what sponserhip did they give track cycling?
Cycling thread
- Thread starter Bruce Wayne
- Start date
Frang
Player Valuation: £70m
Zero. They moved the track team to a pro team along with sky.
Wouldn't surprise me at all to hear that sky were involved with Brailsford at British cycling tho as the media coverage of their success was immense
the timelines crossed over before brailsford followed the money to sky, but to suggest sky should take any credit at all for the success of british track cycling is untrue, which was the original point
Frang
Player Valuation: £70m
They could well have been sponsoring them behind the scenes.
Where did the Brailsford - sky/murdoch link come from in the first instance I wonder??
its time to shut up again frank
Frang
Player Valuation: £70m
Who knows??
Where was the sky crossover with Brailsford??
Is he in stringently linked to them in the past??
That's a fair comment. With the GTs and classics, it's a bit apples and pears as classics have always been that much harder to control and therefore a lot more exciting as a result. I mean the 2016 Paris Roubaix is a good example. I think that's probably the most exciting classic I can remember for a very long time, and I think Sky had 4 guys in the lead group with like 50km to go, which you'd normally think would strangle the race, but all bar Stannard ended up crashing and it was great stuff. Quickstep have often been in a similar boat, yet because of the nature of the races it's been less of a factor, even though 'a' Quickstep rider is nearly always in the mix because of their weight of numbers.
GTs are different as there does tend to be a best way to race them. This is especially so in the Tour as it's probably the dullest parcours of the three, and it's perhaps no surprise that the Giro nearly always provides better racing than the Tour, and I'd argue the Vuelta has recently too. Whilst Sky have got a winning formula, the other teams have flattered to deceive. Movistar came to the Tour with their big three, yet all three underwhelmed. BMC spent massively on riders but spent badly. Astana have at times had very strong lineups but usually failed to utilize them properly. The strategy is largely the same though. People like Poels and Henao are never going to win a GT themselves, but are good enough to get in the top 10, so if a top team can pay them well enough to be a domestique then it's a good strategy. Movistar have done exactly the same, and could quite easily have added Carapaz or someone like that to Soler and had 5 world class climbers in their Tour roster. They have that strength with a relatively small budget though because they focus purely on GC and have hardly any classics or sprint riders. Where Sky perhaps have an edge is that they have the budget to also have guys like Kwia and Rowe who are also world class classics riders.
As with most sports though, those with the biggest budgets usually win. Such is life. Has there been any research into why the viewing numbers are down across Europe? Is this fall consistent across all events, or mainly for GTs versus the classics?
Chris O'Connor
Player Valuation: £35m
Sky pulling out of cycling ends one of sport's most successful partnerships, their transformation of British road cycling is quite remarkable and beyond even their wildest dreams at the outset.
One intriguing question is to what extent did all the recent controversies involving Sky and British Cycling contribute to this decision?
Remember, while Froome was ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing in the salbutamol affair after the initial results were maliciously and vindictively leaked to the worldwide media, that story generated another six months of damaging headlines, and came hot on the heels of the TUE saga, the inquests at British Cycling and the parliamentary report which ultimately found Sky guilty of crossing ethical lines in 2012 etc.
Not withstanding the fact that the controversy has perhaps irrevocably damaged the brand and tarnished their legacy, their achievements are still of absolutely fairytale proportions. Their critics may well compare them to Manchester City with their financial muscle and bought in stars, stating it's all skewed the landscape and altered the competition etc etc, but these goals were never a given however plentiful the finance, to even think it possible to attain such results was always stretching credibility and likely reality.
There are qualifications and Brailsford did use all possible ways to gain advantage even if not technically breaking rules, plenty of questions remain as he sought to gain every advantage at the margins.
The takeover of Sky by Comcast, after Brailsford's biggest supporter James Murdoch lost a power struggle, was always likely to have consequences with the new owners perhaps not so willing to continue handing over as much as £30 million a year.
It feels safe to conclude that the Sky takeover was more than coincidental, even if it was ultimately their chief executive Jeremy Darroch's decision. The shifting landscape at Sky would surely have been a contributing factor.
Dave Brailsford must now go out and sell his vision to prospective partners. The pitch should be easy. Team Sky have won four of the past five grand tours and six of the past seven editions of the Tour de France and have never been stronger on paper. Brailsford said he would want any new partner to continue operating at that level.
One intriguing question is to what extent did all the recent controversies involving Sky and British Cycling contribute to this decision?
Remember, while Froome was ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing in the salbutamol affair after the initial results were maliciously and vindictively leaked to the worldwide media, that story generated another six months of damaging headlines, and came hot on the heels of the TUE saga, the inquests at British Cycling and the parliamentary report which ultimately found Sky guilty of crossing ethical lines in 2012 etc.
Not withstanding the fact that the controversy has perhaps irrevocably damaged the brand and tarnished their legacy, their achievements are still of absolutely fairytale proportions. Their critics may well compare them to Manchester City with their financial muscle and bought in stars, stating it's all skewed the landscape and altered the competition etc etc, but these goals were never a given however plentiful the finance, to even think it possible to attain such results was always stretching credibility and likely reality.
