Team Sky just being launched now on sky news

Dumdum McCarthy

First i have heard of the new british team.Bradley Wigans ,Simon Gerrans Chris Broome Thomas Lundquist just a few on the team.

iregk

Yeah I heard about this team during last years tour. Wigans was already a done deal back then and they've also signed Ben Swift as well which is sure to prompt another lovely contract debate.

Beasty

A couple of older threads on this:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055676957

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055765951

Bikerbhoy

Horrible kit and doesnt Mr Yeats look like a man under pressure.....already

RobFowl

Bikerbhoy wrote: »

Horrible kit and doesnt Mr Yeats look like a man under serious pressure.....already

That kit is grim looking alright

ednwireland

makes radioshacks kit look good - 2010 the year of crap team strips ?

Junior

Bikerbhoy wrote: »

Horrible kit and doesnt Mr Yeats look like a man under pressure.....already

Don't think Yeats has looked the same since he's had a small stroke afaik, and in the first picture is that wiggo on the end wearing BLACK SOCKS !

Bikerbhoy

Junior wrote: »

the first picture is that wiggo on the end wearing BLACK SOCKS !

Jaysus you could be right..... OR....... could it be a pair of Doc Martins

blorg

Kit is pretty good I think, simple and understated. Quite reminiscent of Rapha. I can only presume it is going to be added to as they get more sponsors though?

Could certainly have been worse

Junior

blorg wrote: »

Kit is pretty good I think, simple and understated. Quite reminiscent of Rapha. I can only presume it is going to be added to as they get more sponsors though?

Could certainly have been worse

don't think there will be anymore sponsors being added. Going to be a warm kit in the summer, ask cervelo.

SACH Central

They've got a super snazzy website, the best I've seen:

http://www.teamsky.com

Zipp101

JAGUAR team cars :eek:

Junior

Zipp101 wrote: »

JAGUAR team cars :eek:

Best of British old chap after all !

RobFowl

Zipp101 wrote: »

JAGUAR team cars :eek:

Last time I saw that ..................................

Ciaran Power, Mark Scanlon, Bradley Wiggins, Max Sciandri (and many others) were shafted completely.
Hope its not a bad omen

Raam

I like it.

dexty

Have to say I liked the kit too. I suppose they had to move away from the previous union jack type stripe to appeal to a wider audience plus with the multiple nationalities in the team. B Hagen looks a good addition, I'd say a few teams were after him.
Big sponsorship by sky. How much would it cost to run a team like that a year £5m?, £10m???

Nice bikes too!

Bikerbhoy

RobFowl wrote: »

Last time I saw that ..................................

Ciaran Power, Mark Scanlon, Bradley Wiggins, Max Sciandri (and many others) were shafted completely.
Hope its not a bad omen

Rob......What year was that ?

ednwireland

dexty wrote: »

Big sponsorship by sky. How much would it cost to run a team like that a year £5m?, £10m???

Nice bikes too!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/cycling/6927976/Producing-British-Tour-de-France-winner-within-five-years-is-cyclings-biggest-test.html?

£35 million for the first year :eek:

But it's not just about the bike, nor indeed the rider. The quest to produce our own Tour winner is being launched in the teeth of a fierce recession and there will be no change out of £35 million in the first year which involves one-off start up costs and buying key riders out of existing contracts

nice team cars though

Slideshowbob

What's with the fascination with a British team with no Irish riders!

I'd rather follow AG2R, Cervelo and Garmin - Come on the Irish - Suas an bothair!

Ryaner

ednwireland wrote: »

£35 million for the first year :eek:

It *must* be possible to do it cheaper. There is no way Cervelo would be able to afford that kind of money.

SACH Central

Ryaner wrote: »

It *must* be possible to do it cheaper. There is no way Cervelo would be able to afford that kind of money.

I think the Cervelo budget was €14 million. There again they didn't 'tap up' any riders. I'm sure it must have cost a fortune to buy out Wiggins & Ben Swift from their contracts. Boassen Hagen must have cost a fortune too. I think Garmin have the lowest budget of any 'top flight' (pro continental/pro tour) team €4 million.

Home:Ballyhoura

Where does the huge differences in budgets go? I mean for €39 million (£35m), to €14 million to as low as €4 million? By no means is Garmins budget low but there is just such a difference. Surely slightly nicer/more expensive bikes, team cars, flights, accomodation, staff, wages etc cannot account for that much (what else have they to pay for, ProTour licence, what else major have if forgotten or left out). How much do these special doctors cost these days anyway (not implying Sky/Cervelo are up to anything, its just I like Garmin and feel most confident in them being a 100% clean team - this bit off topic I know, sorry! :rolleyes:).

petethedrummer

As long as this doesn't mean that Sky buy up the rights to the big cycle races next year. I'm not forking out for a subscription.

