Pro Cycling's REAL Problem

Pro Cycling's REAL Broken Business Model

Events like the disruption of La Vuelta 2025 by political protests against a team with ISRAEL on its jersey warrants a look at what Zio Lorenzo would call “Pro Cycling’s REAL Broken Business Model”.

Plenty has been written about the financial structure of pro cycling and how various business models (most of which seem based on somehow getting a piece of the vast fortune the Tour de France organizers supposedly make each year) should be implemented. But the REAL broken business model isn’t financial, it’s ethical. Not commerce vs sport but morality vs sport, two things that should be synonymous but fans are making it clear they are not and they’re not happy about it.

Pro cycling began as an individual sport but soon bicycle makers got involved, seeing the value of their brand-name on the wool jerseys of riders in the famous race. They bought advertising touting how Rider X won the race using their bicycle. Soon, teams were organized and paid by these bike makers to help one man win the race, sacrificing their own chances in the process.

Then Tour de France founder, Henri Desgrange decided in 1930 these industry teams had too much influence. His solution? Change to national teams, hoping to break up industry alliances adversely affecting his race. How to fund the race (and maybe make money?) became an issue, but Desgrange’ solution was a publicity caravan. This way industry of pretty much any type could pay to drive around the race course ahead of the riders, promoting their goods, handing out samples of their products, etc.

This worked OK but in the early 1960’s trade teams (with some national identity, which we’ll discuss further) were allowed to come back. Meanwhile, the lucrative publicity caravan continued. Trade teams again were mostly bicycle industry based, the first non-cycling sponsored team was an Italian one bankrolled by Nivea skin cream starting back in 1954.

Once the value of consumer product advertising became obvious (certainly helped by more and more television coverage of races) all kinds of companies sponsored teams from espresso machine makers, cold-cut producers and supermarkets along with alcoholic beverages one assumes fans would enjoy while watching the races. Even tobacco companies were involved until legislation ruled them out, despite some creative work-arounds by their makers like putting the same brand name on chocolates for example - BOULE D-OR could be eaten but they really wanted you to smoke them!

Pro cycling went along well enough with various companies coming and going, often with a new one just taking the place of a previous one, with no more changes than uniforms and maybe the color/branding of the bicycles. Budgets for pro teams weren’t insane, star riders were paid a pretty decent salary while all of them could add to their income from appearance fees and prizes earned at other races, plenty of which were post-Tour criteriums. Small business owners could afford to have their company name on a jersey, even if it was team that raced only nationally with hopes of an invite to their country’s 3-week Grand Tour

The mid-1980’s saw multi-national Coca-Cola sign up to be the official drink of LeTour, replacing Perrier. This was the same period in which American Greg LeMond started making his mark and other multinationals soon joined the party

Then in 2005 something big happened. A “Pro Tour” idea was cooked up, one that tried to globalize the sport. When cycling went global it meant two important races might be going on at the same time in different places, so now you needed two teams, one for each race with a staff to look after them and their bicycles. Costs of fielding a team competitive on the Pro Tour stage skyrocketed, some compared the budget needed to the GDP of a small country!

Just a few years later there WAS a small country bankrolling a team - Kazakhstan, a team named after their capital city Astana. They were instantly invited to join the Pro Tour. Some questions were asked about the ethics of such an authoritarian regime “sportwashing” in this way, but this was the UCI’s (international cycling union) go-go, “show us the money” phase. These were the same folks who said a certain Texan champ “would never, never, ever dope” to keep their gravy train rolling. The same Texan signed up with the team for the 2009 season, part of his "comeback tour".

Of course there had been national cycling teams in this era like Cafe Colombia, but they were more about promoting coffee than authoritarian regimes. The sportwashing trend continued with Bahrain in 2017 (“financed by the government of Bahrain to promote the country worldwide” according to Wikipedia) with UAE coming a year later. In both cases more questions were asked about sportwashing  but “show me the money” prevailed. More recently an Australian team added a secondary sponsor- ALULA in Saudi Arabia. Perhaps more subtle but otherwise the same idea?

Meanwhile, Israel Cycling Academy was born in 2014, the claim being it was to provide opportunity/development for Israeli cyclists. By 2018 they were invited to Milano-Sanremo and the Giro d’Italia, maybe having something to do with Israel paying big money to get the Giro d’Italia start, the first time outside Europe? Real estate tycoon Sylvan Adams was a big backer of the team as well as a provider of the funding needed to secure that “Big Start”. 

This team next bought their way into the World Tour with the purchase of Katusha-Alpecin, mostly tossing the elements of that team (but keeping their World Tour license) and rebranding the team as Israel Start-Up Nation. In 2021 Adam’s fortune let them buy fading pro Chris Froome.

In 2022 the team was rebranded as Israel-Premier Tech with more Canadian riders added since sponsor Premier Tech was a Canadian company but poor results caused the team to be relegated to the second-tier for 2023. In recent years the team has shown-up at the biggest races without a single Israeli rider, so what is this team’s purpose again if it’s not sportwashing? The governing regime in Israel seemed only too proud to have these representatives, but at the same time claimed to have not contributed to funding for the team.

Seems like Premier Tech is the real sponsor but takes second position to a country that contributes nothing? Zio's guess is Sylvan Adams the main backer and he's the one who wants ISRAEL on the jersey, even saying the team would NEVER compete otherwise..before the name was removed halfway through the Vuelta. More grumbling about sportwashing was said and written, especially as  things heated up (again) in the Middle East.

In early 2024 pro-Palestinian protests against the team’s presence at cycling events began in Australia. As the genocide in Gaza became obvious to the entire world, these protests continued and expanded. Meanwhile, team owner “Sylvan Adams described the Gaza war as a contest between "good vs. evil and civilization against barbarism.” according to Wikipedia.

Fast forward to La Vuelta 2025 where the race was interrupted and finally stopped entirely on the final stage in Madrid due to various protesters, including some climate activists and what seemed like the usual “black block” hooligans who show up any time there’s a chance of tear gas, truncheons and fire hoses.

“Sportwashing” by these entities can’t be legislated away like tobacco or alcohol. Pro cycling tried to keep gambling interests out (remember Unibet?) but the Visma team sported “BetCity” logos from January 2023 to January 2025 and of course there’s FDJ’s national lottery as well as Lotto, so it seems the “show me the money!” idea is still in play.

Is there any entity pro cycling will NOT take money from? In 1990 the TVM team traveled to races in a bus supplied by “Sauna Diana” basically a brothel, so where’s the limit? How about porn sites? The brothel seemed OK while MOTOGP already has “Only Fans” painted on motorcycles so what if the sponsor wanted a pro cycling team? Would a pro cycling team bankrolled by neo-Nazis be OK? How about one sponsored by Hamas or Hezbollah? Does pro cycling even care?

Since sportwashing can’t be legislated away (though the International Olympic Committee can exclude countries, as it has done with Russia after the invasion of Ukraine…but so far turned a blind eye towards Israel)  it’s up to the fans (who are demonstrating as we’ve seen in Spain) but what about the riders? Do they have zero interest in where the money in their pay packet comes from? No issues with the name of an authoritarian regime with a dismal human rights record on their chest? During the Spanish protests one rider described himself and others as “pawns in the game”. But that doesn’t happen unless you are a willing pawn as those authoritarian regimes are not forcing you to don their jersey at gunpoint, you are taking the money to represent the sponsor as well as pedal a bicycle. Shouldn’t you care what that sponsor actually does or sells or promotes?

Pro cycling and its fans deserve better. Little doubt there would be less money in the sport if sportwashing was discouraged but what is integrity, humanity and justice worth?