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Home Sweet Home: How U.S. Racing Can Reshape Pro Cycling ~ folks "some~thin's " gotta B done if Cyc~lin's gonna Advance 2 the NEXT LEVEL ,Huh ???
Bicycle
racing in the United States has always charted a maverick course.
American Six-Day track races were the most successful and lucrative
cycling events in the world in the early 1900s – think of the “Madison”
events, so named because many originally took place in New York City’s
Madison Square Garden. The sport was hugely popular across many
segments of the American public, and the U.S. produced the majority of
the star racers throughout that era. But in the many decades since
then, if an American wasn’t winning the Tour de France, then the
coverage and interest in bike racing simply hasn’t been there. In
short, bike racing hasn’t really captured the attention of the broader
American sports audience, and has fluctuated in popularity ever since
the Second World War, when those “golden days” wound down.
Enterprising bicycle race promoters
stepped into this gap during the 1970s and 1980s, and rather than wait
for American talent to improve to European levels, they tried to
re-create the general formula of European racing – particularly that of
the Tour de France – in America. The Red Zinger race series in the late
1970s raised the visibility of road racing, inspired many riders and
helped provide a platform for such notable talent as the Stetina
brothers and Greg LeMond. It also provided women athletes like Connie
Carpenter some of their first opportunities to take center stage. The
success of the “Zinger” in Colorado helped it to evolve into the
internationally-renowned Coors Classic in the 1980s, and later enabled
races like the Tour DuPont to succeed in the 1990s. In a way, these
events set the stage for today’s Tour of California and the US Pro
Challenge. However, history shows that most of these marquee events
tend to have fairly short life spans, and are just as likely to drop off
the calendar altogether as they are to have widespread success.
Despite this spotty and irregular
history, weekend sprint trains and breakaways have nonetheless become
common in many corners of the U.S., due to the continuing and often
tireless efforts of numerous promoters to build regional identities for
their races. This regional focus has created value for sponsors,
community involvement, and has helped to build the sustainability of
races as businesses. U.S. racing seems to be building momentum once
again, and with the World Championships coming to Richmond, Virginia in
the fall of 2015, American racing is poised to make a huge rebound – if
it can capitalize on this once-in-a-generation opportunity and continue
to build at the grassroots level.
The Current State: In
contrast to how pro cycling evolved in Europe, racing in America never
really took on a distinctive national character. The Tour is certainly
France’s greatest source of sporting pride, just as the Ronde van
Vlaanderen has come to define the spirit of the Flandrian people. “The
challenge for U.S. cycling is that we’ve tried too hard to duplicate the
UCI’s European model – but we’d be better off building an ‘American’
reality,” says David Chauner, best known for creating the CoreStates
U.S. Pro Championship race in Philadelphia, the San Francisco Grand
Prix, and many top one day UCI road races in the US between 1985 and
2005.
The unsuccessful attempt to copy the
European model on U.S. soil has led to a situation today where we have
five different financial tiers of U.S. races, according to veteran
promoter Michael Aisner. The first tier of U.S. racing is comprised of
the big events like the Tours of California, Utah, and the US Pro
Challenge in Colorado. In the past, races like the Tour du Pont/de
Trump, Tours of Georgia and Missouri also fit this mold. The key
characteristic of these larger and more visible races is that they have
all essentially been underwritten by wealthy patrons and/or state or
governmental entities. From Fred Mengoni, to Donald Trump, to the
Anschutz and Miller families, or to the states of Georgia and Missouri,
these big races have not always been big profit centers, and have often
had to cover start-up and operating losses through direct financial
contributions – rather than sponsorship investment. The former Tour of
Missouri was a rare example of a successful race that should have
continued, and was financially stable by its third edition, but
political changes led to its premature cancellation.
