Crew supervisor Richard Plugge has revealed recent particulars of the targets of the projected ONE Biking ‘super-league’, which Plugge and different backers need to see launched when the following WorldTour cycle will get underway in 2026.
The ‘super-league’ is claimed to be aiming to create a brand new firm throughout the sport that brings collectively groups, race organisers and the UCI to create new income streams. These streams are reported to incorporate the packaging of broadcast rights of smaller races and the advertising of athlete picture rights.
Spearheaded by Richard Plugge, the Visma-Lease a Bike supervisor, just lately instructed Wielerflits that the undertaking is at the moment on maintain.
Nevertheless, in an interview with the Belgian De Tijd web site revealed final week, Plugge supplied a raft of recent particulars about ONE Biking’s targets, claiming that the “higher outlined” race calendar format of sports activities like Method 1 provided an instance to comply with.
Plugge additionally claimed races containing circuits, such because the Tour of Flanders, provided higher profitability and a safer atmosphere.
Plugge’s start line for such a significant reform of biking, he instructed De Tijd, was that since taking cost of his group when it was sponsored by Rabobank again in 2012, he had managed to search out new income streams within the type of documentaries, a platform for a enterprise neighborhood across the group, fan membership memberships and a webshop.
Nevertheless, in biking typically in these areas of economic progress, Plugge argued that “far too little has occurred on this regard within the final ten years” and “We don’t capitalize on our potential sufficient.”
Concerning One Biking, Plugge stated that the undertaking was aimed toward the place the game might be in ten years’ time and that the game “didn’t realise clearly sufficient that our rivals are usually not the opposite groups or organizers however all different types of [sporting] leisure.”
After naming a multiplicity of sports activities, together with soccer, golf, basketball (within the US) and martial arts as biking’s actual competitors, Plugge stated that the distinction was most noticeable when evaluating fan reactions to the celebs of their sport with youthful supporters {of professional} boxer Jake Paul.
“He will get surrounded by screaming younger followers, these younger folks don’t rush in the direction of Jonas Vingegaard or different high riders. I need to change that,” he instructed De Tijd.
With that change in thoughts, Plugge pointed to the significance of what he referred to as “recognizability and codecs.”
“Everybody now congratulates us as group of the 12 months, even the diehard biking followers. But it surely was Crew UAE that completed first within the WorldTour,” he stated.
“We have to have a transparent calendar with a restricted variety of races through which the very best riders compete towards one another.”
Plugge pointed to the way more easy Method 1 as setting the course through which he felt biking ought to go. On the similar time, the grouping of media rights would allow biking to change into what he referred to as “a 24-hour media manufacturing facility.”
“Presently, main media firms are laughing on the disorganised method through which race organizations and groups negotiate over rights,” he stated. “It explains the peanuts we earn in comparison with soccer.”
The Dutch director is just not the primary individual to name for a Method 1 model overhaul to biking, none of which have succeeded previously. However Plugge nonetheless claimed there was “large help for reform” from unspecified groups, and likewise he cited one race organiser, Tomas Van Den Spiegel of Flanders Classics, as an “vital ally.”
Plugge identified {that a} former Tour of Flanders race director had come below fireplace for redesigning his important occasion so it now contained laps of a circuit. Nevertheless, Plugge claimed that the brand new course had, in his opinion, improved safety, was higher for the atmosphere – with out specifying how on both depend – and enabled gross sales of tickets and VIP packages. “Which means further revenue,” he stated.