skilled. But step-by-step we invested extra, we regarded for extra funds, and now FDJ-SUEZ has greater than 40 full-time staff, workers and riders, we’ve greater than 120 sponsors.”
Though we don’t know all of the specifics for each staff, it seems that the development is comparable throughout the board. Teams are continually gaining new sponsors, staff closures have been uncommon, and rosters are steadily rising. In 2020, the common dimension of a WorldTour staff was 13.7 riders, this yr, it’s 16.3. Teams are additionally spending extra on altitude camps, gear, media groups, the checklist goes on.
Things 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 pace is admittedly, actually quick,” Delcourt stated.
The solely query is that if every part is shifting on the similar velocity. Most groups seem like using the wave properly, however there are issues. Rider salaries are one: riders and brokers know that groups have larger budgets, and know they’re racing extra professionally, so some are asking for extra compensation, but it surely’s a difficult steadiness of budgets for staff managers.
“It’s a human response to all the time need extra. Everybody desires extra. We make investments rather a lot in altitude camps, vitamin, materials testing, et cetera, which they want as a result of they work rather a lot. After, for the wage, it is onerous with the expectations as a result of the market [this year] was loopy with a excessive variety of prime riders with out contracts for 2025, and on the opposite aspect we should be actually vigilant in regards to the worth, as a result of the price of every part is loopy. And I feel it may be onerous to know why the prices enhance like this,” Delcourt stated.
“It’s straightforward to say ‘okay, I wish to enhance this rider’s wage or that rider’s wage’ as a result of one other staff is providing extra money or one thing, however we’ve quite a lot of actually dangerous examples when groups wish 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 verify we’ve the funds 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 missed is the races themselves.
Thanks 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. Other races, particularly ones who solely have a girls’s race, don’t have this luxurious, and the difficulties are starting to point out.
“How is it potential to simply accept that for the Giro and Vuelta, they pay for under 5 workers?” Delcourt requested. “It is not possible to simply accept that. When you’ve got seven riders, two vehicles within the race, the minimal is 2 sports activities administrators with the UCI licence, then you definitely want two mechanics – properly, now all the large groups have a bus and a giant mechanics truck, so that you want a minimal of three mechanics, actually three sports activities administrators minimal, and then you definitely want different assistants. In 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 a minimal of fifteen workers. In my staff, it was 23, as a result of we’ve the communication groups et cetera, however the organiser pays for under twelve folks [riders included],” he defined.
At the Giro, this meant that FDJ spent an extra €12,000 of their very own cash simply to be on the race. At the Tour de France, the organisers can pay for 9 workers members, and an additional €5,000. There’s nonetheless a spot that the staff should cowl, but it surely’s a really totally different proposition.
As properly as making it tougher for groups to get probably the most out of smaller races, this one instance reveals how totally different components of the game usually are not rising on the similar charge. Teams are larger 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. Though now revived, the Women’s Tour was the primary sufferer, a long-standing girls’s race that just about disappeared after its organisers folded, however was saved by British Cycling. 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 essentially progress and professionalise, one might argue {that a} culling of the races that may’t meet the brand new requirements is required. And this could be proper, but it surely’s proof that the Tour de France impact will not be 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 provided a €1 million contract from UAE Team ADQ on the finish of 2023.
Now, it’s essential 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 staff who’s closely linked with Vollering for 2025 – stated on the time, and maintains now, that no staff might feasibly afford such a wage.
So it might have been simply that, a hearsay, even a negotiating instrument. But the truth that it felt plausible, and will properly have been a chance sooner or later, speaks volumes to the place girls’s biking is correct now. The concept of a Tour de France winner incomes seven figures appears inside attain, and never outlandish, as it might have been just a few years in the past.
The huge query is: how did we get so far, the place one million euros for Vollering felt believable? Why is it the Dutchwoman who’s prone 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 apparent reply is that Vollering has received 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.
However, in keeping 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 potential, however being cautious, thought of and never pushed by cash.
“After Demi’s early successes, we instantly began to get consideration from manufacturers, simply small ones, however we all the time 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 very best on the planet. For Demi it was like ‘I wish to develop into the very best rider on the planet and be myself. I’m genuine, and I’m being me. I cannot be an influencer, recommending totally different merchandise. And that was genuine, I feel, particular and on the similar time so regular. Big manufacturers recognise this and search for these genuine characters with their robust, engaged following.”
This picture, as genuine as it might be, is unquestionably curated. On Vollering’s Instagram, the place she has 244,000 followers, you’ll see a rigorously 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 fair larger private model.
