Free Market Bike Racing

Bruce E Hildenbrand — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 08:10:26 GMT

I recently wrote about the split between the UCI and the grand tour organizers
enabling the bosses of the Tour de France, Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a Espana
free to invite any team they wanted to their races. Well, the Giro d'Italia
announced its invited teams and judging by the prominent names left off the
list, the free market in cycling has arrived.

To be sure, before the inception of the UCI's Pro Tour, there was a free market
in professional cycling, but things were so bad during the Pro Tour, it seems
like a re-birth of the free market. By free market, I mean the ability of the
individual races to determine which teams get to ride their events. If the Tour
de France want to invite only amateur teams from the state of Rhode Island it is
now their choice to do so. However, if the perceived quality of the race
suffers and fans go elsewhere then the Tour bosses only have themselves to
blame.

That may not seem so far-fetched. Back in the early 80's, in some people's eyes
the Tour de France was getting boring. So, in an attempt to add some excitement
to the race, the organizers extended invitations to several amateur teams
including those from the US, Russia and Colombia. Only the Colombians came, but
it ushered in the era of the Colombian climber and the likes of Lucho Herrera
and Fabio Parra won stages and stood on the podium at the Tour.

That's how a free market works. You develop a product. You market it. If people
like it. They buy it. That may seem to be a pretty simple formula, but it
isn't. Yes, the race organizers can be totally arbitrary in which teams they
include, but for credibility sake, they need to be objective with the criteria
they will use for determining who will ride. In this year's Giro, the
organizers excluded several teams including Astana and the former T-Mobile
Team, now called Team High Road Sports, because of concerns over doping.

Hey, that is their prerogative, but what about Michael Rasmussen's Rabobank
team and Team LPR which included Danillo DiLuca who is serving a three-month
suspension for a non-analytical doping offense? That just doesn't make sense
to me. Oh well, hopefully, saner heads will prevail at the organization
which runs the Tour de France and there will be no seemingly arbitrary decisions
about who will toe the starting line in July.

Bruce

Pro Tour vs Grand Tour Organizers: a New Beginning

Bruce E Hildenbrand — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 06:35:28 GMT

In 2005, the UCI, the governing body of cycling, created the Pro Tour in an
attempt to form a season-long competition involving the premier European pro
races. Unfortunately, the organizers of the premier European races such as
the Tour de France, Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a Espana, known as the grand tour
organizers, were skeptical of the real reasons behind the UCI forming the
Pro Tour.

Over the past three years of its existence the Pro Tour has been a rocky road.
At the end of 2007, the UCI and the grand tour organizers agreed to remove the
grand tours and the other races put on by the grand tour organizers such as
Paris-Roubaix, Liege-Bastogne-Liege and Milan San Remo from the Pro Tour. So,
instead of the original 30 races, the 2008 edition of the Pro Tour will have 16
races. Is this divorce and new version of the Pro Tour a good thing for
professional cycling? I think it is and for a lot of good reasons.

First off, the UCI needs to prove that it can manage and promote a premier
race series on its own. Trying to latch onto races like the Tour de France,
Giro d'Italia and Paris-Roubaix, which are already wildly popular, is like
coming in to close a game with two outs, two strikes in the ninth inning with a
ten run lead. It doesn't prove the UCI's capabilities to deliver what they
promised with the Pro Tour, notably to grow cycling by increasing it's
popularity and sponsorship.

Secondly, the Pro Tour was an huge burden to the already established events
because its 20 team format severely limited the wild card invitations a race
organizer could offer non-Pro Tour teams. This caused a real have and have-not
situation. If you weren't a Pro Tour team, your squad was unlikely to get the
opportunity to prove yourself on the world's stage. A few teams, like
Barloworld at last year's Tour, got the chance and they stepped up their game
several notches and were one of the real bright moments in France last July.

This is great news for the two US teams, Slipstream-Chipotle and BMC Racing,
who are trying to gain a ticket into Europe's big races. Slipstream just
received an invite to the Giro. Would that have happened under the Pro Tour
system last year? BMC and Slipstream are also looking for a slot in the Queen
of the Classics, Paris-Roubaix. With 2004 winner, Maggy Backstedt on his
roster, Jonathan Vaughter's Slipstream squad should get an invite. It would
be great to see the BMC boys alongside them at the start as well.

And for those of you used to seeing a US-based team at the Tour, the removal
of the Pro Tour restrictions means that Slipstream could be lining up at the
start come this July.

Don't get me wrong. I am not a Pro Tour hater. One of the things I really
liked about the Pro Tour is that if a team held a multi-year Pro Tour license,
it was guaranteed entry into the biggest races. With such a guarantee, a team
could approach a potential sponsor in, say 2007, with the promise that they
would be at the Tour in 2008. Unfortunately, there were just too many Pro Tour
teams and they basically sucked up all the spots at those same big races.
Again, this was the case of the haves versus the have-nots.

It's extremely early in the season, the first Pro Tour race, the Tour Down
Under in Australia has just started, but I have a good feeling that this new
arrangement is going to force both the UCI and the grand tour organizers
to bring their A games which will ultimately be the best for professional
cycling. What do you all think?

Bruce

Active Expert: Bruce Hildenbrand

Free Market Bike Racing

Pro Tour vs Grand Tour Organizers: a New Beginning