Keep in mind that the Tour, whilst the most prestigious race by a fair margin, is a pretty small part of the racing calendar. There’s early spring one-week stage races like Paris-Nice and Tirreno Adriatico. Early spring classics like Milano-San Remo and Strade Bianchi. Northern classics Ronde van Vlaanderen, Paris-Roubaix, Fleche Wallone, Liege-Bastogne-Liege and numerous others. The Giro d’Italia. More one-weekers in the Tour of the Alps and the Criterium du Dauphine. Then finally the Tour de France. And then a hodgepodge of miscellaneous stuff like the BinckBank Tour leading up to the Vuelta a Espana. And then the world Champs and various fall classics like Il Lombardia. And that’s just the prominent stuff.
Most of the potential exposure for sponsors doesn’t reach North America, and so few of the sponsors are North American. Bike racing is a much bigger deal in western Europe, and so most of the sponsors are western European concerns.
I know there was/is the Tour of California and a few small races in the US, and even smaller gravel races. And I think a few in Australia. But those are nits to pick and there’s no doubt that cycling has the great majority of events in Europe.
But there is also the cyclodrome racing which seems to be almost another sport of bicycle racing too, mosty(all?) in Europe.
I know now that Jumbo is a Dutch Supermarket chain. But UAE and Israel are recognizable sponsors. If it weren’t for the big name sponsors in F1 or NASCAR, I’d be just as lost there personally.
Bahrain as well, but I don’t think I saw them at the Tour this year. I couldn’t figure out why a country would need to advertise itself like that. Were they tourism boards within those countries trying to attract visitors, or was it some kind of business development authority trying to get companies to locate there, something like that?
I think it’s mostly for sportswashing reasons. Which is going to have some overlap with tourism and such. Saudi Arabia has hosted a smaller race since 1999 off and on
You’re right, which makes it strange that the sponsors would be okay with the fact that Bahrain Victorious are widely known to be the dopiest dopers in the peloton.
Well, if you’re sponsoring a sports team in order to make yourself look virtuous, think how much more virtuous you’ll look when they win. So you do what it takes to make that happen.
Ironically on the tennis team at our local high school was a girl direct from Russia (moved here last summer) Horrible cheat. She quickly realized that self umpiring is a license to blatantly and shamelessly make bad line calls (as well as foot faulting by feet and hitting the ball after the second bounce). By the time your opponent realizes that they need to call for a coach to call the lines you will be up a few games at least and have rattled your opponent.
Her parents don’t deny that she makes bad line calls. They say the rules should be changed otherwise you can’t expect players to make honest line calls, unless you’re an idiot. They are more upset that our coach allows the other coach to call the lines half the time. The idea that the other teams coach wouldn’t make bad line calls in their players favor is incomprehensible to them.
Their relationship with the IRS must be interesting.
Annemiek van Vleuten doing Annemiek van Vleuten things at the TdF Femmes. She is just so dominant. One of the longest and hardest routes ever in women’s racing, and she casually attacks from 70k out, puts minutes into everyone. Barring a mishap on the gravel at the end of the Super Planche des Belles Filles tomorrow she should have this race won handily.
I watched the state 8 highlights – a brutal end - 20% grade(!) and to make it worse the pavement ends.
Vollering kept up for a while, and did get second in the stage and overall (and garnered the Polka Dot by 4 points). van Vleuten had 5 bike changes (!)
We did end up with 4 unique jersey winners.
Hearing “ Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift” every few minutes got old quick.
I keep up with cycling with The Cycling Podcast, and they just refer to it as Tour de France Femmes, I didn’t even know about the “avec Zwift” part until I was looking at an article elsewhere. It’s a lot like sports in the US broadcasts where everything is sponsored and the sponsors have to be mentioned.
Good thing players aren’t sponsored yet. Though for reasons “Mike Trout sponsored by Superpretzel” wound amuse me.