“People began to love it and began to observe her,” De Voogd added. “So we noticed that she acquired extra consideration and extra following. But you must do it, you must submit. I do know quite a lot of girls – and males, but it surely’s perhaps much less essential for them as a result of they’ve a giant viewers and broadcasting – however I do know quite a lot of girls who’re doing wonderful, attention-grabbing stuff, however they don’t submit it. I don’t suppose social media needs to be your life, however it’s a instrument you must use to get that wider viewers and a focus, and most significantly to inform your story.
The information that actually cemented Vollering’s standing as not simply an athlete however as a star and sporting character was her announcement as a Nike athlete earlier this yr. This 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 essential sponsorship offers in recent times – an actual first for ladies’s biking, and an emblem of simply how a lot the game’s standing has modified.
Trickle down economics or a widening hole?
While huge salaries, expanded budgets and high-profile races are one thing to be celebrated, it’s additionally patently clear that in the intervening time, the most important monetary positive aspects are restricted to only a few riders, races and groups.
Commercial curiosity from manufacturers and sponsors is rising, but it surely stays about business worth – so publicity and revenue. Brands wish to make investments their cash within the groups and races that may give probably the most return. That means huge races, well-known names, and profitable groups. Whilst some corporations have been extremely beneficiant with their help of ladies’s biking, even when it was not the place it’s now, sports activities sponsorship will not be a charitable pursuit, and most corporations will observe the place the revenue or profit is – which is the highest of the pyramid.
While 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 staff, and this yr missed out on Tour choice, which they instructed Cycling Weekly instantly meant onerous 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 the same taking part in discipline by way of visibility. Now, in the event you’re a staff doing a program of largely non-televised, non-WorldTour races, it’s onerous to see how you may entice curiosity from a model that would make investments elsewhere, and see their brand broadcast to the world throughout the Tour de France Femmes.
A model like Canyon, for instance, funnels some huge cash into girls’s biking, supporting three WorldTour groups, probably the most of any bike model. “We are striving for a steadiness in our investments in female and male professional sports activities,” the model’s VP Corporate Communications, Tina Hunstein-Glasl, stated. But, that’s targeted on the prime.
“We concentrate on extremely aggressive groups and athletes, which additionally consists of encouraging new abilities and upcoming stars,” Hunstein-Glasl stated. “For instance with CANYON-SRAM Generation and the Fenix-Deceuninck Development staff we’re in a position to help a various group of extremely bold girls who’re prepared to spend money on their future and the way forward for biking by breaking new grounds, hopefully growing into abilities for future feminine WorldTour groups.”
There is an argument to be made that cash coming into the game at any degree may be good for the entire pyramid, immediately or not.
“People will say ‘it’s so unfair for the underside’ however I don’t suppose so,” De Voogd stated. “If there may be extra on the prime, extra will even go to the underside. A Nike deal for ladies’s biking is nice, as a result of it’s going to get extra consideration, an even bigger viewers, and it’ll solely carry athletes increased. I feel quite a lot of girls within the peloton know that, they usually suppose ‘yeah, that is nice for us’ they usually solely will carry up their sport’.”
When whispers of a potential €1 million contract first emerged, it was met in sure corners with nearly criticism, as some argued that if there’s cash like that within the sport, it needs to be shared round extra equally – why ought to so many battle while wealth accrues on the prime?
The concept of 1 rider incomes such a determine while others are paid so little does bristle, but it surely’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 means,” De Voogd stated of the adverse dialogue round a potential million-euro contract. “Pogačar might renegotiate his contract and it might come out that he was making, say, €20 million a yr, I don’t know, however he’s actually price it, and in comparison with different sports activities, you may say he’s nonetheless not incomes sufficient. But then they’re stunned {that a} lady might make one million in a yr. Why ought to that ever be an issue?”
The actuality for the underside of the pyramid
In idea, 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 helpful, which it’s, and that ought to profit the game as an entire. The drawback 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 achieve them.
While sponsors, races and groups prefer to shout in regards to the huge and promising numbers, organisations like The Cyclists’ Alliance are doing the onerous 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 degree, 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. In the TCA’s personal phrases: “The disparities between riders within the World Tour and riders outdoors the World Tour proceed to develop wider.” The advantages usually are not but trickling down the pyramid.
Since the introduction of WorldTour degree, the launch of the Tour de France Femmes, and the rumours of giant offers and salaries, we’ve been instructed that it will all profit the game as an entire. In 2022, the Tour did change every part, and plenty of groups and riders have felt an enormous increase, whereas these outdoors of the higher echelon have been promised higher is coming.
It could also be on its means, however in 2024, the underside rung of ladies’s biking continues to be very a lot ready for that supposed profit to reach.