Saturday January 6, 2024 at 7:40 PM
Richard Plugge is not only team manager of Visma | Lease a Bike, but also one of the driving forces behind ONE Cycling. This new formula should make cycling more profitable. In conversation with CyclingFlits Plugge recently said that the project is currently on hold, but he already shared some of his ideas. Now he has in an interview with The time provided some more information.
“The purpose of ONE Cycling is to look ahead to where we want to be in ten years,” says Plugge. “In cycling, the battle outside the race continues between the teams and their management. We do not sufficiently realize that our opponents are not the other teams or organizers, but all other forms of entertainment. They are competing increasingly harder for the attention of TV viewers.”
“Our real competitors are the Champions League, golf, American football, basketball in the US, Formula 1 and combat sports. We notice the latter clearly here with a phenomenon like Jake Paul (a boxer who has a relationship with skater Jutta Leerdam, ed.). Screaming young fans approach him. Those youth do not rush towards our Jonas Vingegaard or other top riders. I want to change that.”
Recognizability and formats
To achieve that change, ‘recognizability and formats’ are crucial, says Plugge. “We need to have a clear calendar with a limited number of races in which the best riders compete against each other. Now there are more than 180 competition days in the World Tour. In all these races there is a constant inflow and outflow of riders, which makes it a lot more difficult to make them celebrities among the general public. Stars are crucial to be relevant as a major sport.”
Plugge wants to turn cycling into a kind of Formula 1, he confirms. “With a better-defined calendar you can solve the growing problem of organizing competitions safely. A unified circuit, which will then hopefully become a bigger brand, will help attract sponsors outside the teams. Like today Heineken in Formula 1 and the Champions League. Or Aramco in Formula 1. These organizations also sell merchandising under one flag, separate from the teams.”
“Equally important: we could earn much more through a bundling of media rights. (…) I see the big races, such as the Tour and the Giro, operating as hypermedia companies for three weeks with a stream of tweets and videos. And after the race it collapses again. Let us do this together, so that cycling becomes a 24-hour media factory. That would help us grow as a brand.”
ASO in ICU
In the interview with The time Plugge also discussed the role of the International Cycling Union (UCI) and the ASO, organizer of, among other things, the Tour de France. “I feel one sense of urgency, also at ASO. It is true that the Tour will lose some of its value in an initial phase – when it becomes part of a larger concept in a circuit. But in the long term, ASO will benefit, because cycling as a whole is growing. And the other competitions gain in value anyway, because they become more important as part of the unified circuit.”
According to Plugge, there are also advantages to ONE Cycling for the UCI. “Cycling will continue to need an umbrella organization to make the rules and play jury. But the UCI is not a commercial organization. The association itself would not be worse off if the World Cup became a unified circuit. Just as the automotive federation FIA has not benefited financially from the fact that Formula 1 was once outsourced to a commercial company, first via Bernie Ecclestone and now John Malone’s Liberty Media.”
2024-01-06 18:40:00
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