
The economics of the Tour de France - rmason
https://thehustle.co/the-economics-of-the-tour-de-france/
======
walrus01
From a nerd/technical point of view, one of the great challenges of the tour
de france is the live HD video feed from the helicopter camera platforms to
the broadcast/editing studio. Considering the mountains and terrain often in
the way, the distance of the route, and the fact that the event relocates
itself every day.

It was considerably less difficult in the 480p analog days.

Here's an older example of the aerial camera work.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSmhgOFGl_M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSmhgOFGl_M)

Also the live video feeds from the camera operators that ride pillion on
motorcycles chasing the riders. That presents its own unique technical
challenge.

~~~
iso947
480p?

France used 576 25i in analog days. And why would analog be any easier than
digital? A WMT will give acceptable pictures for this type of shot at about
5mbit which is far less than 8MHz. You can get about 40mbit on an 8MHz channel
which gives cracking pictures even at 2160 50p

~~~
jacquesm
Analog is easier than digital because the signal degrades gracefully, whereas
with digital it is all-or-nothing. So raw bit rate is not quite as important
as the degree to which you are losing packets.

~~~
iso947
Digital comes with tons of error correction - especially if you use the entire
8mhz. While analog degrades with just slight issues, digital remains rock
solid past the point an analog signal would be unacceptable to put out in air.

------
dredmorbius
Themes rhat can be pulled from this:

\- Creative business models: _L 'Auto's_ original inspiration.

\- Routing and right-of-way economics: playing towns off one another for
course rights.

\- Advertising. \- Risks of authoritarian collaboration and/or short-term
thinking.

\- Winner-take-all (or much: the 1st-place finisher is awarded about 20% of
all prize money) economics.

\- Business-vs-talent returns: most riders earn minimum wage.

\- Patronage/sponsorship models and risks.

\- "Buying" success.

\- Tradition and mythology vs. business.

~~~
teruakohatu
> \- Business-vs-talent returns: most riders earn minimum wage.

Where so you get this from?

There is a mandated minimum that is around the median salary of my country, so
much higher than minimum wage of most countries.

New young riders in the UCI Pro Tour level reportedly get a fair bit more than
the minimum, on the Tour they are not usually fielding a more experienced team
and earn more. If they prove themselves the earnings go up fast.

Cycling pays little compared to basketball, football etc. but they are well
paid compared to the general population at Tour level.

~~~
rmason
If he read the article it says the mandated minimum wage for a rider is
$35,000, but most riders make more than that.

You might have a hard time living in say California on that wage but in parts
of rural Europe you could get by comfortably. You definitely could in
Michigan.

~~~
lotsofpulp
How can you get by comfortably in Michigan with a $35k income when health
insurance deductibles are $5k+ and out of pocket maximums are $6k to $8k and
premiums are ~$2.5k+ per year?

Plus federal income, FICA, state income, sales taxes, and Michigan’s famously
high car insurance prices? Add on saving for retirement / emergency healthcare
expenses.

Doesn’t leave much for a comfortable day to day life, especially if you have
or intend to support a family.

~~~
valuearb
You understand only a small percentage of insured get anywhere near their
deductibles in any year let alone their out of pocket maximums?

Private Insurance is there to prevent you from losing your home or racking up
a massive debt, not pay for every single medical expense.

~~~
lotsofpulp
Childbirth will get you there in no time. My under 1 year old had to go to
doctor 3 times for various normal infections from daycare in February this
year and it cost $850, plus $80 for a state mandated lead test that I just got
a bill for.

The point is $35k per year gives you no breathing room, and certainly doesn’t
quality as comfortable. Even for single young people in great health, they
can’t build any wealth and they will lose whatever they do get due to various
health/auto/etc issues that come up.

~~~
valuearb
Sure but $35K a year is fine for a young man looking to start a career in
competitive cycling. He doesn’t need to save his way to build wealth, his role
is a lottery ticket itself, if he moves up he’ll make ten times as much, if he
doesn’t he quits after four or five years and gets a “real job”.

------
jakub_g
Most interesting part for me:

> ... riders must formulate their Tour de France strategy around maximizing
> visibility for sponsors.

> Winning the tour is fantastic — but not necessary — for brand exposure.
> Often, you’ll see lesser-known riders break away from the pack to give
> sponsors media time, even if it isn’t technically the best thing to do.

> “The entire Tour is about getting eyes on the company on your jersey,” an
> ex-pro who wished to remain anonymous told us.

~~~
tokai
Riders from the wildcard teams are especially prone to go for suicide
breakaways. It was a huge source of confusion when there wasn't any breakway
the other day in the tour. It's literally worth hours of commercial air time.

------
walrus01
The more you learn about the bike industry the uglier it looks. For example
Trek married itself to Lance Armstrong, in the era before he was proven to be
a massive dope cheat.

