Posted on 07/26/2016 7:10:21 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
The divide between cycling’s haves and have-nots has led some to worry that this disparity will drain the excitement out of the Tour... Still, Froome acknowledged something significant the other day. He admitted that if he rode not for the well-funded Sky, which can afford to surround him with well-paid lieutenants, but for a smaller, lower-budgeted outfit, he probably would not be in the running for the yellow jersey. “If I was riding for a small team, it would be different,” Froome said.... Does pro cycling need a budget or a salary cap, such as the NFL, NBA or even Formula 1 have done? It’s definitely a topic of conversation.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
He laughed and explained the economics of Pro golf.
As long as you can make the cut, you earn enough to pay for the hotel.
You would still have a ‘Patron’, still need to speak French, still have cliques...
Might be fun to watch?
I have never understood why hitting a little ball can command so much money and a near cult like following.
I know a woman who spent years on the LPGA tour and wound up with around $2 million career earnings. Not much left after expenses, but she did make a very comfortable retirement from endorsements and promo tours in places like Japan.
My school chum said ‘fun while it lasts’, in Bermuda in the winter or...
He also noted that, when cut a modest position can be found inside ‘big golf’, to make ends meet until the next round.
There is a lot to be said for this theory. Of course a better funded team is going to hire better riders. But, personality stars like Peter Sagan will always shine on their own.
The idea of salary capping might make reasonable debate, but I suspect the UCI is run much the same as the IOC and it would take some influential people like Merckx, LeMond and maybe Phil Liggett to move the conversation to a public discourse.
There are two paths to making money in this world:
make somebody else money
be hard to replace
There aren’t that many people that can hit those balls that well, so there’s number 2, and those people who can are cornerstones in a billion dollar entertainment industry, so there’s number 1.
The biggest thing that might happen to trigger a financial cap is the fact that the local French Teams and Riders are not doing very well. Bernard Hinault has given up and is fully retiring this year back to his farm in Normandy. He was the last French winner back in 1985 (5th win) with a little controversy about teammate Greg LeMond being held back to ‘allow’ Hinault’s win.
This year, 2016, French riders won only a single stage (19) even though that rider ended up as #2 for the Yellow Jersey, Romain Bardet. This is with 5 France-based teams and 37 French riders (both being the most of any nation.)
So, my guess is that the ASO, the race organizers, being French themselves, might look at a financial cap just in the hopes that their home guys might have a better chance after 31 years. How that will work out with the UCI, as the international professional bike racing controllers, is likely beyond my pay grade!
My $0.02 worth!
No. Even people who work for themselves need to be good enough at the job to have people use them not somebody else, ie hard to replace. And a lot of folks who work for themselves their services make other people money, people on the PGA tour are self employed, and the tour makes a lot more money on their efforts than they do.
I’m still amazed at baseball players who can have a 100 MPH fastball come straight at them without bailing out, much less being able to actually hit the darned thing.
I go to a batting cage and to me a 60 MPH pitch is past me before I even see it.
Think about hockey centers who do the same thing to get tip in goals only on ice and usually somebody is hitting them.
The USA Pro Challenge was actually canceled this year, due to sponsorship issues. Kinda surprising, because it brought a lot of money into the state.
From a business sense - which the Tour has become - there is a very poor ROI on being a team sponsor. Racing has taken the role of “domestique” to the business.
This year, I saw many reports on the cost of team busses, bikes and even wheels. It is very grand! The level of staff to support the riders has ballooned too. All to gain a few seconds over the next best rider. Marginal Returns are not equalling Marginal Costs, IMHO.
This will sort itself out. Either a very different Tour evolves (ala NFL, for example) or it will financially eat itself from within.
Pro cyclists mostly earn peanuts compared to most pro athletes. Fifteen or twenty stars earn pretty good money (like a journeyman baseball player), but I think mostpros earn under $100K per year. They go home, open a bicycle shop or a cafe, and lead a normal life in a normal house, not a gated mansion.
There aren’t many people who can ride a bicycle for five hours at an average speed of 30 mph and climb 12,000 feet in that same span.
But, but, but, the hated Spandex!
Hmm, so I buy properties at foreclosure, repair them, and sell them. I may hire some vendors, but the vendors cannot hire or fire me. When I buy the property, that is a raw material, and in most cases, the bank is not making money off me ... they are at foreclosure for a reason. There may be a couple of charges for processing the transaction, but they are trivial for the most part. When flipping the property, I determine what I am going to do, where I will buy my materials, who I will use as contractors, if any, and negotiate the prices. When I sell the property, I may pay a real estate commission, but again, I can hire and fire my agent, chose the escrow company, etc. Nobody is profiting more off my deal than I am, and they only profit off of my deal if I allow them to. Nobody has the ability to “replace” me. Period. However, I can replace them. Once I buy the property, it is mine to do with as I see fit. I am not beholden to making money for anyone other than myself.
If you don’t do a good job repairing them you ain’t gonna sell them, so yes people can “replace” you by buying from somebody else. And remember who’s REALLY making the money when houses get bought: the BANK.
Somebody else ALWAYS profits from your labor. It’s the nature of life. Even if you’re the boss. Anthony Bourdain was talking about a conversation he had with Emeril asking why he kept growing the brand, at what point was it big enough, when had he made enough money. Emeril’s answer was “do you know how many people lose their jobs if I don’t keep this thing growing”. Since nobody exists in a vacuum it is not possible for you to be the only one profiting from your labors.
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