The second financial tier consists of
races which are unfortunately mostly no longer alive, but which had a
model that could work well in the future. These events had excellent
local and regional support, and were run by entrepreneurial promoters on
large budgets which carefully balanced sponsorship dollars, merchandise
sales, and volunteer and services contributions. Races like Aisner’s
Red Zinger and Coors Classic, Dave Pelletier’s Mayor’s Cup, Rich
DeGarmo’s Tour of Texas, and the late Jim Rabdau’s Ore-Ida women’s stage
race all fit this mold. As a classic-style one-day race, the
Philadelphia International Cycling Classic still flourishes with
iterations over three decades and a million dollar plus budget. But
largely due to the UCI’s rule that criteriums cannot be included in any
stage race sanctioned higher than 2.2 on its ranking scale, the second
tier no longer exists. On its face, this rule seems today like a
pointless constraint which should be reevaluated and removed – for the
overall betterment of the sport.
The third financial tier, according to
Aisner, can be summarized as “volunteer-supported” events. These events
enjoy excellent local support and leverage extensive volunteer staffing
and contributed venue services; historically, these races have the most
successful longevity in US cycling, and even with modest sponsorship
budgets often have the look and feel of the first and second-tier races
just mentioned (despite having far less money to work with). Although
many of these races have some local TV or online streamed coverage, they
typically generate very little income and operate on the strength of
those balanced budgets. The North Star (formerly Nature Valley) Grand
Prix in Minnesota, Redlands (California), and Tour of the Gila (New
Mexico) are all good examples.
The fourth financial tier is comprised
of all the major criterium and weekend omnium events – the “weekend
memorial” races – like Chris Thater, Tour of Somerville, Artie Longsjo,
Manhattan Beach Grand Prix, and other similarly themed events. These
races have been the cornerstones of the U.S. sport since the 1960s, and
at a regional level provide high-level sporting entertainment in
bike-friendly communities. These races often take place as part of wider
holiday celebrations such as Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Labor
Day.
And finally, the fifth financial tier is
basically everything else: hundreds of local club criteriums and road
races. These events really provide the backbone of grassroots racing
and talent development in U.S. cycling.
Promoters and USA Cycling:
The national cycling Federation – USA Cycling – has developed a road
competition model that focuses on two series: the National Racing
Calendar (NRC) of premier road and stage races, and more recently, its
complementary National Criterium Calendar (NCC). Unfortunately, many
promoters believe that this disjointed model doesn’t work very well.
These series have too many overlapping dates and involve too much
geographic dispersion – few teams except for a few deeply funded
programs have the resources, and hence can’t cover the distances
necessary to essentially field two teams at once. Chauner explains,
“Plus, it’s pretty hard to explain to a casual or first-time fan that
cycling is a team sport when one team has six racers and another team
has only two in the same race.”
While part of the current situation can
be attributed to a lack of cooperation between promoters to settle
disputed dates, the origin of the problem may lie in how the USAC has
changed priorities over time – from a focus originally on growing
participation in the sport, to perhaps an over-emphasis today on winning
medals at the international level. To make American athletes
competitive and to build recognition, the USAC had to place riders into
the toughest UCI events and European races. But this of course created
conflict with the U.S. promoters – who pointed out that the strategy
actually devalued U.S. races by sending the best up and coming American
talent to races elsewhere, hence thinning the depth of the race fields at home.
The NRC series was created in 2003 to
elevate the status and competitive level of U.S. racing so that USAC
could realize its goal of developing internationally-competitive
American talent on home soil. The NCC series was created in 2012, but
it seemed to add to the calendar confusion rather than provide clear
differentiation for racing priorities. Logistically, the sheer size of
the country, and the relatively small number of promoters available to
execute many of these races – and to deliver a consistent professional
experience to participants, sponsors, and viewers alike – put everyone
at a disadvantage. There simply was not the level of public support nor
the necessary investment marketing from USAC and its Local Associations
(the many regional branches USAC supports to deliver its mission
locally across the U.S.) to make the model work.
As a result, race promoters and USAC are
often still at odds with each other regarding overlapping dates,
especially during the summer holiday season. For example, the Air Force
Association (AFA) Cycling Classic squares up against the Tulsa Tough
Criteriums every year. And a major casualty of this problem occurred
when the Tour of Utah expanded by a day in 2013; the Tour of Elk Grove
in Illinois– a highly-regarded regional omnium-format race which had a
road race and criterium – could not guarantee a pro field and simply
folded. Furthermore, calendar confusion makes it incredibly difficult
to monetize broadcast content; when two races of equal importance are
taking place at the same time, one race will always lose out, not just
in terms of participation, but also viewership, sponsorship and
advertising buys. It is difficult to align all of these races because
different promoters have unique financial drivers and sponsor
interests. Unfortunately, the USAC hasn’t taken strong steps in the
past to resolve the situation, or from a business perspective, package
the sport in a more logical way.
