getting seriously bad vibes about this…I’ve seen this movie too many times before - Le Groupement, Linda McCartney, Team Coast, etc.
New kit looks good, though… 
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Inrng also did an analysis on this, and per usual Inrng fashion, it’s great. This feels weird for sure.
Really hope this all works out ok. Your link raises lots of questions, Mitchelton-Scott has just been such a great team to follow that I would miss them if they ended up leaving the world tour
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Cripes…this deal sounds like it is falling apart before it even takes place.
I’m really hoping it was just somebody getting excited and releasing info before there was a chance to put all the pieces into one cohesive story…Please let that be the case…
Cycling’s business model needs to be dissolved and rethought. This is just getting dumb.
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Seems to me that ownership of the team and control of the WT license is the lynch pin for the deal and should have been clear from the beginning. If the two sides aren’t in agreement on that basic fact, then things are not in a good situation.
Is there an alternative business model though? Aside from getting more casual fans excited about races beyond TDF what else can be done?
absolutely there is an alternative. but it means a marked departure from the existing framework, for which there will be short term winners and losers.
The current model has shown it is not stable or sustainable. It has all of the bad parts of the F1 model, without any of the good, and its what leads to the constant churn of team sponsors, rider problems, and lack of ability to grow the visibility of the sport. Instead of pro-cycling working together to compete for external dollars and eyeballs, it competes with itself.
Riders should form a union.
I am genuinely curious. I’m maybe a more than a casual fan but don’t really know what the solutions are though. (And I don’t follow F1 so I have no idea how that model works).
Not really. Theoretically, sure…get the race organizers to share their TV revenue and sponsorship w/ the riders, etc.
But you will never get the race organizers (especially ASO, who really are the power brokers in cycling) to agree to that…so the wheel keeps spinning.
without teams you dont have races…so its a catch-22
They’ll find plenty of riders willing to race…one of the reasons why they can’t seem to form a union. Not enough riders are willing to out their own personal interests on the line for the good of the whole peloton.
Same thing in triathlon with WTC…they are the de facto controllers of the sport.
Read a Spanish article on this and the comments from the Spainards was basically “why trust him after he has failed and failed to deliver”
I can’t see this as a good move, but what do they have left, Ryan cant prop up a multi million dollar team for ever. The team is in the same trouble as 95% of the pro teams. Especially now. Cycling has no infrastructure or business model. UCI is broke, does there need to be a overhaul yes…but ASO won’t let that happen (Look at what they did to Velon). A new business model, making teams more sustainable getting a % of TV rights etc and effectively shutting Velon down by suing them.
I keep hearing the thought of providing TV rights to teams as a way to fix everything, but I’ve seen a couple analyses of this (I think cyclingtips has discussed this on their podcast and possibly inrng) where there actually isn’t that much money to go around. I forget the numbers exactly, but I think it was something like $2 million dollars per team (for the tour only, much less for the other races), which is much less than you need to run a team. It’s a certain positive step forward, but might not be the savior it’s purported to be.
Look at the standard sports model (soccer, football, baseball, hockey);
You have teams and you have the league(s). League owns the rights, teams receive proceeds of selling those rights to TV, merchandising, etc. You have a stable platform that allows for longer term deals/commitments, which creates a stable revenue stream for all parties.
Right now in cycling you have the opposite. Everything (including WT licenses) are so short term and year to year that they are not able to maximize revenues and generate the stable revenue streams and cash flow, which becomes a self fulfilling prophecy of teams folding, being unstable, etc.
I’m not saying it isn’t the right way to go, but those sports have the advantage of having the ability to sell tickets/merch, and likely having larger audiences.
But those leagues / models also have a way to generate revenue…i.e. ticket sales. That is impossible for cycling.
Looks like it’s over now, too…
https://www.greenedgecycling.com/news/statement-future-of-greenedge-cycling