ASO vs UCI

For reasons you can find on previous threads here. For better or worse ASO (and the Giro and other main race organizers) MUST be the ones in charge. UCI was NEVER competition for ASO—they are (or are supposed to be) a regulatory body for heavens sake. Their attempt to be race organizers was always doomed. Since UCI wasn’t ever competition, the Microsoft analogy is false. In fact it looked to me like UCI was trying to do some kind of weird power grab from the race organizers, which made no sense.

ASO will now have the responsibility – and the power – to promote or reduce pro bike racing. They are the ones with the exposure and capital and the fact that they look like they are going to assert their authority is only a good thing. It is like accountability is slowly coming back in pro cycling. I am sure I will be ticked off at some of ASO’s decisions but at least they will be the responsible party all around.

Way back in the early-mid eighties the Societe du Tour de France (or what ever they were called) had the Tour and Roubaix.

I would pressume they made somewhat of a savy business decision/gamble to get Anglo-North America interested in cycling and tap into the money in the North American market. I pressume this only because I don’t remember seeing any other european bike races on television other than the World Championships during that time period.

That decision paid off very well for them. By way of CBS, or ABC they were able to tell us that there races were the best – and it’s not like any other race organizers were reaching out to us to say anything to the contrary. They quickly built up their own monopoly of the North America market, and I’d have to imagine they’ve used that strategy in other parts of the world too.

They were the ones that reached out to the world and said hey, check us out, and after a while the world started to listen. The Tour got bigger and other races got smaller. One might be able to say they have had an impact on the capacity of smaller races to get enough sponsorship money to cover their costs – e.g. Paris-Nice and the Midi-Libre. However, one could also say they have also been the saviour for races like Paris-Nice. When Laurent Fignon wasn’t able to get the bucks required to run the ‘02 edition, ASO came in and bought the race and it wasn’t cancelled.

To bring it back to microsoft, I have no idea if they could be accused of abusing it’s dominant place in the market, but that wouldn’t be something for the UCI to resolve.