Pro Cycling and Money

My DH and I were talking about the whole doping thing in cycling (he's not a cyclist). And he brought up a question that I can't really answer and never really thought about. The top pro cyclist make good money right? Where does that money come from? How do the sponsors of the TdF make money? If you go to a pro ball game there are all the food stands, beer sales, team jersey vendors, not to mention the ticket prices, etc. How does pro cycling make money? There are no ticket sales to watch a pro cycling race. I've never really seen any vendors on the sides of the roads, etc. So this may be a dumb question but how is money made in pro cycling...not necessarily by the cyclist themselves but by the people who put on the TdF, Giro, etc.?

Advertising. Have you ever noticed how the stage winners zip their jersey up before crossing the line--the sponsors get upset if you can't read their name and logo as their riders cross the line.

Well...... a select few top pro riders make a lot of money. Most of them make fairly regular to meager salaries... (and even the top salaries are peanuts compared to most stars in other sports - even considering all of the shilling for their sponsors cyclists are expected to do!)
That said - yes the money in cycling is all based around advertising. Everthing has a sponsor - from the timing clocks to the sprint points. While there is no admission to watch a race many people do come and advertisers take full advantage of those waiting for the race to come through. We don't generally see any of it on TV, but before the racers ever come close there is a huge advertising caravan with floats and crazy cars shaped like products of all sorts and people throwing out samples to the crowds. Of course there's always merchandise sales as well - there are tons of T-shirts, caps, replica yellow jerseys,polka dot socks, coasters, beer glasses, water bottles....

I still don't see how that covers the costs of putting on the tours. I guess the race director gets everything donated by the sponsors (advertisors)??? Do the teams have to pay an entry fee to ride each race? I know that the individual team sponsors pay the riders (teams), hence the zipping of the jersey before crossing the line...but how do they pay all the officials, etc.?

The teams pay big bucks to ride in the tours! Imagine that for one rider to register for an average road race is about $30. That's a one day, 20-40 mile amateur bike race. Imagine what these teams are paying to have 7-9 riders in a 21 day tour! I'd imagine a couple grand per rider times 200 riders. That's LOTS o'moola! :)

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Originally Posted by li10up

I still don't see how that covers the costs of putting on the tours. I guess the race director gets everything donated by the sponsors (advertisors)??? Do the teams have to pay an entry fee to ride each race? I know that the individual team sponsors pay the riders (teams), hence the zipping of the jersey before crossing the line...but how do they pay all the officials, etc.?

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Many of the course marshalls are volunteers from local cycling club. Even the Amgen Tour of California used volunteers. You do it 'cause you like the sport. On locally sponsored club races, the club who sponsors the event will ask its members to help with supporting the race. If you are a new member of the club, sometimes it is MANDATORY!! You just don't get to race. You got to put your dues in. like check in for the racers, handing out the race number, enforcing rules... (safety related things to mundane thing like making sure that if the attached racer wears the "proper" kit (team clothing) and if the racer is un-attached to make sure its legal (no sleeveless jersey)...

Big companies sponsor teams cause they see it as good advertising: Team 7-up (gone), Deutch Telekom (now T-mobile), US Postal (now team Discovery and looking for a new sponsor) ... And organizers like Amgen and Coors (Coors Classic), DuPont (gone gone gone...I think)

Still its lot lot cheaper than buying a minor league teams in baseball or hockey... or getting your company name on a stadium.

In grand scheme of things with pro sports, pro cycling is dirt cheap. what does one major league base ball, basket ball, foot ball player make? gazillion dollars and top cyclist may get a million a year if that.

hope this helps with your DH.

And we mustn't forget TV!! The rights to telelvize races are big bucks - we don't think about it so much here, but for instance the Tour de France is viewed on TV worldwide by more people than the SuperBowl, and the rights to show the race aren't just purchased by one network, but many - one in the US, one in the UK, one in Spain, one in Italy etc. etc.

I was trying to tell him how big cycling is around the world and there must be more to it than I knew. I didn't realize the teams had to pay to race...I guess I kind of thought of it as an "invitational" not a pay to play ...you know what I mean. Thanks for the responses. It helped clear it up some...I had forgotten about the television rights...I'm just glad VS. televises cycling.