Current USAC Vice President of Race
Promotion Micah Rice is working hard to remediate some of these past
problems and past perceptions. It’s his job to align these top-tier
event calendars with the USAC vision: to grow the sport of competitive
cycling in America. Whereas the USAC “Performance” group is still
focused on developing talent for the global stage, Rice sees the two
USAC departments as having intertwined missions. “When we can, we have
to send our top athletes where they can advance their careers, and those
stepping stones are often the big European stages races,” says Rice,
“but we also have to build this capability in races here at home.”
Rice continues, “My perspective is that
U.S. races can go head to head if they so choose – if a promoter says ‘I
don’t want to move my dates,’ I won’t stop them. I can set the table,
and make suggestions for a logical calendar, but if races compete for a
desirable date, they simply have to compete against each other. That’s
just business.” An additional business pressure is the competition for
sponsors; promoters are often trying to identify, attract and lock in
the same investors, and this also limits incentives for cooperation to
resolve date conflicts.
Many promoters feel that not enough
emphasis is given to NCC events. “The NCC may be the real lifeblood of
U.S. cycling,” notes Marc “Marco” Colbert, an organizer of the
Chicago-based Intelligentsia Cup racing series. “Criteriums are
inherently spectator-friendly and a highly effective way to grow the
cycling fan base in the U.S. But it’s no secret that we are challenged
by a somewhat incoherent calendar of NCC, NRC and other UCI races. A
more logical calendar could help build participation and even more
sustainability for all of us. A lot of pro teams have a hard time
getting from one event to the next, in terms of costs and logistics. If
the NCC and NRC events could be spaced closer together regionally – and
in some new logical way – the events could feed off of each other. It
would be a win for the promoters, a win for the teams and a win for the
sport.”
Taking it to the Next Level: Capitalizing on “the Worlds”:
The upcoming Richmond World Championships could be a catalyst that
boosts the profile and interest in competitive cycling throughout the
U.S. (See recent article.)
The broad visibility of these events will likely inspire many young
athletes to take up cycling as a sport, and will hopefully also spark
interest from a new fan base. But US racing had this opportunity once
before, when the 1986 Worlds were held in Colorado Springs. Rather than
kick-starting the American sport, the ‘86 event ended up being a small
peak, and the Coors Classic – America’s answer at the time to the Tour
de France – folded just two years later. If Richmond is to spur
sustainable success for U.S. racing, then promoters and USAC must come
together on several key initiatives:
1) Focus on the community first.
Successful U.S. races have historically developed strong relationships
with and investments from the community where they take place. One of
the prime examples of this cooperation is the former U.S. Pro
Championship race in Philadelphia. Philadelphia may have risen and
fallen in its size over time, but it has been a 30-year mainstay of the
U.S. calendar – despite the “U.S. Pro” prize having moved on to other
venues. This is in no small part due to the people of Philadelphia –
itself an important urban and cultural center on the east coast – making
the race a high point of the summer calendar, in which music, food, and
community celebrations coincide with the race.
Focusing on the specific attributes and
interests of the local community more closely aligns the sponsors’
messages, products and services with the customers they are trying to
reach. These close ties to communities imbue races with regional
character and longevity, but also provide sponsors more incentive to
commit year-over-year support. Whereas “national” sponsors are often
temporary, regional sponsors are more vested in the local economy and
can build market value through long-term success of the event.
2) Develop a true professional promoters association.