It can't be that they're spending all this money for exposure on Eurosport can it?

Junior

And yes they are black socks..

Lumen

SACH Central wrote: »

I'm sure it must have cost a fortune to buy out Wiggins & Ben Swift from their contracts.

From here:

David Millar wrote:

We like Brad, and we had good fun, but they just threw ****loads of money at him.

niceonetom

petethedrummer wrote: »

As long as this doesn't mean that Sky buy up the rights to the big cycle races next year. I'm not forking out for a subscription.

It can't be that they're spending all this money for exposure on Eurosport can it?

My thoughts exactly. I can see no reason my Rupert would put money into a sport he doesn't own unless he plans to buy it.

I've no idea what eurosport pay for the rights to show the tdf but I presume it's chickenfeed compared to the football money bskyb are used to throwing around. The ASO and UCI would, I bet, love to see another bidder in the game and if teamsky get a profile even equal to what the trackies got at the last olympics it will make a lot of sense for the chequebook to come out.

Naff kit (plain black shorts ffs - I thought it would be more like the sky skinsuits which I actually like), and an omen of subscriptions to come: edited highlights of the tdf on SkySports7 with commentary by the guy who used to do the ice-hockey. Great.

Turbulent Bill

niceonetom wrote: »

My thoughts exactly. I can see no reason my Rupert would put money into a sport he doesn't own unless he plans to buy it.

I've no idea what eurosport pay for the rights to show the tdf but I presume it's chickenfeed compared to the football money bskyb are used to throwing around. The ASO and UCI would, I bet, love to see another bidder in the game and if teamsky get a profile even equal to what the trackies got at the last olympics it will make a lot of sense for the chequebook to come out.

Naff kit (plain black shorts ffs - I thought it would be more like the sky skinsuits which I actually like), and an omen of subscriptions to come: edited highlights of the tdf on SkySports7 with commentary by the guy who used to do the ice-hockey. Great.

I don't think Sky will hoard the broadcast rights. The team after all is just a marketing tool for the company, and it makes no sense just to show it to existing subscribers. Unlike football, cycling isn't a popular enough sport here or in the UK for people to sign up just to see it. Murdoch ploughed money into football because he knew people would pay to watch.

That might change, however, if the team is very successful and becomes must-see TV for the general public.

JacksonHeightsOwn

Turbulent Bill wrote: »

I don't think Sky will hoard the broadcast rights. The team after all is just a marketing tool for the company, and it makes no sense just to show it to existing subscribers. Unlike football, cycling isn't a popular enough sport here or in the UK for people to sign up just to see it. Murdoch ploughed money into football because he knew people would pay to watch.

That might change, however, if the team is very successful and becomes must-see TV for the general public.

to be fair to sky, they give alot of coverage to whichever sport they`re involved in

look at Darts for instance, you`re looking at a bunch of fat beer bellied ugly men earning up to a million a year, all thanks to Sky

funnily enough, it never dawned on me that Sky might bid for the coverage of cycling races this year, but when i read it, it seems logical, in fact, it seems rather thick for them NOT to get the them

im not a big fan of skys punditry ona ny of their sports, but their coverage is second to none,

and i can only imagine alot more people watch sky then they do eurosport

my guess is sky will buy the rights

niceonetom

Turbulent Bill wrote: »

Unlike football, cycling isn't a popular enough sport here or in the UK for people to sign up just to see it. Murdoch ploughed money into football because he knew people would pay to watch.

That might change, however, if the team is very successful and becomes must-see TV for the general public.

I don't think there needs to be a huge proportion of the general public to make buying up the rights profitable to rupert. A small percentage of the public can, if obsessive enough about their sport, be very profitable, especially if the tv rights can be bought cheaply. Sky bought up a load of poker championships on the principle that niches interests can sell subscriptions.

I hope I'm wrong though.

JacksonHeightsOwn

niceonetom wrote: »

I don't think there needs to be a huge proportion of the general public to make buying up the rights profitable to rupert. A small percentage of the public can, if obsessive enough about their sport, be very profitable, especially if the tv rights can be bought cheaply. Sky bought up a load of poker championships on the principle that niches interests can sell subscriptions.

I hope I'm wrong though.

is right, and one thing the british do, that possibly we dont, is support there sports stars, i actually hope they do get it,

the only thing im not lookign forward to, if they do, is there mickey mouse andy Grey statistics

imagine andy grey, "know, if Bradley just upped his cadence by 5rpm, he`d go faster"

no andy, never, are you serious????