There are qualifications and Brailsford did use all possible ways to gain advantage even if not technically breaking rules, plenty of questions remain as he sought to gain every advantage at the margins.
The takeover of Sky by Comcast, after Brailsford's biggest supporter James Murdoch lost a power struggle, was always likely to have consequences with the new owners perhaps not so willing to continue handing over as much as £30 million a year.
It feels safe to conclude that the Sky takeover was more than coincidental, even if it was ultimately their chief executive Jeremy Darroch's decision. The shifting landscape at Sky would surely have been a contributing factor.
Dave Brailsford must now go out and sell his vision to prospective partners. The pitch should be easy. Team Sky have won four of the past five grand tours and six of the past seven editions of the Tour de France and have never been stronger on paper. Brailsford said he would want any new partner to continue operating at that level.
even handed article from fordyce on team sky
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/46556327
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/46556327
Armel
Player Valuation: £15m
The issue is, other teams are not able to pay them even if they wanted to (especially Poels; Sunweb wanted him since they think he can end up very close to a podium- prefers being a glorfied Sky Domestic since they had heaps of money). Sky was/is paying salaries that aren't in line with the market. So with them leaving salaries can normalize; and maybe there will be a lower treshhold to invest in the sport. [short version of a paying article that I was able to read: https://www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/dmf20181213_04032077] Also small twitter thread about it by economist who wrote it.
Yes there has been loads of research, mainly by the two guys I mentioned above; but I can't access all (without paying or having a university login; honestly I think it's annoying, why upload documents on sites like research-gate, emeraldinsight when there's only "a maximum free viewers limit"... It's much easier to obtain free research for other topics.). It's mainly GT's that are suffering (from what I'm able to grasp from the short abstracts), the most research obviously went into the TdF since it's the biggest of it all, but it's in a not so good state. Lots of reasons, really. One is that the traditional viewing audience is ageing. 2) A large part of the variation in TV viewership is also determined by how the race route is designed by the race organizer, independent of actual race developments 3) Personalities (but that's hardly a surprise; like that with everything) ...
And again we shouldn't forget that Cycling is still a small sport, globally (only 12 countries with a genuine interest):
The Classics keep doing good, and are improving in some markets. There's also this trend that women's cycling is really on the up.
Figures for U.K for this TdF's (as said Eurosport refuses to release their figures for the U.K and they don't make a big difference anyway max 200 000 K):
Chris O'Connor
Player Valuation: £35m
McLaren are entering into a joint-venture partnership with Bahrain-Merida, the team of 2014 Tour de France winner Vincenzo Nibali.
The partnership, which is being described as “open-ended”, will be with McLaren’s Applied Technologies and Marketing and Commercial divisions – which accounts for almost 700 staff – making Bahrain-Merida at a stroke one of the best funded, and certainly one of the best resourced, teams in the sport.
McLaren’s racing programme costs upwards of £200 million a year and while McLaren will be putting only a fraction of that amount into this project in terms of hard cash – the team would not discuss budgets beyond saying “there is no free ride” and their “commitment would match the team’s ambition to be the best” – even the use of its state-of-the-art facilities in Woking, including its windtunnel, plus access to Applied Technologies’ intellectual property, gives Bahrain-Merida the sort of backing of which other teams can only dream.
So while one financial monster is in danger of dying another is just possibly rising to become equally as unpopular as in time it bags all the GC prizes and monopolizes talent. Still it will give all the professional moaners and protesters a replacement target to scrutinise and vilify to their hearts content. Another dark enemy of the envious is just awakening.
As has been speculated in a previous post perhaps this new venture could include a takeover of sky and an amalgamation into an absolutely monster megateam, who knows?
The partnership, which is being described as “open-ended”, will be with McLaren’s Applied Technologies and Marketing and Commercial divisions – which accounts for almost 700 staff – making Bahrain-Merida at a stroke one of the best funded, and certainly one of the best resourced, teams in the sport.
McLaren’s racing programme costs upwards of £200 million a year and while McLaren will be putting only a fraction of that amount into this project in terms of hard cash – the team would not discuss budgets beyond saying “there is no free ride” and their “commitment would match the team’s ambition to be the best” – even the use of its state-of-the-art facilities in Woking, including its windtunnel, plus access to Applied Technologies’ intellectual property, gives Bahrain-Merida the sort of backing of which other teams can only dream.
So while one financial monster is in danger of dying another is just possibly rising to become equally as unpopular as in time it bags all the GC prizes and monopolizes talent. Still it will give all the professional moaners and protesters a replacement target to scrutinise and vilify to their hearts content. Another dark enemy of the envious is just awakening.
As has been speculated in a previous post perhaps this new venture could include a takeover of sky and an amalgamation into an absolutely monster megateam, who knows?
Chris O'Connor
Player Valuation: £35m
Other than Everton and football, Cricket, Rugby Union and Golf were always the sports i most took an active interest in, having played rugby and cricket at school and golf too afterwards, but suddenly and largely thanks to Sky i properly discovered cycling and the interest grew.