Rob Laybourn promotes the AFA Cycling Classic and the Grand Cycling
Classic (which served as the U.S. Pro Criterium Championships in 2011
and 2012). At the conclusion of the November 2014 USAC Race Promoters’
conference in Bend, Oregon, Laybourn brought together many key race
organizers to create a promoters’ association. This group quickly
gelled, with everyone seeing the potential benefits of creating a
business association, comprised of professionals in the field to
coordinate calendars, share knowledge and best practices, and build a
collaborative framework for engaging sponsors and building the value of
North American racing. “Aligning calendars is always a challenge, due
in part by the local pressures of the host cities,” says Laybourn.
“Whether or not they are aligned, our key emphasis must be growing team
participation and building better value for sponsorship investment.”
“I’ve been an NCC promoter for only a
few years,” adds Marco Colbert. “It soon became clear to me that
promoters interacted with USAC but not much with each other. That
changed when the new association formed. One of the main objectives of
the new association is the sharing of knowledge and best practices. For
instance, we had a talk by an intellectual property attorney about how
to protect the intellectual property of our events. We have also
started to promote each other’s events on social media.” This
association could have a profound effect by bringing the promoters
together on a common platform that could positively influence how the
calendar is set, and drive change where USAC hasn’t. More importantly,
it could put mentorship and the tools of successful race promotion
within reach for many, helping educate promoters on how to gather and
manage money effectively, and how to think creative and big.
3) Calendar normalization.
Although the promoters’ association is still in its formative stages,
race promoters should not wait for USA Cycling to devise and execute a
plan to better coordinate the NRC and NCC series. As a business
discipline, race promotion has traditionally been an independent and
fiercely territorial affair, but the upside for true schedule
cooperation is too great to ignore. The race promoters have to band
together and solve this issue. Structuring events in such a way that
teams can handle the logistics, and with enough financial and personal
development opportunities for the participants, can only help to build
viewership and expand the fan base of the overall sport. A challenge
for U.S. racing success is to make the racing understandable to a wider
audience; having a more consistent calendar with better viewing
opportunities and a simple to understand format could help the sport to
connect with and draw in new fans.
4) Investment in Women’s racing. Traditionally,
in the U.S., women’s racing has never really had much of a chance to
develop its own identity. As a matter of logistics, most women’s events
have coincided with – usually preceding, as a warm-up for the crowd –
the men’s events in major race events. It may be time to buck that
trend. Robin Farina, a former U.S. National road champion and a
principal behind the Women’s Cycling Association (WCA), believes that
the differences in the quality of women’s events from one race to
another is partially caused by this inadequate focus. “If we have the
right format, we have a great opportunity to offer our potential
sponsors the right coverage and the right audience. Right now, this
isn’t happening,” says Farina. “We can do a lot more to bring in
sponsors and fans – and inspire girls to compete – if we send out the
right message. We want to make this our sport, and not just borrow the
space.”
On this issue, Rice believes that the
USAC is taking steps in the right direction. “We have combined the
Women’s and Men’s Pro Championships dates, and required equal prize
money for the winners. We want to push race directors to have equality
in our races; we mandated web-tracker and equal TV coverage for the Pro
and Criterium championship races as well.” Promoters should look at the
opportunities to make women’s races more of a focal point in their
events. As cycling is a sponsor-driven enterprise, race organizers
should embrace and expand their ability to connect sponsors with their
target markets – women as well as men.
5) Improved sponsorship metrics.
Wisconsin-based race promoter Tom Schuler has a very broad experience
in domestic racing as a U.S. Pro champion, team manager, and now, as the
promoter of the America’s Dairyland race series. He has an indisputably
strong track record of delivering value to his sponsors. “But you have
to have research, direct customer feedback and third-party audits to
document the real returns to your sponsors. Our best practice
application is to hire a marketing research company to report on our
marketing data and independently calculate the return on investment for
our sponsors,” says Schuler. “Yes, we have to demonstrate value, but
more importantly, we have to know what we’re getting right and what we
might be doing wrong. And we shouldn’t be afraid to get a second
opinion in order to validate the first.” Schuler believes that this
kind of research and reporting is woefully under-utilized throughout the
domestic sport. Perhaps in the future, Laybourn’s emerging
professional association can help to introduce and integrate these types
of monitoring and measurement services, to improve both promoter and
sponsor access to such business-critical data.
