Specialized-lululemon team videos

I tried to find the information, but couldn’t find any. Perhaps my google fu-is low. Anyway, I had this cynical idea that UCI look at the team’s finances and from them set the wage, perhaps with a little bit of input from the team managers. But OK, I was wrong, so please do tell me.

We’re still talking about a minimum wage, right?

It definitely wasn’t much of an answer as a first reply, it was more like big stupid hyperbole. Pretty much like the idea that women’s cycling will go under if a minimum wage is set, regardless of at what amount.

As you say most “amateur” athletes get by on private sponsorships (and fed/oly. money). In cycling a lot of those funds are siphoned up by a plethora of teams that refer to themselves as “professional”. With some of those funds freed up there is probably room for a lot more athletes to make a living through personal sponsorships, and those are more likely to be performance based (money going to riders X,Y,Z due to their promising results rather than to team T that pays expenses for the random local riders they happen to have under contract ).

As for national feds, many of them already have a well functioning system for this. I see them as much more likely to handle things “professionally” than most of the present teams if the need should arise. There would at least be a much higher level of accountability .
Anyway I mostly mentioned the alternative system to illustrate that the current model of organization isn’t necessarily the way things have to be, it’s not written in stone.

Q. What is that [to continue to progress towards true equality], exactly? A. I would characterise true equality as equal pay for equal work. So yes, the ultimate goal would be for the minimum wage requirements for women’s teams to be in line with those for the men.

Q. What if there would just never be the same level of sponsor interest in women’s cycling? Who pays? A. This is precisely what I mean when I say that the sport itself needs to focus on changing in order to support the implementation and growth of such a minimum wage. I find your determination to cling to sponsorship as the only way of drawing money into the sport interesting in and of itself.

An aside: I think you’re really trying to twist the knife on Ryan a bit much. Just my 2 cents on that one.

(Pre-emptive) Q. What changes would I put in place to achieve the above? A. Forgive me, but I thought it was safe to assume you’d follow up with this. Firstly I think if the UCI did have the vision and balls to lay out a process for implementing a minimum wage it’d be a lot easier for all involved. Dealing with the known is much better than the unknown. If teams know that their costs are going to increase, they also know they need more funding. Similarly if sponsors are aware that commitments will need to be bigger they can budget for it and prepare for it. I also think it wouldn’t be too hard to convince a sponsor that they can garner a lot of goodwill by being one of the first in the sport to help women really turn pro and make a living. But that’s just the traditional, sponsored side of things.

I’m not going to pretend that I can predict the future but I do think that in the next ten years we’re going to see some very big disruption in media technologies. As an example, there are some very interesting companies working on broadcasting live events on a pay-per-view model via facebook and so on. Things like this will give teams the opportunity to find additional revenue sources through special live events and interactions. And that’s not counting the myriad ideas about fan memberships and so on. There are and will continue to be more ways for teams to make money. Those who are best at adapting to these changes will survive.

Let’s the say the UCI, in order to promote equality in the men’s and women’s sport, institutes the same minimum wage requirements as the men’s World Tour teams. Most of the sponsors of women’s cycling leave the sport. They’re acting in a principled manner, no? There’s no loss here, in your view?

It’s possible that I didn’t make my original statement in a way that made sense to you, so I’ll firstly try to re-phrase it before elaborating on that.

Let’s say all women’s teams are sponsored by the sale of blood diamonds from Africa. The UCI makes it a requirement that money from blood diamonds not be allowed in the sport. Most of the sponsors of women’s cycling leave. There’s no loss in my view?

No.

Removing unprincipled sponsors and teams from the sport who would willingly exploit and deny their employees the basic right to be paid for their work is not a loss in my view. Rather, requiring that teams (and by extension, sponsors) treat their employees fairly in principle, with a stepped plan to real parity is an important step in the process of making the sport itself better and more principled.

In summary: If the sport’s committed to making the change, then I believe it will find a way to survive. But for those who are afraid of the challenges change will bring, it’s easier to cry wolf and say the sport will die if we change it.

since I last had a beer. I’d be worried your argument held merit if it weren’t for the multiple bottles of wine I’ve had in the last week.