Trek at the time and their legal department caused millions of dollars of
damages to Greg LeMond and his bike business he had licensed to trek. It turns
out LeMond was speaking the honest factual truth all along about what an
absolutely terrible human being Armstrong was. All later admitted by
Armstrong, and by members of the former US Postal team in sworn depositions.

~~~
Lio
I don't think that Trek has ever apologised for how they treated former TdF
winner Greg LeMond.

> "for years, Greg LeMond has done and said things that have damaged the
> LeMond brand and the Trek brand as a whole"[1]

Given that they regarded LeMond's whistle blowing as against what Trek stands
for you have to ask your self, what does Trek stand for?

1\.
[https://web.archive.org/web/20120609190914/http://www.trekbi...](https://web.archive.org/web/20120609190914/http://www.trekbikes.com/pdf/media/en/Trek_PressRelease_FINAL.pdf)

~~~
walrus01
Yes exactly. They rode that Armstrong/livestrong/US postal/discovery team pony
for as long as they could, as hard as they could, as long as it kept selling
bikes and provided a huge benefit to the bottom line.

Trek also managed to take the brand name licensed to them by one of the people
who can reasonably lay claim to the title of "inventor of the mountain bike",
Gary Fisher, and run it into the ground.

Other major brands are almost as bad. Giant was the sponsor for the T-Mobile
team of the late 1990s and early to mid 2000s in the Jan Ullrich era, which
was just as rife with organized doping. They knew full well about the doping
allegations (also all later proven and admitted by the team members once
retired) and did nothing as long as the financial figures looked good.

Every single sponsor of the uci protour teams from 1990 to about 2015 knew how
absolutely ingrained systemic doping and cheating was, and continued to funnel
money into the western European Continental cycling races and team
corporations.

------
jariel
There are no spectator fees because it's not a spectator sport.

3 hours of traffic and waiting ...

And then the anticipation ...

The 'zoom ... zoom zoom zoom' \- in 1 minute it's over. That's it.

On the last leg in Paris, you get 5x that, but still.

It's nice to see once but 'paying' for so many reasons is out of the question.

Nice to see a newspaper find a way out of the scourge ...

~~~
chrisseaton
> 3 hours of traffic and waiting ...

If it isn't a spectator sport... why do you have to wait in traffic to get to
it?

Seems like a 'nobody goes there it's too busy' sort of argument?

~~~
TylerE
It's a giant party.

No one goes to the Kentuky Derby to watch the horses run for 90 seconds -
that's much better done on TV.

~~~
chrisseaton
> It's a giant party.

So... it's a spectator sport?

~~~
jariel
It's an 'event' and the furthest thing from 'spectator sport' because there is
literally almost nothing to spectate.

Its 3 hours of 'prep' because the courses are usually way out there, way far
away from anything, and near the route traffic is upside down, maybe there is
parking maybe there is none, nobody knows.

It doesn't happen at a 'venue' that's designed for sport, it happens out there
in the French boondocks.

So you make a day of it ie sightseeing.

It's an excuse to get out and see the country.

------
adamjb
"The Economics of Professional Road Cycling" which they cite about halfway
through is absolutely worth the read if you're the kind of cycling fan who
enjoys a good academic paper.

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fiftyacorn
The cycling model is flawed because their is no distribution of screen rights
amongst teams.

Basically the race and teams ownership are separate. As a result you have a
few big teams and the rest scrambling for pennies

Some teams have tried to access the viewing money but the lack of solidarity
amongst teams has failed. Also the owners of the tdf own a lot of the big
races

~~~
fnord123
> Basically the race and teams ownership are separate.

This isn't a problem per se. For example, this is how it works in football in
most countries and I think most people would agree that football would be
enhanced by following a US cartel system.

~~~
Saint_Genet
Absolutely not. Almost no one would.

~~~
fnord123
Yikes. I meant to write "would not be enhanced". I need a subeditor. :(

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dade_
It's also an opportunity to develop amd test new technology, but it wasn't
mentioned in the article. [https://www.bloomberg.com/press-
releases/2019-07-04/ntt-and-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/press-
releases/2019-07-04/ntt-and-a-s-o-continue-to-transform-and-revolutionize-the-
fan-experience-of-the-tour-de-france-with-new-technology-deal)

------
Cyclone_
Didn't realize there was that big of a difference between 1st 2nd and 3rd in
terms of prize money. That might partially explain why a rider in 2nd doesn't
try and make a move on the last stage - they would risk blowing up and moving
down to 3rd

~~~
stevenwoo
The article discusses this at the bottom a bit but prize money at any pro bike
race is treated like a team bonus and shared. The article does say it’s all
about sponsor exposure - from final podium place/stage win/jersey - the riders
make more money in exhibition races post TdF where the top riders (based on
TdF yellow/polka dot/green) are paid appearance fees.

~~~
Ichthypresbyter
Exhibition "races" only in the very broad sense. The post-tour criteriums are
almost as fake as pro wrestling- the riders have agreed beforehand who is
going to "break away" and cross the line first, though occasionally one of the
local amateur riders they have in there to make up the numbers will decide to
have a go:

[https://cyclingtips.com/2016/08/when-the-post-tour-crits-
don...](https://cyclingtips.com/2016/08/when-the-post-tour-crits-dont-go-to-
plan/)

In terms of the economics of these races, they are much better spectator
events as they take the form of laps around the centre of a small city. The
audiences still doesn't pay, but it's much easier to go watch- so the city
will pay the race organiser, both to put their city on the map and for the
economic benefit of all the food and drinks the spectators buy, often from
stalls or trucks that have paid the city for a license...

[http://www.alpsandes.com/posts/2016/7/28/jurgenmettepenninge...](http://www.alpsandes.com/posts/2016/7/28/jurgenmettepenningen)