Turbulent Bill

niceonetom wrote: »

I don't think there needs to be a huge proportion of the general public to make buying up the rights profitable to rupert. A small percentage of the public can, if obsessive enough about their sport, be very profitable, especially if the tv rights can be bought cheaply. Sky bought up a load of poker championships on the principle that niches interests can sell subscriptions.

I hope I'm wrong though.

Fair point, it'll be interesting to see how much they push the team for advertising. Poker isn't really promoted by Sky, but there's definitely a bigger push with the cycle team.

chrisbonnie wrote: »

is right, and one thing the british do, that possibly we dont, is support there sports stars, i actually hope they do get it,

the only thing im not lookign forward to, if they do, is there mickey mouse andy Grey statistics

imagine andy grey, "know, if Bradley just upped his cadence by 5rpm, he`d go faster"

no andy, never, are you serious????

I have horrible visions of Jamie Redknapp in his shiny suit - "It's all about the gear ratios, innit?"

Chips Lovell

Soon your TDF coverage could be just like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF_uOgyBK1c

calerbass

i cant see wiggins doing as good with team sky, as he might have with garmin, he should have stayed where he was, does nt have the riders to bring him up the mountains and deliver him to the line. Tactics will be much different this time with armstrong's radioshack.

RobFowl

Bikerbhoy wrote: »

Rob......What year was that ?

2001
Julian Clarke announced Jaguar and Jacobs creek as sponsors and printed the gear up. Turns out Jacobs creek were only on board for the TDU and Jaguar threatened to sue if he kept on using theeir name. The team went belly up in February leaving lots of riders without a team

JacksonHeightsOwn

I have horrible visions of Jamie Redknapp in his shiny suit - "It's all about the gear ratios, innit?"

jesus, could you imagine it, then throw in monkey hands Keys and Grand Slam Sunday becomes GRAND SLAM GRAND TOUR with montage a plenty

Mr. Presentable

If SKY do for cycling's profile what they did for football, then it can only be a good thing.

godihatethehils

nipplenuts wrote: »

If SKY do for cycling's profile what they did for football, then it can only be a good thing.

I agree.

However I think a lot of other people are attracted to the niche market aspect of cycling. Hence why they dislike Lance and the way he's raised its profile and they can't say anything good about something like the Roches appearing on the Late Late & so on....

A lot of people are going to get put out if cycling starts to become mainstream and popular because they like the fact that's is a small, niche market sport which a lot of people don't get.

Junior

godihatethehils wrote: »

I agree.

However I think a lot of other people are attracted to the niche market aspect of cycling. Hence why they dislike Lance and the way he's raised its profile and they can't say anything good about something like the Roches appearing on the Late Late & so on....

A lot of people are going to get put out if cycling starts to become mainstream and popular because they like the fact that's is a small, niche market sport which a lot of people don't get.

No people dislike Lance because he's raised the profile of himself as being the sport, when he's not.

Slideshowbob

godihatethehils wrote: »

I agree.

However I think a lot of other people are attracted to the niche market aspect of cycling. Hence why they dislike Lance and the way he's raised its profile and they can't say anything good about something like the Roches appearing on the Late Late & so on....

A lot of people are going to get put out if cycling starts to become mainstream and popular because they like the fact that's is a small, niche market sport which a lot of people don't get.

that's a load of rubbish quite frankly.

Anyone that wouldn't like the sport to be more mainstream is illogical. Going by the law of averages - more people cycling would result in more Irish professional cyclists down the road which could only be a good thing for the sport in Ireland.

Can you name someone / some group that enjoys the fact that the sport is 'niche'?

ROK ON

@slideshow. You ask do you know of people who liked a niche sport. In fact I know many and am one myself.
In my case I detest the way rugby has tried to cater to populist johnny come lately. The rules have been changed beyond all recognition to largely cater to Sky or Fox.
Local club rugby is dying as everything is now about Munster/Leinster in this country and their contemporaries abroadm
Not all of this is Skys making but some of it is.

I know it may seem illogical but I know that I am not the only rugby fan that hates the way the game us going.it would be a shame for cycling to lose its culture anx authenticity just to pander to the crowd.
Sport is an important part of a societies culture and while things change for the better not all change is progress. Tuppence worth fwiw.

andun84

Are TdF broadcast rights not always free to air in Europe?

petethedrummer

nipplenuts wrote: »

If SKY do for cycling's profile what they did for football, then it can only be a good thing.

