Financial Struggles in Amateur Racing

I came into the sport having heard many stories and watched a few documentaries telling of the tales of the lack of glory on the road to the top. Eating whatever you can afford, and sleeping on the floor at peoples houses because you can’t afford your own rent. Even at the pro level there wasn’t an abundance of money, especially compared to the NBA or NHL. Whether this is right or wrong, I came into the sport sort of expecting nothing to be given to me. I am finding in the amateur scene around here, many athletes seem to expect lots from their team and sponsors. Many of these athletes don’t even get top end results, so why do they think they deserve special treatment? Surely they have seen the same documentaries, and heard the same stories I have?

We are living in an age where people see what other people have, so they think they need all of that as well. Everyone wants top end bikes, clothing, race support and vehicles to get around in. All of this on top of not having to work to pay for it themselves. If you have personal sponsors such as family that are willing to help you with this, then don’t take it for granted. The sport is insanely expensive to try and move up in between race entries, travel and feeding those legs. You should enter with the mentality that you are going in with nothing, trying to spend the bare minimum (because that’s all you have), and anything you happen to get is extra and be very thankful for it. Now if you are top end cat 1 and winning races all the time, then sure you can start to ask for more from your sponsors.

The sport itself has become much more expensive. Compared to 20 years ago, the costs have gone up 5x, and the prize money has decreased by at least the same amount. This is partially due to rising insurance costs, and policing costs. It would be amazing if the government could figure out a way to cut the costs of police for special events, because it isn’t just bike racing that is suffering from this. On top of this we have a decrease in sponsorships from companies. This could be due to the recession, or all of the drug fallouts and companies not wanting to ruin their image. Cycling needs to find a good way to attract sponsors and keep them around because there is no other source of income. Unfortunately there are no ticket sales to spectators to keep things going like there are in other pro sports. Also it is sort of frowned upon for some reason to wear a pro team kit if you weren’t on the team (I do it anyway, think of all the kids on city rinks playing hockey in their Leafs jerseys!) so there isn’t much income from team merchandise.

In the end, people seem to want something for doing nothing but riding their bike. In this technological age, people think “why pay someone when I can figure out how to do it myself?”. And with social media, companies are easily able to advertise for themselves, so you have to ask yourself what more can you offer them that they couldn’t do themselves. At the end of the day sponsorship is payment for advertising of a product or service. Teams like Silber have been doing a great job promoting the products of their sponsors and it impacts all those people who are on the fence of choosing between two or more components. “If Ryan Roth can be so good with that POC helmet, then they must be good and I won’t regret spending that money on that”.  Basically, if you can find yourself a sponsor, do what you can to help them out so they feel it to be a worthwhile investment so you might have a backer for the following season.

Having myself not been at the top level, you might say I don’t know much about what is going on in the sponsorship end of things. That is totally correct, but this was mainly about the struggles seen in amateur racing, and to acknowledge many riders seem to want special treatment without giving back. Part of the blame can be passed to team directors, as they should make it obvious what they want from their riders, on and off the bikes, to ensure their sponsors are kept happy. There is lots of work to be done to get cycling back to the glory days of the 90’s, but at least acknowledging the issues is a good start to getting back on track. I think Oleg Tinkoff is doing a great job trying to get things working at the pro level, and we can all work together to get things working again on the amateur level.  

At this point I need to thank my parents for all of their help, without them I definitely wouldn’t have the funds to compete. Thank you for helping me do what I love!