The arrival at the Champs-Elysées is the final act of the Tour de France 2021, that of the restart after the anomalous edition of last year, which began in September and lived inside a bubble to minimize the risks associated with the pandemic of Covid-19. An emergency situation, made necessary to safeguard the approximately 150 million in revenues estimated by the organization of the Grande Boucle. In fact, this is the total turnover of the race, organized by Amaury Sport Organization, mainly linked to television rights and sponsorships. Today’s epilogue in Paris will crown the Slovenian Pogacar for the second consecutive year, after the 2020 triumph: an historic encore, at 22, for the UAE Team Emirates cyclist. The youngest ever to win two tours in a row in the 108 editions held so far.
Even the Tour commands the TV
It is a tour that is mainly based on television revenues. The official broadcasters are France Tv Sport and Eurovision, but a total of 36 broadcasters broadcast the competition live all over the world. Amaury Sport Organization has an agreement with France TV for the sale of the domestic rights of the Tour until 2025 (with an estimated value of about 25 million per year), while abroad it has signed long-term agreements, such as the one with the Australians of Sbs, until 2030 (the figures have not been disclosed, but the agreement should yield about 2 million per year). In Italy, Rai has free-to-air rights until 2025, thanks to the agreement signed by the organizer with EBU, the European Broadcasting Union. In total, television revenues alone account for more than half of the entire revenue pool of the world‘s leading cycling race. At least 80 million, including local rights sold to French state TV. The most important voice, that of TV, followed by sponsorships.
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From sponsors 30 million
The main partners are five: Lcl, Leclerc, Skoda, Continental and Krys. The most profitable agreement, among these, is the one with the Lcl bank, whose logo stands out on the yellow jersey: a bond estimated at 10 million euros per year, renewed three years ago until 2021. In total, the contribution of the sponsors it should be around 30 million euros. The rest comes from merchandising and from the local communities that host the stages of the Tour. The share of revenues destined for the riders as a prize is around 2.3 million euros in total. This is the highest prize pool among the so-called great European tours. The winner of the Tour goes to 500 thousand euros (200 thousand for the second and 100 thousand for the third), but other prizes are foreseen for placements in the stages and for the other rankings of the competition. The winners of each stage receive 11 thousand euros, for the green jersey (i.e. the winner of the points classification) and for the polka dot jersey (winner of the climbers classification) there will be 25 thousand euros each, with other prizes up for grabs for those who place themselves. behind in the ranking. The best youngster goes to 20 thousand euros and the maximum foreseen for the team classification is 50 thousand euros.
The “Bubbles” Tour
To organize this second Tour in full pandemic, the rules relating to the creation of so-called bubbles have been revived. All athletes had to download the tracking app (TousAntiCovid) and underwent PCR swabs. Swabs to be repeated, in case of exit from the bubble for at least 24 hours. For teams, if two positive cyclists were found within seven days, the exclusion from the race was envisaged. Averted risk, given that this year, as in 2020, no athlete tested positive. To shake the last days of the Tour, if anything, was the search by the police in the hotel where the Bahrain Victorious group was staying. For team leader Milan Erzen, interviewed by the portal Cyclingnews, it was “nothing special”, as the gendarmes “asked for the training files of the riders and checked the bus. After an hour they left and they even thanked us for the cooperation ».