The proposal to establish a budget cap for cycling teams, similar to what is already done in other sports, is a recurring issue that resurfaces every so often without ever seeming to be implemented.
With the start of a new three-year cycle for World Tour licenses, the UCI, with its president David Lappartient as the main proponent of the measure, brought the budget cap issue back to the table, although ultimately it did not come to fruition.
According to Lappartient, it was the teams who refused to agree to the budget cap, so the new World Tour licenses for the next three years will not have any spending limit, as has been the case previously.
The UCI proposed a budget cap for all teams, and “the smaller teams opposed it.” Lappartient explained to French media, “We considered implementing a budget cap for all teams, and paradoxically, they didn’t accept it. I was surprised that it was mainly the smaller teams that opposed it. I think they were wrong.”
These statements come at a complicated time, with most teams searching for new sponsors to increase their budgets. Lotto and Intermarché have had to merge to resolve their financial problems, and Arkéa-B&B Hotels has disappeared after failing to find a sponsor to cover its minimum budget.
The UCI proposed a budget cap for all teams, and “the smaller teams opposed it.”
In any case, this is a problem associated with the historically dominant funding system in cycling, where team budgets depend almost exclusively on sponsorship. However, Lappartient doesn’t believe the problem lies with the system itself, but rather that “Cycling was undervalued compared to its true worth, and today it’s a sport that has acquired a global dimension. Perhaps this is the price of success, as cycling enjoys very high viewership. The real winners are the cyclists, who are earning much more money,” concluded the UCI president regarding the reasons behind the continuous increase in budgets.
Source: www.brujulabike.com