How the Tour de France became a $100M business • Hacker News Board

Re: How the Tour de France became a $100M business

#61

Post by meetingthrower » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 4:50 PM UTC

jacurtis wrote: post #15

buro9 wrote: post #3

And yet the TV rights are a joke as it's really difficult to watch in a lot of countries and the rave would be worth more to France if the audience was expanded greatly.

That was true up until the last couple seasons (around 2020). As of today, it is finally easily available cheaply via streaming. - Peacock TV streaming service which is $5 a month (I got a $20 annual plan deal a few weeks before TdF) - GCN+ Streaming service which is $8 a month (or $50 a year) The GCN stream is available globally. I think it is also available on France24 and Sky Sports' streaming app. If this feels l…

We've been watching TDF 20-30 min highlights on Peacock.

It's great to get them but unfortunately they haven't bothered to edit them in a dramatic way. It is literally just splicing together the 5 hour feed, so it makes for some choppy viewing. You don't really get the "gist" of the stage unless you pay really close attention.

Re: How the Tour de France became a $100M business

#62

Post by spongebobstoes » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 4:58 PM UTC

light_hue_1 wrote: post #26

heywhatupboys wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

And the women who ride represent the top 0.00001% of Earth's best humans in the best shape too! And their accomplishments outside any effort that the vast amount of people will ever do in a day of their lives. Of course women can complete such races! We know this because they do it all the time. Not only that, they can even win! All we need to do is let them. Take the RAAM (Race Across America, a gruelling almost 300…

I agree that women should be allowed to compete, and it is a travesty that they are denied the attempt.

Your points about women winning TRC and RAAM are interesting (and extremely impressive!), but they do not translate to the type of contest that the Tour de France is. The Tour has fixed stages each day, whereas RAAM or TRC appear to be an overall completion time. That means that one could ride for longer each day, or have better navigation, or better preparation, and win.

Combined with how these are less popular races, and the winner Leah was 52 at the time of winning (surely that is not the ideal age for such an achievement), and I am unconvinced that in a more rigorous and popular setting like the Tour that women cyclists could be directly competitive with men.

Additionally, I briefly researched ironman race times and marathon times -- two endurance sports that came to mind. In neither case were the best women's times particularly competitive with men (at least 10% slower). Those aren't as long races as the Tour, but they do provide data points that align with all other physically demanding sports I know of: at the very top tier, women (sadly) cannot physically compete with men.

In smaller sports, races or venues, the very top tier athletes may not be present, and in those cases women can often compete with men. But at larger scales there is sadly less variance, in my experience.

Re: How the Tour de France became a $100M business

#63

Post by jacv » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 4:59 PM UTC

meetingthrower wrote: post #61

jacurtis wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was true up until the last couple seasons (around 2020). As of today, it is finally easily available cheaply via streaming. - Peacock TV streaming service which is $5 a month (I got a $20 annual plan deal a few weeks before TdF) - GCN+ Streaming service which is $8 a month (or $50 a year) The GCN stream is available globally. I think it is also available on France24 and Sky Sports' streaming app. If this feels l…

We've been watching TDF 20-30 min highlights on Peacock. It's great to get them but unfortunately they haven't bothered to edit them in a dramatic way. It is literally just splicing together the 5 hour feed, so it makes for some choppy viewing. You don't really get the "gist" of the stage unless you pay really close attention.

If you haven't already, take a look at the official Tour's highlights (only 8-10min though) - I find the broadcast and editing better than NBC's. They're usually decently quick to come out too post-stage.

Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSpycUnuU0IVF7gGIhGojhg

Yesterday's (Stage 7; 8 will probably drop in an hour or so): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMpFcgyXl8s&list=PLg3WzTG3Lf...

Re: How the Tour de France became a $100M business

#64

Post by spongebobstoes » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 5:03 PM UTC

tokai wrote: post #37

loeg wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women can definitely complete the same distances/courses the men do, but they would probably not be competitive in a mixed field TdF. They just don't have the W/kg for a climbing stage and they don't have the raw W/CdA for a sprint finish podium. (The ultra/bikepacking races you mention are a completely different format to the TdF.) I support your idea of not explicitly forbidding mixed fields, but I suspect it won't…

Its not much but world championship mixed relay TT is a thing. So it has already happened.

Do you mean that the format requires a mix (e.g. mixed doubles tennis) or that a mix was not forbidden, and occurred with positive results?

Re: How the Tour de France became a $100M business

#65

Post by awad » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 5:16 PM UTC

Photogrammaton wrote: post #43

I wonder whether Netflix will boost American interest in the Tour de France. Something of the kind happened with Formula 1. Interest in it here (I’m in NYC) was generally so-so, whether or not one of the races occurred here. But the 2019 launch of the Netflix documentary series Formula 1: Drive to Survive roughly coincided with the expansion of American F1 races, of which I think there are three this season, and ther…

I'm not so sure. To paint with a broad brush, Americans love fast cars and don't care too much for cycling. There's always been a large motorsport culture in the US.