Sky did almost unreal things for cycling in Britain. No Brit had won a GT until 2012. We had the odd stage win - Malcolm Elliott, David Millar, Robert Miller, Tom Simpson. A couple of monuments / WC's (Tom Simpson, maybe Barry Hoban ) and a few TT's / Hour records (Boardman, Obree). Boardman and Cav probably the only real household names away from the track.
Suddenly we won everything. Team Sky jerseys and branded bikes everywhere. People at work actually taking an interest in bike racing. Everyone had a bike. A strange minority sport in the UK became mainstream, and it was brilliant.
I love the way that Sky got everyone into cycling. I love the way that talented riders in the UK (and we've always had talent, just never the support to let it develop - read about Robert Millers experiences in the pro ranks if you have any doubts) got a chance to shine.
I have to confess that the style of riding never really stirred the soul. The Borg strung out on the front of the Peloton - echoes of The Disco Days / Posties. Superdomestiques (although in reality thats always happened - ref La Vie Clare, just not quite with the same brutal efficiency). Power meters and riding by the numbers. Cycling as science not art. Effective but little panache. But after all it is professional sport. Times have changed from the days of Coppi disappearing up the road and never being seen again, or Merckx attacking just because he could, even though he was winning the tour by 10 minutes already. These days, if you want to win you pretty much have to be like Sky. They took the template started by LeMond, carried on by Armstrong and took it to the next level (professionalism, not the other thing). They pushed things a bit too close to / over the edge sometimes, but in reality every other team pretty much does the same, or would do if they had the chance. They're not whiter than white, but they're not Festina either.
They've set up a good business model - riders have long contracts. Its a proper corporate entity run like a business. Suspect the team will largely stay together as long as someone steps in soon. If they have 3 or 5 year contracts in place then I suspect that Sky will have underwritten them so probably no real incentive for anyone to rush to jump ship.
Just as Reynolds became Banesto, Caisse d'Epargne and then Movistar, maybe Sky will become Barclays, Tesla, Sanofi, whatever.
Has been a great era for British cycling, and we owe Sky pretty much 100% for that. Hopefully the structures that success has allowed to be put in place and the renewed interest in cycling will mean that Britain remains a force in world cycling, although I doubt we'll ever see the like of the last 7 years again.
Sky did almost unreal things for cycling in Britain. No Brit had won a GT until 2012. We had the odd stage win - Malcolm Elliott, David Millar, Robert Miller, Tom Simpson. A couple of monuments / WC's (Tom Simpson, maybe Barry Hoban ) and a few TT's / Hour records (Boardman, Obree). Boardman and Cav probably the only real household names away from the track.
Suddenly we won everything. Team Sky jerseys and branded bikes everywhere. People at work actually taking an interest in bike racing. Everyone had a bike. A strange minority sport in the UK became mainstream, and it was brilliant.
I love the way that Sky got everyone into cycling. I love the way that talented riders in the UK (and we've always had talent, just never the support to let it develop - read about Robert Millers experiences in the pro ranks if you have any doubts) got a chance to shine.
I have to confess that the style of riding never really stirred the soul. The Borg strung out on the front of the Peloton - echoes of The Disco Days / Posties. Superdomestiques (although in reality thats always happened - ref La Vie Clare, just not quite with the same brutal efficiency). Power meters and riding by the numbers. Cycling as science not art. Effective but little panache. But after all it is professional sport. Times have changed from the days of Coppi disappearing up the road and never being seen again, or Merckx attacking just because he could, even though he was winning the tour by 10 minutes already. These days, if you want to win you pretty much have to be like Sky. They took the template started by LeMond, carried on by Armstrong and took it to the next level (professionalism, not the other thing). They pushed things a bit too close to / over the edge sometimes, but in reality every other team pretty much does the same, or would do if they had the chance. They're not whiter than white, but they're not Festina either.
They've set up a good business model - riders have long contracts. Its a proper corporate entity run like a business. Suspect the team will largely stay together as long as someone steps in soon. If they have 3 or 5 year contracts in place then I suspect that Sky will have underwritten them so probably no real incentive for anyone to rush to jump ship.
Just as Reynolds became Banesto, Caisse d'Epargne and then Movistar, maybe Sky will become Barclays, Tesla, Sanofi, whatever.
Has been a great era for British cycling, and we owe Sky pretty much 100% for that. Hopefully the structures that success has allowed to be put in place and the renewed interest in cycling will mean that Britain remains a force in world cycling, although I doubt we'll ever see the like of the last 7 years again.
Nibali and Dr Pozzo mixing it with the dentists on Box Hill.
Funny you mention La Vie Clare. It's perhaps easy to forget than in 1985 they were 1st, 2nd, 10th and 13th on GC, which they amazingly beat in 1986 when they were 1st, 2nd, 4th, 7th, 12th (and 23rd). 5 riders in the top 12 is a level of domination Sky have come nowhere close to. They also won the mountains, young riders and combination jersey, and were 3rd in the points classification, whilst winning the team prize by 1h 50minutes!
Welcome
Join Grand Old Team to get involved in the Everton discussion. Signing up is quick, easy, and completely free.
Shop
