The UCI Budget Rule That Would Change Cycling Forever. (But Will It Work?)

The money that ASO keeps for itself, should be spread among the teams.

Wait, is that a real good journalism? How dare you?! Kudos, GCN =)

unexpected Scott Mansell

Did nobody notice Dan‘s posture sitting at the table during the interview? His training at the gym really pays off, and I‘m not joking! And of course this is another great video, thoughtful and well put together.

road racing is just a part of UCI, and this channel is focussed primarily on road racing, from hosts to the bikes promoted by the presenters. I am more interested in what happens with all the other competitive UCI categories – these are more accessible to the public – XC, CX, Downhill, etc. I enjoy this show and find it educational AND entertaining. however, I would never watch an entire road race, a minute long highlight is enough for me. Doping and Lance Armstrong defeated any trust or interest for me. I watch every CX race posted by the UCI, start to finish, men and women, and I would pay to be there in person. road racing? never. ever.

I feel like they need to bring the floor up rather than the ceiling down for team budgets, the UCI need to figure out how to make sponsorships more appealing and easier to maintain for the teams.
Also I feel like a salary cap would be really hard to implement effectively, lots of riders have individual sponsors/appearance fees/promotions etc outside of their base salary, if you don't make rules about that the budget cap is somewhat irrelevant someone like UAE who own colnago and pissei could just say we're paying Tadej 5 million less, but coincidentally colnago are now sponsoring him to the tune of 5 mil a year! MVDP and pidcock already have personal contracts directly with the bike brands. Alpecin could pay Mathieu himself directly for the commercials as an individual rather than as part of the team etc.
And if you do cap all income then what do you say the the domestique on 100k a year who wants to do some instagram promo over the off season to help top up his salary when the team has already hit the cap, would you stop the appearance fees for cyclocross? Would you tell pidcock 'no you can't get any sort of sponsors for mountain biking'
A cap would work if the teams were effectively funded centrally, but they're not and when the funding is from a patchwork of sources it's feasible for a more vertically integrated team to move money from the salary column and say 'we're just sponsoring the riders individually/paying appearance fees/ paying for a commercial etc'

Cycling is a team sport. There are some extraordinary talents winning races, but they NEED talented teams to be put in a position to do so. Does anyone truly think that Pogacar wins 24 races if he is on Arkea ??

Are we surprised Tadej is getting paid that much? UAE is about as corrupt as any other Muslim backed endeavor. Instead of budgets, let’s keep human rights violating countries and organizations out!! Problem solved

8:00 So, so, so agreed.

Before budget/salary caps, the entire sport needs a complete and from the ground overhaul on how teams "make money."
This 'hat in hand' beggars model that professional cycling exists in is ridiculous.

They need permanent franchises instead of just a license.
Giving fans teams to root for that are stable year to year, would be massive.
Look at the various football, American Football, basketball, hockey, etc.
Fans follow a team, they buy merch, etc.

But when the team 'looks' completely different year to year, even if the riders are the same, it's all but impossible to sell merch.
And ASO/RCS need brought to heel. I know they own just about every race, and as such the broadcasting rights, but holy smokes, the stranglehold they have on the sport sucks.

I know the battle is an extremely uphill one, as there's no stadiums nor ticket sales, but the long term health of the sport means we need to address it.

The Aplecin manager's comment was spot on – Can low budget teams be expected to spend up to the limit? For teams relying on sponsors for funding, presumably no, they cannot. If that happens, the collective budget for all World Tour teams would go down and like he said, the lower tier riders would make less money. I suppose once we move on from this era of only having a couple of teams who compete for the big prizes, it won't be as much of an issue. As it is now, the 2nd tier riders have a mentality of "if you can't beat them, join them!" At least they get paid handsomely to put their leaders on the podium.

UAE Have a large pharmaceutical bill

i think if time trial bikes were dropped from road racing it would go a long way helping even out the money buys speed aspect of cycling. If you compare the budgets for TT bikes including wind tunnel testing there is a massive disparity between teams it really is an example of "the more you spend the faster you go". Road bikes however are on the face of it not dramatically different and even though there is a pretty big gap between say A2R and UAE pre race bikes how many races do their road bikes do compared with the TT bikes ? Also i think the public at large identify more with a drop bar bike than the TT rigs we see today. also teams wouldn't have drag TT bikes around for a few min of racing don't get me wrong i love the tech but perhaps leave it to our TRI cousins.
I also think the classic drop bar bike looks cool with a rider in full TT mode not to mention TTT.
Also maybe we should consider the impact on the environment of making the frames transporting the bikes to events.