The NTT Pro Cycling team has announced it is seeking a new title sponsor after title sponsor NTT, a Japanese telecoms and IT services company, announced it will not be renewing its sponsorship beyond the end of this year.
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France’s Green Wave Laps at The Tour
You probably know the 2021 Tour de France won’t start in Copenhagen any more, instead it’s been switched to Brest, on the western tip of Brittany. Behind the decision there’s been politicking as the city of Rennes was also a candidate but it rejected the Tour, the new local government said non on environmental grounds and this is likely to be a trend in France, the Tour and other races must change to meet and reflect new environmental demands.
Great Expectations
As returns to normality go, yesterday’s stage of the Route d’Occitanie brought some familiarity and certitudes with Team Ineos riding on the front of the bunch all day, then setting the tempo on the final climb for their leader to win.
Only it wasn’t live TV, we might imagine the prospect of a summit finish with Bernal, Froome, Pinot, Porte, Bardet, Lopez and Barguil as valuable but it’s expensive too and for many races it’s their biggest cost.
New Foundations For Mitchelton-Scott
The Mitchelton-Scott team gets a new sponsor, from today the team is renamed as Manuela Fundación. It’d been whispered for a while the team was in trouble, there had been wage cuts earlier in response to the Covid-19 calendar cancellation, but also doubts over the viability of the team for the long term. Now the team has a new sponsor in the Manuela Fundación, a Spanish charity funded by businessman Francisco Huertas (pictured above wearing the red shirt), and its future is secure. Or is it?
Social Security
For years French teams faced a headwind in the shape of high payroll taxes but this system is now rewarding them. Coupled with stable sponsors and home advantage when it comes to hosting the Tour de France, the three French squads in the World Tour are in a stronger position these days relative to their rivals.
The Finances of Groupama-FDJ
The blog has looked at the finances for Team Sky/Ineos and Ag2r La Mondiale for years now but there’s now a third team to add with Groupama-FDJ. They also publish their accounts and there’s plenty of detail, right down to how much their helmet sponsor paid in the year.
Wednesday Shorts
There are so many races all of a sudden and many on TV. With a VPN your browser can hop around the world allowing you to watch races in Colombia, France and Italy in the space of a few hours. Whether you need to is another matter but there’s now a huge choice and so far the quality has been good, the Tour Colombia’s TV coverage was an improvement on last year.
Pro Team Sponsors Explained
With the new season underway do you know your Cofidis from your CCC, Michelton from Movistar? Do you know what the EF in EF Education First stands for? No, it’s not Education First and the answer’s below and you can also learn what all the World Tour team title sponsors do.
New Kit, Old Ideas?
How do you like the new team kits for 2020? The likes of cyclingtips and Eurosport have reviewed, rated and ranked them.
Would you buy a team jersey and ride in it? Probably not, and that’s a problem. For all the success of the likes of Deceuninck-Quickstep, Jumbo-Visma and Bora-Hansgrohe might enjoy, their team kit doesn’t fly off the shelves and if the teams want to look exciting, their kit is traditional to put it kindly.
Tour of California Paused
The Tour of California won’t happen in 2020 with the organisers AEG declaring a “hiatus” for the race and with the women’s race too. The reasons aren’t given directly but further comments to Velonews cited the business model, presumably code for saying the race ran out of money rather than being stopped for other reasons. It’s bad news for US cycling but doesn’t come in isolation.