DTS was a big part of the F1 rise in the states, but it is but one part of the story. Things really started to change when Liberty Media acquired F1 and brought in new management. F1 needed to make the sport more accessible by opening up on social media, giving away broadcast rights to ESPN, adding more race weekends both in the States and abroad, and of course (re)introducing the sport to many via Netflix. Which is all to say that there was a full on effort and strategy by the sport to change with the times.

Re: How the Tour de France became a $100M business

#66

Post by arp242 » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 5:21 PM UTC

jillesvangurp wrote: post #49

speed_spread wrote: post #7

My first thought was, wait, only $100M? If this was an American event it would be pumped up to a $2B affair with a theme song, videogame and plastic figurines.

Probably corrected for inflation, it's worth less now than it was when the likes of Greg Lemond, Jan Ullrich, Lance Armstrong, etc. still dominated the sport. Of course doping scandals eroded the value a bit in recent years. That kind of stuff depressed ratings quite a bit in recent decades. But that happened long after that became a public secret in the early eighties. My grand parents when they were still alive abs…

> It was the closest thing to super human performance you could watch outside of the cinemas.

That's kind of the problem, right? The tour was (is?) set up in such a way that you practically need to be "super human" – even by professional athlete standards – to even finish it. This is different from, say, the 100M dash or even a marathon which anyone can finish with a bit of training, and you only need to be "super human" to set world records.

Re: How the Tour de France became a $100M business

#67

Post by parthdesai » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 5:30 PM UTC

arp242 wrote: post #66

jillesvangurp wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably corrected for inflation, it's worth less now than it was when the likes of Greg Lemond, Jan Ullrich, Lance Armstrong, etc. still dominated the sport. Of course doping scandals eroded the value a bit in recent years. That kind of stuff depressed ratings quite a bit in recent decades. But that happened long after that became a public secret in the early eighties. My grand parents when they were still alive abs…

> It was the closest thing to super human performance you could watch outside of the cinemas. That's kind of the problem, right? The tour was (is?) set up in such a way that you practically need to be "super human" – even by professional athlete standards – to even finish it. This is different from, say, the 100M dash or even a marathon which anyone can finish with a bit of training, and you only need to be "super hu…

How is that a problem? It’s the hardest sporting event in the world bar none for a reason. You don’t need to be in tour to do a 200km bike ride. As far as I know, you need to qualify for Boston and NYC marathon, olympics and all. This is similar

Re: How the Tour de France became a $100M business

#68

Post by ldehaan » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 5:31 PM UTC

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Re: How the Tour de France became a $100M business

#69

Post by Shaanie » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 5:35 PM UTC

jacurtis wrote: post #30

light_hue_1 wrote: post #8

It's also important to highlight that the Tour de France is one of the most sexist sporting events still around. Cycling in general. The cycling establishment refuses to allow equality for women. The women's Tour didn't even exist before 2022. The current women's tour is a pale shadow of the men's. The women are not allowed to ride the same tour, they can only do 8 stages and almost none of the 8 correspond to the me…

Cycling is very sexist. But to play devils advocate: There has been a women's Tour de France for a while. It existed between 1984 and 2009. It struggled financially that whole time and was never profitable to the UCI. They canceled it in 2009 and brought it back in 2014 through 2021 as a single day event in Paris on the same days as the men's final day. The UCI was been exploring bringing back a multi-stage women's e…

Isn't it a bit strange to say "they should invest in it because over time it'll become profitable" if they previously had it for 25 years without it ever becoming profitable?

Re: How the Tour de France became a $100M business

#70

Post by paganel » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 5:38 PM UTC

awad wrote: post #65

Photogrammaton wrote: post #43

I wonder whether Netflix will boost American interest in the Tour de France. Something of the kind happened with Formula 1. Interest in it here (I’m in NYC) was generally so-so, whether or not one of the races occurred here. But the 2019 launch of the Netflix documentary series Formula 1: Drive to Survive roughly coincided with the expansion of American F1 races, of which I think there are three this season, and ther…

I'm not so sure. To paint with a broad brush, Americans love fast cars and don't care too much for cycling. There's always been a large motorsport culture in the US. DTS was a big part of the F1 rise in the states, but it is but one part of the story. Things really started to change when Liberty Media acquired F1 and brought in new management. F1 needed to make the sport more accessible by opening up on social media,…

I’m optimistic about the big tours’ “image” presence in the US because I think that the future of pro cycling is represented by Anglo countries, plus a few Colombians and some European sporting “freaks” like Pogacar. Ah, and some Benelux guys.

Italy is as good as dead when it comes to pro-Cycling, the same goes for Spain, and France... France is always on the edge of the precipice and of “we’ll never ever going to win La Grande Boucle again! Long live Hinault and Virenque!”, so I’m not so sure about them.

Long story short, the big cycling money is in the Anglo countries, I’m sure California-based clients alone purchase more professional bikes in a year compared to the whole of Europe. And that’s good for Californians.