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

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

#41

Post by bbarn » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 4:36 PM UTC

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…

I think you'll find in reality most people in the sport are strong advocates of women's racing, including the UCI - who you surely know does not put on the tour de france. It's up to ASO to design the tour format(who admittedly has the UCI basically under their control). Also, while you're correct about women endurance in general, the tour de france is not really an endurance race. It's 21 different races, some of them endurance, some of them all out sprints, some of them all out time trials. As someone who lives with a category 1 woman racer, and has been involved in the sport for 16 years, women do not recover as quickly as men do. Someone will still win the race of course, and it will still be fun to watch, but the repeated efforts do effect women differently than men.

In my experience, very few of the women racing actually want longer distances. When I was involved with putting on races, one or two loud voices would advocate for it, but come the day of the event, races that were equal length in the pro/cat 1 fields would have dismal attendance if they were the same length as the pro/cat 1 men's fields. Of those that did show up, the abandon rate was much higher than normal for those same local fields at other races. We even went as far as surveying all the teams and racers before one stage race, and overwhelmingly the women did not want the men's length (for road races) and times (for criteriums). Admittedly, at the pro-tour level this might be different, but to get to the pro tour level, racers must start in amateur and local pro levels.

We mandated equal pay outs at the state level, and some races dropped off the calendar because their budgets couldn't support it (or lowered men's payouts to compensate). Those that didn't saw no increase in attendance in women's fields after the increase either. That wasn't really a surprise, as most people are motivated more by the racing itself than some payout until you get to pro-tour levels. Men and women both effectively pay for the privilege to race in all but the most elite fields. More than being sexist, cycling is incredibly classist. The equipment is obscenely expensive, and the time it takes to train and get better is out of reach for most people with "normal" jobs. The funnel of junior racers coming in decreases every year, and the only fields we see growth in are masters categories (who can actually afford to race).

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

#42

Post by loeg » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 4:36 PM UTC

heywhatupboys wrote: post #33

cyrillite wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women can complete a Tour de France. A man will likely be the best athlete in every conceivable category. But, I can’t think of a single sport neither sex could meaningfully compete in if normalised against their own sex.

> Women can complete a Tour de France. absolutely not. Not a single woman in the world can keep pace with the peloton.

DFL is different from DNF. They could complete the course, no question.

I think they could might be able to hang with the men's peloton on some stages, too -- it's an enormous drafting benefit. They wouldn't win climbing stages, wouldn't make breakaways, and wouldn't win sprint finishes.

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

#43

Post by Photogrammaton » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 4:36 PM UTC

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 there are now American F1 fangirls. Re the TdF, America hasn’t paid much attention in the past except when a major contender was an American, as with Greg LeMond, Lance Armstrong, and a few others. Now, however, Netflix is running a documentary series about this race, called Tour de France: Unchained. That may do the trick. On the other hand, a TdF race will never occur here, so it remains to be seen whether interest will rise regardless of that.

Fangirls ref: https://airmail.news/issues/2023-5-27/girls-just-want-to-f1 [subscriber only]

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

#44

Post by petre » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 4:38 PM UTC

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…

Women are cycling just fine in less visible non-UCI endurance events like the Tour Divide and in cyclocross and XCO events. See Lael Wilcox who established a FKT in 2021 on the Tour Divide. I'm also happy to see more African athteles in TdF and sad to see team Qhubeca go (I've got one of their caps), but such is life. The womens' TdF will probably become more diversified as well if there are sponsors. It's a start.

TdF is too commercial but it's still nice, even with the doping scandals in the not so distant past. Check out last year's womens' Paris Roubaix documentary on YT. I think Specialized paid for it, my memory is a bit foggy.

Also encourage the women around you to pick up cycling, even for the sake of keeping in shape. It's quite rewarding and also helps a lot mentally. While cycling through the forest, I met a woman walking her dog and asked for directions. She was quite happy to chat and she also told me she stopped riding the bike after an accident she had. I encouraged her to try again and told her I had several accidents myself, but there is still much to gain from cycling after getting over trauma.

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

#45

Post by tokai » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 4:41 PM UTC

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…

It was my understanding that the riders of the women peleton does not want longer stages.[0] With the depth of the quite young pro womens peleton, longer and harder races limits the field of potential winners to a few of the very-top riders. Maybe it will change as the rider pipeline with junior cycling catches up to the recent expansion of womens pro cycling, but right now the shorter stages does make for more entertaining racing.

[0] https://www.cyclingweekly.com/racing/more-exciting-when-its-...

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

#46

Post by loeg » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 4:41 PM UTC

light_hue_1 wrote: post #36

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…

I don't know. We won't know until it happens! But we aren't even at the not forbidding mixed fields stage in cycling. We're at the "women aren't allowed to ride races of the same length as men" stage even in their own competitions.

> We're at the "women aren't allowed to ride races of the same length as men" stage even in their own competitions.

I don't think women actually want this! Again, no objection to allowing it, but I don't think this actually benefits women in sport.

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

#47

Post by bbarn » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 4:42 PM UTC

light_hue_1 wrote: post #27

pfannkuchen wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are women actually disallowed from competing in the men’s version?

Yes. According to UCI rules women are not allowed to compete in the men's race. And women are not allowed to organize a race with the same length as the men. Even just for themselves. Even though women compete in races like RAAM (Race Across America, ~5000km) and the Transcontinental Race (TCR, ~3500km) and have actually beaten the men at them. Those aren't UCI races because they wouldn't be allowed to join if they w…

RAAM is a pure endurance event, and it also tends to attract mostly older athletes. Not to take away from Leah's achievement, but it's a much different animal than a high speed road race. The men's fields are consistently much faster overall and in finishing speeds than women's fields in group races. Women in the US are still allowed to race a category lower in the men's fields and even then a win is incredibly rare for a woman in a men's field - and usually only happens at the category 4 level in men's racing with an exceptional category 3 woman.

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

#48

Post by loeg » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 4:42 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.

> So it has already happened.

Not sure what "it" is here or how it is responsive to my comment.

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

#49

Post by jillesvangurp » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 4:44 PM UTC

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 absolutely loved the Tour de France. They'd be glued to the radio and later the TV for three weeks in a row while it happened every year. It was a very commercial event even in the seventies and eighties. The the whole circus would plow its way across France in that time and there would be heroes, drama, falls, etc. These days it has to compete with the day to day madness elsewhere and it's just not the same anymore.

But I have good memories watching men like Lance Armstrong, Miguel Indurain, Greg Lemond, etc. do their thing on some mountain top. Just the brutality of them crushing their opponents and leaving them behind driving uphill on the fifth mountain of the day after a grueling 200km bike ride is amazing to watch. Never mind they were more than a bit chemically and bionically enhanced. It was the closest thing to super human performance you could watch outside of the cinemas.

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

#50

Post by sarcasticus » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 4:44 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…

There is a significant disparity in competition between those races and the Tour de France. Leah Goldstein won the RAAM with an average speed of 18km/h. However, in the 2022 TDF, the winner achieved an average speed of 42km/h. While women have outperformed men in certain races, such victories are primarily in lower-level competitions. No woman will beat Kipchoge in a marathon.