The money behind the Tour de France

basdonker18
Aug 28, 2017 · 2 min read

I read an article from the NOS last week. The article said that the 200 participants of the Tour de France had to divide €2.000.000. One-third of this money was supposed for Team Sky. Of course, Team Sky did a great job, but if I was one of the other 190 participants of the Tour de France I would ask myself: ‘’why don’t I receive more money?’’

The Tour de France is one of the most watched tournaments in the world. There were almost 3,5 billion people over the world who watched the Tour de France in 2014. One would say that the organization behind the Tour de France would earn a lot of money.

The annual report of the ASO said that this organization earned 168.000.000 euro on 10 different events in 2016. Examples of those events are the marathon in Paris and the Dakar rally. These events are far behind the popularity compared to the Tour de France. It is interesting that the ASO does not make any announcements of the revenue per event. Everyone knows that the ASO earns, relative to the other events, the most money on the yearly cycling tournament.

Of course, it is possible that a cyclist is not only motivated by money. The hugest motivation of a cyclist could also be, for example, the arrival in Paris. The thing that concerns me the most is that an organization is trying to earn a huge amount of money behind the back of
athletes, while the athletes themselves receive just a bit of this money.

The time has come that the ASO should see that sport is not something someone does in his free time. Sport is being watched by people all over the world. Especially to the ASO, I would say: give the cyclists the money they earn and give openness about the revenue per event.

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