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Eleven WorldTour teams band together in Velon business co-operative

November 24, 2014
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Eleven WorldTour teams have formed the Velon business co-operative, a joint commercial venture that seeks to change the traditional model of sponsorship and have teams pull together to make the sport more commercially viable. The organization was originally named Project Avignon and shook loose when the idea of a revamped racing calendar called the World Series of Cycling was shelved in 2013.

The co-operative will give the teams more power as stakeholders in the direction that pro cycling grows. Velon can seek new revenue streams and negotiate new marketing strategies, like the on-bike cameras that the peloton carried during the 2014 season in the Tour de Suisse, Tour de France and Vuelta a España.

The 11 teams are Cannondale-Garmin (formerly Cannondale and Garmin-Sharp), Team Lotto-NL (formerly Belkin), Etixx-QuickStep (formerly Omega Pharma-QuickStep), Sky, Tinkoff-Saxo, Lampre-Merida, BMC, Giant-Alpecin (formerly Giant-Shimano), Orica-GreenEdge, Lotto-Belisol and Trek.

Velon lists its three main objectives as making “a more exciting sport” by developing a “race calendar that tells a season-long story”, utilizing “new technology” to tell the exciting story, and ensuring “sustainable, credible teams the fans can follow now and long into the future.”

“There has been a group of teams collaborating for some time about how we can—by working together—shape the future of the sport,” said Jonathan Vaughters, CEO of Slipstream Sports and a founding member of Velon. “Facilitating the use of on-bike cameras during racing was our first major step and now, as a formal co-operative, we will be able to continue to create even more opportunities to grow the sport we all love and make it more accessible to our fans. This is particularly exciting for our organization as we look ahead to 2015 as Cannondale-Garmin Pro Cycling.”

The on-camera bikes in 2014 were the result of teams negotiating with race organizers, the UCI and IMG Media’s InCycle video magazine (an IMG Media/Velon collaboration).

The United Kingdom-based company has appointed Graham Bartlett, who has worked for Nike, the European soccer organization UEFA and Liverpool Football Club, as chief executive. “The existing, sponsor-only, business model is fragile for all teams,” said Bartlett “We need to change this to a more rounded one with fans at the heart of it, investing in new technological initiatives to generate greater excitement from the races and bring the sport closer to its fans. The company will look to use the combined commitment of the teams to create new revenues.

“This combined commitment can help to deliver more of what the fans want to see from the sport—exciting races brought to life with great technology. What we’re trying to build will hopefully create a virtuous circle where it’s easier for fans to engage with the teams and riders and gives the teams even greater incentives to maintain credibility.”

Squads that have not joined, such as all the French teams and the UCI No. 1 ranked team of 2014, Movistar, are free to join later or partner with Velon to negotiate specific business.

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