In February, the UCI asked for some advice on how to improve the way it runs professional cycling – and now they’re getting it, with no sugar coating
Two months ago, cycling’s governing body, the UCI, opened up to the biking industry and asked for help, essentially admitting that the sport of professional cycling was not performing as it should in terms of securing mainstream media coverage and reliable revenues for its athletes, and launching a consultation period calling in ideas for how that sorry situation could be rectified.
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The brand has reissued an updated version of the ‘Rapha Roadmap’, a lengthy treatise originally written back in 2019, laying out exactly how they think the organising body responsible for professional cycling needs to change dramatically from one that too often is seen to “prioritise self-preservation over growth”.
“The Premier League didn’t stop being English football when it became a global product,” she observed. “The sports that have thrived in the modern era are the ones that understood their own value and adapted to grow and capitalise on it.”
Rapha CEO Fran Millar is not mincing her words in this warning to the UCI
(Image credit: Tom Griffiths)
Proper promotion and coverage of women’s sport was also highlighted as a way of expanding the whole offering, something that’s a very live debate in cycling right now, unfortunately for all the wrong reasons.
“The Women’s Super League, the NWSL, the Hundred, the F1 academy and the Women’s Rugby World Cup are all examples of what can happen when the people running those sports stopped making excuses about audience size and started making the content that grows one,” said Millar. “These sports didn’t wait for permission or for someone else to solve their issues. They built the case, proved the demand and now the money is following.
“We are living through times of extreme and rapid societal and technological change. Sports that understood this early and built a content strategy, data infrastructure and interactive communities have grown. Sports that didn’t have watched their audiences age, fragment and their commercial value stagnate.”
Millar did acknowledge the size of the challenge the UCI faces. “We don’t claim to have all the answers,” she admits. “What we have is an honest love for this sport and a genuine belief in its potential. And nearly two decades of experience watching it fail to realise that potential for entirely avoidable reasons.
“The time for endlessly debating and re-diagnosing the problem has passed,” Millar cautioned. in conclusion. “This consultation is an opportunity for action and change. I sincerely hope the UCI use it this time.”
The Rapha Roadmap can be downloaded in full here.