God I hope that doesn't happen. Talk of premiership at lunch time makes me want to shoot small animals even though I really like playing it. I like the cycling coverage on Eurosport as it is when Sean is co-commentating. Sky can't do understated, they'd get some jumped up w@nker who doesn't know when to shut-up instead.

Bikerbhoy

RobFowl wrote: »

2001
Julian Clarke announced Jaguar and Jacobs creek as sponsors and printed the gear up. Turns out Jacobs creek were only on board for the TDU and Jaguar threatened to sue if he kept on using theeir name. The team went belly up in February leaving lots of riders without a team

Jaysus that happened poor oul Ciaran a couple of times so... wasnt he on the Linda McCartney team when they went belly up too

emtroche

Bikerbhoy wrote: »

Jaysus that happened poor oul Ciaran a couple of times so... wasnt he on the Linda McCartney team when they went belly up too

He surely was. Messed up a lot of people.

Heres a great read about the team
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Team-Run-McCartney-Cycling-Mainstream/dp/1840187824

godihatethehils

andun84 wrote: »

Are TdF broadcast rights not always free to air in Europe?

No

andun84

http://www.sportbusiness.com/news/167417/ebu-agree-new-deal-tour-de-france-rights

Well the EBU has the free to air broadcast rights in Europe so what do these cover and can subscription only broadcasters (which Sky Sports is) in a member country shut out these free to air rights if they sign a direct commercial contract with ASO, that is if the terms of the contract with the EBU doesn't preclude it?

ednwireland

Slideshowbob wrote: »

that's a load of rubbish quite frankly.

Anyone that wouldn't like the sport to be more mainstream is illogical. Going by the law of averages - more people cycling would result in more Irish professional cyclists down the road which could only be a good thing for the sport in Ireland.

Can you name someone / some group that enjoys the fact that the sport is 'niche'?

rugby league has suffered in the uk since sky bought it and moved it to th esummer (To fill there channels in the summer) being from eddie waring country i cant see any good its done the sport in the long term
i guessing more coverage of the uk events but europe will pretty much ignore team sky.

i would guess a complete buy out of european racing rights for uk tv is on the cards when the rights come up.

i for one will not be buying a sky subscription to watch it.

Zipp101

Professional Cycling is getting a bit commercial alright.Teams like Garmin,Cervelo,Columbia and now Sky and Radioshack have revolutionised the sport,which has been great....for them.

On the other end of the scale there are the smaller teams like Bouygues Telecom,Cofidis and Lampre perhaps more content with getting on with the racing than the press.These smaller teams are literally being pushed aside to make way for the money-spinners (pun very much intended).

The once charming thing about cycling: Riders scrambling to make a living,training 7 days a week in all conditions,getting paid next to nothing,living in squaller,pushing their bodies over their natural limits,sacrificing everything to live out their dreams and therefore becoming heroes. That's Sport! (Very few top level cyclists endure this anymore)

Anyone who's watched the Cervelo TestTeam videos will agree that they basically live like Kings'.Not saying they don't work hard it just aint what it used to be.

emtroche

Zipp101 wrote: »

The once charming thing about cycling: Riders scrambling to make a living,training 7 days a week in all conditions,getting paid next to nothing,living in squaller,pushing their bodies over their natural limits,sacrificing everything to live out their dreams and therefore becoming heroes. That's Sport! (Very few top level cyclists endure this anymore)

And look at the culture this led to. I for one am glad that type of lifestyle is on the way out.

fran oconnor

Zipp101 wrote: »

Professional Cycling is getting a bit commercial alright.Teams like Garmin,Cervelo,Columbia and now Sky and Radioshack have revolutionised the sport,which has been great....for them.

On the other end of the scale there are the smaller teams like Bouygues Telecom,Cofidis and Lampre perhaps more content with getting on with the racing than the press.These smaller teams are literally being pushed aside to make way for the money-spinners (pun very much intended).

The once charming thing about cycling: Riders scrambling to make a living,training 7 days a week in all conditions,getting paid next to nothing,living in squaller,pushing their bodies over their natural limits,sacrificing everything to live out their dreams and therefore becoming heroes. That's Sport! (Very few top level cyclists endure this anymore)

Anyone who's watched the Cervelo TestTeam videos will agree that they basically live live Kings'.Not saying they don't work hard it just aint what it used to be.

i fully understand where your coming from,but if footballers and the like can get mad amounts of money,i think cyclists more than deserve the money they get..

leftism

For all those who won't be able to afford the Sky subscription for the 2010 tour:

Rothar = Bicycle

Barr an chnoic = Top of the mountain

Drugai = Drugs


TG4 ABU!!!!!!!!!!!!!