This is really interesting news. Could this be akin to RB purchasing Jaguar’s F1 team back in 2004?
If Red Bull does put significant budget behind the team, we could see a bigger pursuit of gains than even Team Sky!
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This is almost like a hedge fund buying a company they have little experience in, and watching it crash into the ground and profiting for it. Sorry but I’ve been reading about hedge funds and the hideous stuff they do.
I’d be against a company that markets hyped up over-caffeinated ‘sports drinks’ owning a real sports competitive organization. That just seems a little unethical to me. (Just like NASCAR teams sponsored by cigarette companies, which ended a while ago)
Associating an energy drink with big tabacco is just miles apart IMO, but I get that people may disagree.
Outside of that, the clear work and funding done by RB on the F1 side sure seems to show they can step into a sport and make some very positive gains.
There are many, many things at play here but the gloom you seem to have around this is rather premature and unjustified in my eyes.
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Perhaps they might even see the light to sponsor or create some USA road races. Might be a dream but………
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So Redbull’s involvement in F1 and Bundesliga and MLS and the brazil soccer league aren’t real sports competitive organizations?
Argue with their politics and products, but Redbull invests for growth and success. They took Leipzig from the 5th division to the top of the german soccer league. Do I need to say much about their involvements in F1?
Their involvement is much better in my eyes than say companies that sell faucets, tiles, caffeinated shampoo, supermarkets, the french lottery, a travel company, or even oil-petro states.
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They own two Formula One teams and an MLS Soccer team, and that’s just the big budget operations. They have a hand is many smaller projects. And nothing I have ever seen suggests the sugar water leadership team meddles excessively in the companies they have a stake in.
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I imagine a team name change is forthcoming.
I wonder if there is push to get any of the RB athletes (Pidcock, Wout) on Bora (soon to be Red Bull-Bora).
Edit:
Obviously not this season but in the future, potentially whenever their contracts with their current teams would expire or are close to expiring.
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Eh….as noted, RB has proven to be very successful at developing successful sporting teams. It is not like they knew how to run an F1 team or a football club when they bought those entities.
And RB has been involved in cycling for many, many years……with a pretty impressive roster of riders across multiple disciplines.
I would imagine a team name change is inevitable at some point….as for other athletes moving, perhaps, but I think the other question is whether they simply drop those athletes.
I do find it curious that they opted for Bora, though….given Jumbo’s well documented search for a new sponsor ( and Wout’s being on the roster), you would have thought that would have been a better option. I’m assuming that the license holders for (now) Visma simply did not want to sell.
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Who’s supposed to own them? Billionaires who like to own teams? Ineos is a petro chemical company. Jumbo is a super market. Bora sells shower faucets. A company that sells sugar and caffeine actually seems to be more appropriate.
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- No kidding. Considering the notable use of and benefits of carbs & caffeine [in cycling], it’s hard for me to see that as any kind of negative.
The mention of auto racing (where tobacco was removed decades ago in the first place) is notable with the continued presence of alcohol sponsors front and center. Again, opinions differ but a I find it hard to place energy drinks anywhere near booze in the questionable / bad column.
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As a dentist I love carbs, even more so packed in energy drinks like red bull, keeps me in business.
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@robcow That ship may have sailed already - eg. Ineos is a petrochemical company, UAE has a questionable track record on human rights. Post-doping era it became even more difficult to get sponsors into cycling so we don’t often see the more recognizable and perhaps less tarnished brands.
More interesting is the fact that there has been some question marks over their sporting involvement following the death of Dietrich Mateschitz, who was a founder and thought to be the one most interested in sport. Bora makes sense as a German team - most of their ownership is Austria and Germany as far as I recall.
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As well as UAE, we have Bahrain, Kazakhstan, IPT. Petro Chemical wise, as well as INEOS there’s Total. But in the past Shell have been prominent on jerseys too.
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It’s down my street practically which is Austria. The performance centre has been used by Bora for a while but is not just for cycling - you can see it recently on some Tri Vids in n YouTube with Lucy Charles Barclay
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Wow, yeah, I forgot, or didn’t realize the widespread greenwashing (?) of the petrochemical megopolies. Liv certainly upended the sport of golf. I wasn’t surprised that so many dumped the PGA for the cash being thrust at them.
Okay, fine, I was commenting from the sidelines and voicing an uninformed opinion. Being an American, I reserve the right to do such at any point. 
My thoughts were the effects of caffeine on some people, causing heart rhythm irregularities and other health issues. And does their official backing open the idea that caffeine could be a ridiculously banned substance?
Tangent: Bikes/components are far too expensive, so with big money backing cycling, is that helping to increase prices? Just an offhand comment. I mean usually when prices go up, they go up because people (some people) can afford to pay those increased prices, and they continue to go up until they hit a ceiling keeping them for those able to afford them. Marketing has to be an interesting subject to study. I was talking to my brother about the cost of tires and he was blown away. Yeah, I guess I am too now. ‘I don’t have a drinking problem, I can afford it now’?
To be fair, big money is backing everything in the pro sports world. Cycling is no different.
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No, it does not.
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And that’s how it started. Yeah, teams need sponsors. Should a regulating body be able to dictate what sponsors a team can attract? On the base, hell no. They consume money, and it’s not cheap to supply bikes and components/wheels/tires, so they NEED money. Having a rich generous sponsor is mandatory, and other less cash easy sponsors can be picked up for window dressing. Should a notorious polluting and violent industry be a sponsor? Apparently if they have the cash, they can sponsor and to an extent do whatever they want. And sin products are profitable (especially with government subsidies) so beer, alcohol, cigarettes/tobacco were HUGE sponsors of teams and groups across many sports. It’s good advertising. I guess I wish that the sponsor game was more ethical and sustainable. Having UAE as a sponsor, after Khashoggi and their ruthless war gaming shouldn’t be allowed, in an ideal world. How many times have I been left gagging in the cloud of exhaust of a petrochemical burning toxin spewing noisy vehicle. How many ‘coal rollers’ were parasitizing the environment to prove some obscure point. It would seem to me that petrochemical sponsors are the exact opposite that a cycling team should be involved with. If chickens were conscious would they be backing Kentucky Fried Chicken?
But nothing I say will fix the sponsorship game, so nothing changes.
And maybe if there wasn’t so much money flooding into so many sports, the amount of money the participants are paid would go down to more realistic levels.
My comment was the way I saw the announcement at the time I read it. I guess Red Bull really is better than other sponsors out there. Ride on!!
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Aren’t high socks banned? Or is it low socks…