One Biking is a secretive undertaking created by a number of main groups and race organisers who wish to work collectively to vary skilled biking. Spearheaded by Visma-Lease a Bike supervisor Richard Plugge, the undertaking goals to shake up skilled biking, with an exterior investor offering the hundreds of thousands wanted to construct a brand new enterprise mannequin for the game and problem the dominance of Tour de France organiser ASO.
As budgets and rider salaries improve to a mean of over €25 million per season, groups wish to cut back their dependence on sponsorship and discover new methods of funding their organisations. They hope to work with different stakeholders within the sport as a substitute of compete with them, and ‘develop the cake’ so that everybody within the sport will get a much bigger piece. They consider skilled biking is massively undervalued and much too precarious.
“It’s not about turning into wealthy, it is about creating a greater steadiness within the sport. We wish to be fan-centric in order that extra individuals can perceive and revel in our sport,” somebody near the One Biking undertaking instructed Cyclingnews final yr.
Cyclingnews has investigated and reported on the event of One Biking from the very starting, revealing particulars and updates on the undertaking, regardless of a veil of secrecy and non-disclosure agreements.
After many secret One Biking conferences and work with knowledgeable consultants on occasion organisation, tv rights, communications and finance, these concerned in One Biking consider they’re near a closing settlement, which might see groups signal a deal, type a brand new administration firm and kick off the One Biking undertaking for the beginning of the 2026 season.
Visma-Lease a Bike, EF-Schooling Easypost, Ineos Grenadiers, Soudal-QuickStep, Crimson Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, Lidl-Trek, Intermarché-Wanty, Bahrain Victorious, Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale, Picnic-PostNL and Movistar are mentioned to be able to grow to be shareholders within the One Biking administration firm, with different groups tempted to hitch them.
Jayco AlUla and French groups Groupama-FDJ, Cofidis and Arkea-B&B Motels are mentioned to be in opposition to the undertaking, with UAE Workforce Emirates-XRG sitting on the fence, fastidiously to not anger their Emirati backers or Tour de France organiser ASO.
Flanders Classics, the organisers of main Spring Classics such because the Tour of Flanders, is the driving pressure amongst race organisers eager to hitch One Biking, whereas RCS Sport can also be nonetheless however hesitant about making a closing determination.
The ASO have at all times been in opposition to the One Biking undertaking, fearing it should step by step undermine their dominance of the game. Nonetheless, these in One Biking hope the ASO will finally permit a few of their smaller races to be included within the undertaking with out undermining the status and income of the Tour de France.
The Saudi Arabian SURJ Sports activities Funding fund, managed by the massive Saudi PIF sovereign wealth fund, has reportedly confirmed its involvement and is predicted to finance One Biking through a €250 million funding.
In keeping with Het Laatste Nieuws, the boys’s groups that signal as much as One Biking will obtain €1 million a yr for the subsequent three years, whereas girls’s groups will obtain €250,000 every year. One Biking is predicted to start to generate income from quite a lot of sources that monetise racing and the followers however there are few particulars of how they’ll do this. Biking is historically a free sport to look at from the roadside, whereas it’s costly to organise and broadcast.
Het Laatste Nieuws just lately recommended that One Biking may embody 4 new races, together with an end-of-season race in Saudi Arabia, plus new races in Asia and North America. The UCI desires to regulate and approve any new races and codecs. Cyclingnews understands that the One Biking groups plan to fastidiously direct their largest riders to conflict extra typically in most popular races that do offers with One Biking.
Cyclingnews obtained a 150-page doc within the spring of 2024 that detailed One Biking’s technique. It contains creating VIP hospitality areas at races and maybe even charging followers to see races at particular areas. Digital expertise and trendy advertising methods could be harnessed to monetise occasion rights, digital platforms, betting, gamification, merchandising and fan membership. No stone could be left unturned to seek out new income and monetise the game.
Stories of One Biking first emerged within the winter of 2023, maybe through a leak from French sources to the Reuters information company.
The preliminary report described One Biking as a ‘new aggressive league’. Nonetheless, One Biking has since modified plans to create a brand new and various race calendar and so spark some type of ‘breakaway league’ undertaking as we have seen in golf and different sports activities. As a substitute, One Biking hopes to step by step drive change within the sport as a substitute of sparking an influence wrestle.
UCI President David Lappartient has set out the UCI’s so-called purple line limitations for One Biking, to make sure that One Biking shouldn’t be a breakaway league of insurgent groups and organisers. The UCI desires to include One Biking into the present construction {of professional} racing and ensure these concerned comply with UCI guidelines and respect their governance.
That would hinder the ambitions of One Biking and both spark a rebel or water down the ambitions of the entire One Biking undertaking.
One Biking supply has been saying that the undertaking is near completion and sign-off for the final 18 months however then bulletins fail to materialise.
The newest date for launch and knowledge is alleged to be in early July, earlier than the beginning of the 2025 Tour de France.