6) Avoid the temptation of joining the UCI calendar too soon. Many
people believe that a race is only truly successful if it makes it into
the UCI’s pro calendar, but the truth is, UCI status is often overly
expensive and by its very nature can limit spectator and sponsorship
opportunities. Having “ProTour-level” fields might entice viewership,
but the actual costs to do so can basically break the bank. The
economic burden of meeting the requirements of the UCI can cut heavily
into the budget needed to plan and market an event effectively.
Everything from UCI rules
on paying appearance fees, covering travel costs for riders and team
staff, to multiple layers of organizational oversight (often redundant
to USAC’s NRC and NCC requirements) adds cost, but does not add
proportional value to the quality of the event. In essence, many UCI
requirements preempt community priorities and as a result, the
shortfalls can doom a race to failure if it doesn’t have enough
sponsorship, participant and fan-base momentum to financially scale to
such expectations. A recent example of this is the Tour of the Gila,
which currently maintains a UCI 2.2 ranking. The event grew organically
and has been a focal point for regional teams for over 30 years, but it
is located around a small municipality, not easily accessed except by
car, with limited local sponsor opportunities to cover these kinds of
UCI-level, top-tier obligations. “The Gila” nearly folded due to
accumulating financial pressures, until a mysterious ex-racer donated
the necessary funds to continue staging the event – at least for this
year.
7) Continuity of institutional knowledge.
Many promoters note that “best practices” of good race management have
been lost over the years due to attrition. There simply may not be
enough people who know how to run profitable races who are able to share
their knowledge and experiences to help other races start and grow. As
a result, new promoters have often been at a disadvantage; while many
may have the basic skills to organize a race, they may lack the more
detailed tools and guidance to execute effectively because they’ve never
actually done it before.
Again, Rice has been working to change
perception of USAC on this issue. His management team implemented a
race director certification program, which provides guidelines on how to
stage events, communicate with sponsors, and coordinate with municipal
agencies. In addition, USAC’s Membership Department offers assistance
for obtaining event permits and insurance coverage, and can refer
promoters to work with many Local Associations across the country for
technical assistance.
However, Schuler also points out that
promoters who are fresh to the business can bring new perspectives and
knowledge and help the sport “think outside the box,” and change with
the times. “There are now three major American Tours, but there is a
big gap from there to the rest of the regional events. Some knowledge
may have been lost, but a lot of new thinking has come in, which adds to
the sustainability and creativity in organizing the races.” Almost all
observers and race promoters agree that there is a need for greater
business and management expertise in the sport, a need for new thinking
and new people – that the sport has to reach beyond ex-racers for its
leadership in the future.
What Comes Next? One
answer to how racing might evolve in America may be the framework set up
by the National Collegiate Cycling Association (NCCA). This
under-recognized organization has gradually developed a mature and
successful regional format over the last 25 years. Teams compete against
each other in individual regions, earning points which allow them to
advance and compete in the national championships. In fact, the “test”
event for the Richmond World’s course was the 2014 Collegiate National
Championship race.
This format could be modified to promote
more participation at the club level and opportunities for aspiring
racers to gain experience. The NCCA model prioritizes talent
development through goal-oriented, season-long team competition – and
could help build the foundation for a logical race calendar. This kind
of regional series model could help maximize value for the sponsors by
offering consistent market presence, and provide promoters with fair
leverage when pricing the sponsorship “buys.”
But Rice notes, “We’re not even maxing
out our fields in all the NRC and NCC races yet. We used to have a
similar “District” model in the old US Cycling Federation (the predecessor to today’s USAC – editors).
There may be opportunities to move to a regional model when we have the
critical mass of competitors in the future.” Ultimately, the USAC owns
the development model, providing a system for young cyclists to move up
through the ranks from club, to local, to collegiate or regional
status, to amateur elite, and up into the pro ranks. Currently, none of
this is linked together in a clear path – and to be fair, it never has
been. It may be time to rethink the system which Rice is working to
improve, and which incoming USAC President Derek Bouchard-Hall – a
former pro who came up through the NCCA and USA cycling’s development
path – will inherit.
