What Pro Cycling Can Learn from the NFL and EPL Soccer

I’ve been a cycling fan since I started racing bikes in high school and picking up VeloNews in bike shops back in the ’80s. I’ve always loved the colors, the kits, the huge European pelotons and the sponsors. I find all that fascinating. In fact, my interest in this stuff was probably an early warning indicator that I’d spend most of my professional career in marketing and advertising.

At the same time, I’ve always wondered why professional cycling teams have a hard time creating lifelong fans. How is it that the Dallas Cowboys, for example, or Manchester United, have decades of brand equity and community while pro cycling teams all basically start from scratch every few years?

There are many causes of this problem but let’s look at three big ones:

1. Team dependence on sponsorship revenue only. Without the chance to make money on ticket sales, like many spectator sports, or television licensing (Tour de France owner ASO keeps every dime of what they make on global broadcast deals) cycling teams are therefore entirely dependent on sponsors to cover their costs. The title sponsor has all the leverage in the relationship, which sets into motion a series of cascading problems. Firstly, since the teams must serve their title sponsor first, that sponsor’s business becomes the name of the team. Unfortunately, this is a shortsighted approach to growing a professional sports league or business. While EF Education First Pro Cycling may temporarily serve the needs of the brand (“We’re always mentioned in the media!”), it severely limits the growth potential of the sport. Generally, fans don’t get excited about supporting corporate interests directly. We all know this is part of the game, but there’s no identity to affiliate with, no tribe. Imagine if the Los Angeles Lakers were Team Verizon one year and Team Dodge the next. That’s what we have in cycling.
2. Lack of any geographic anchor. Pro cycling teams are amorphous, global enterprises that often avoid a connection to any specific region or place. Take the Trek-Segafredo team for example: The title sponsor is an American bicycle brand based in Wisconsin, and the team is registered with the UCI in the United States. The secondary sponsor, Segafredo, is an Italian coffee brand. The team’s base of operations is outside of Gent, Belgium, they’re managed by an Italian, and their roster includes 43 men and women from 11 countries. Who are we rooting for specifically? The title sponsor? Or do we cheer for some of the riders, most of whom change teams every few years? While there are some exceptions to this — the Jumbo-Visma team is mostly Dutch in identity, and the Rally Cycling team is mostly North American — generally teams are international and vague about their origin and home base. This is a huge miss and prevents fan bases from forming around a team’s home country or region. For instance, should I root for Brandon McNulty, an American who rides for an Italian team sponsored by the United Arab Emirates? Or should I follow Neilson Powless, a member of a formerly American-based team now owned by the title sponsor, Education First, a global business founded in Sweden and based in Switzerland?
3. Inconsistent brand identity. Given the issues above, it becomes impossible for a team to develop any kind of visual look that lasts from year to year or decade to decade. Below, I’ve compared the same cycling team (2020=Team Sunweb/2021=Team DSM) to the Dallas Cowboys NFL team and the Manchester United English Premier League team. Note that the football and soccer teams have maintained the same color scheme for over 35 years. You know these teams by their colors, even when their sponsors change from year to year. And you know them from the cities they’re from. With DSM, I don’t know who the sponsor is or what they do, and that’s after spending five minutes on their website. I don’t know where the team is based, or why I should root for them. Even if I had figured all of this out in their previous incarnation, Team Sunweb, I’ve lost the plot now that the colors, the name, the title sponsor and their team bike have all changed. How is a cycling team expected to keep fans through transformations like this?

The 2020 Team Sunweb

The same team in 2021: new name, sponsor & colors

The 1985 Dallas Cowboys

The Cowboys in 2020

Manchester United in 1985

And in 2020. Look familiar?

None of these problems are easily fixable, but there are some things that can be done to get started:

1. Revenue sharing: the teams need to engage in some collective bargaining to encourage ASO, by far the largest event owner in the sport, to share some of the media revenue. I hold out no hope that French teams will join in to any kind of protest and risk angering their overlord. But in theory it could be done. Even a small amount of revenue sharing would enable teams to begin to dial back their dependence on sponsors as their only source of funding.

2. Teams should be infused with some geographic identity. Even if most teams have riders and staff from all over the world, fans could now jump on board with a team representing their own country. Athletes on NBA and EPL teams are increasingly international, yet the teams maintain a connection to their home city. Why could this not be done in cycling as well? The nascent Legion of Los Angeles pro cycling team, founded by Justin Williams, is taking this approach. I think he’s onto something.

3. Teams need to create recognizable branding and colors that are visible and consistent, even when title sponsors change. The recently resurrected Euskatel team, based in Spain’s Basque country, has always used the color orange and some regional flavor to identify themselves. We need more of this.

The Euskatel team in their instantly recognizable orange kits

If the sport can use branding and marketing best practices to increase the size of the fanbase, then it’s a win for everyone, including the sponsors, governing bodies and event promoters. I hope we begin to move in the right direction.