Another challenge for American racing is
the lack of significant financial contributions from television
exposure in US racing has become a bottleneck. All of the big American
teams have now developed the mindset that getting invited to the Tour of
California is the only way to truly achieve their sponsors’ marketing
objectives. This boxes the promoters into a corner: they have to invite
the best teams and buy television airtime to develop Aisner’s “first
tier” type experience, but the fees to bring the best teams over from
Europe and the high cost of broadcast production can mitigate any
profitability. And to put on a race with only the best teams, many good
teams can end up excluded from selection altogether, which diminishes
their own sponsors’ investments. An unavoidable factor in the success
of American racing will be how to build an affordable broadcast
production model, and derive revenues from broadcast rights to the
benefit of the promotion company, teams, and riders. The calendar, as
noted earlier, would have to be completely re-thought in order to
effectively package and sell the races.
It will take more than viewership to
change the sport’s fortunes, though. The old standby for measuring
sponsorship success, called impressions – or the amount of time a
sponsor’s logo is visible on media – is dead. The true measurement is
now engagement, which is more than just recognizing a name for a
product, but putting people into the show room to touch the product
first-hand. This factor is why criteriums are a critical link for US
racing success. Criteriums provide live spectators an immersive
experience with the racers screaming by every three to four minutes,
something which is impossible with a 250 kilometer point-to-point road
race.
More importantly, criterium venues are
tailor-made for television production teams, closely linking the
broadcast and human resources to deliver content. These races can be
held in key urban areas and staged to coincide with local prime-time
coverage. The predictability of lap times makes it possible to time the
finishing sprint with the nightly sports newscast, increasing the
probability of viewership, and the opportunities for sponsors to engage
with potential customers in a meaningful way. Racing can be structured
around music, bicycle clinics, and product expos and can keep fans
engaged throughout the race day. As Aisner points out, “Races don’t
need to spend money on racers who are bigger than the event. We should
build rock stars, not pay to bring in rock stars. This helps promoters
stay responsible to the budget and focus on the product. And that
product can be big, like a community festival that everyone can get
behind and sustain.”
In summary, the U.S. road racing sport
faces numerous challenges as it looks to the long-term future, but
promoters like Chauner, Colbert, Laybourn, Rice and Schuler all see
nothing but an upside to the opportunities. Perhaps this is U.S.
racing’s best chance to change the game. Despite the challenges faced
by U.S. promoters, the fact is that the calendar has an incredibly deep
library of racing which could be organized into a cohesive, easy to
follow, and highly marketable racing series. And unlike the European
scene, the promoters in the U.S. are less constrained by political
frictions or nationalistic objectives; there is no reason not to
cooperate for the greater good. As Rice suggests, if the market forces
some races to lose importance or give way to others that are more
successful, the result might be a truly healthy calendar. But it
doesn’t have to be like Europe; in fact, it should be different and it
could be even better.
U.S. racing must take the opportunity to
see itself in a new light and define its own version of the sport.
Bouchard-Hall is in the promising position of taking executive control
of a troubled organization at a time when there are great opportunities
to guide it to greater success. But he may need to rethink USAC’s
operating model in the process – perhaps proposing new models or new
approaches to solving some of these historical challenges. Under its
new leadership, USAC can help drive this change by providing
expectations for a calendar that facilitates talent development,
increases regional participation, and creates a positive atmosphere for
adding new races or moving existing ones to new dates. And the
promoters can also take the initiative to drive this kind of change by
better collaborating to create a true American series. A revised pro
event calendar could build momentum from one race to the next, and by
adopting a simple format, be easier for the sporting public to
understand, view in person, and tune into across many different
broadcast media. If these elements of change can be realized, U.S.
racing might be able to recapture its glory years. In the process, it
could create a new version of the sport where aspiring top-level pro
riders can build their careers at home, and entice foreign riders to
come here and do the same. It’s time for professional cycling to come
home to America.
DISCLAIMER:
As with all postings on theouterline.com, our goal is simply to provide
ideas and spur debate about what constitutes real change in
professional cycling. If you have an opinion about how to repair and
strengthen professional cycling, please contact us, and make your ideas
or opinions heard.
Joe Harris and Steve Maxwell, May 15, 2015
