So, How Much Do PRO Cyclists Make?

TheBlaaMan

I've often wondered where the money comes from and goes to in ProCycling (lets not decend into costs of doping, please.. ) and found a few articles that might be of interest. Most from here


2010 figures

The minimum salary for a Pro Tour rider is €35,000. A good domestique will make between €40k-€100k per year. A very good domestique (perhaps a lead-out man) will make between €100k-€200k.

• If a ProTour rider wins a stage in the Tour de France (and nothing else) he will be able to negotiate a salary of around €150k for the next season.
• If a rider wins a stage of the Giro or Vuelta he might be able to negotiate just over the €100k mark, but not much more.
• Winning a major Classic (Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, Amstel Gold, etc) is a bigger deal than a Grand Tour stage win. If a rider wins one of the Classics he’ll be able to negotiate over €200k.
• A rider with a good mix of placings and wins in the major races can make anywhere between €300k and €600k+.
• Guys like Cadel, Cancellara, the Schlecks, and Cavendish are making anywhere between €1M – €3M.

The minimum wage for a Pro Continental rider is €27,500 (€23,000 for new riders). Usually one or two riders on Pro Conti teams are paid well. Perhaps €150k per year, but that’s the limit. The rest are making much less while working their guts out for that big win.

Continental teams have no minimum salary requirements. Many Continental teams pay their riders nothing.

Official details from the ASO for the 2010 Tour de France are here (in French) and include prize money details (on pages 19-25, with English captions) for all positions on stages, GC etc.

GC prize money is generally distributed to the team rather than retained by the cyclist, who benefits in future endorsements etc.


I also read somewhere (but cannot relocate it right now) that the prize money for the GC winner on the Tour of Qatar was as little as €9000. This compares to €300,000 for the winner of the similar length Golf tournament in the same country.

seamus

The only thing is, when you consider that they effectively have all of their cycling needs paid for (bikes, parts, clothing, nutrition, mechanics) and all they have to do is cycle 7 days a week, the minimum salary is not that bad a deal at all.

However, you also have to consider that it's a career with a very limited lifespan and the training requirements are on par with those of a premier league footballer, who can earn that much in a week, never mind a year.

The very top guys appear to make excellent money, but there are what, 20 or 30 of those, compared to a few hundred elite athletes in many other disciplines.

It's kind of disheartening in this country that we pump more money into the likes of horse and greyhound racing than we do into the entire sports budget.

Beasty

Interesting to compare and contrast - Cavendish has a basic salary well in excess of €1m. Hoy, before the Sky deal, was on a Sports Council grant of £24k (but at least has a few Olympic medals he can sell-off to fund his retirement:rolleyes:)

victorcarrera

seamus wrote: »

The very top guys appear to make excellent money, but there are what, 20 or 30 of those, compared to a few hundred elite athletes in many other disciplines.

It's kind of disheartening in this country that we pump more money into the likes of horse and greyhound racing than we do into the entire sports budget.

Cycling is a minority sport in Ireland and you can't charge people standing on the side of the road for watching it. For this reason it will always be the comparatively poor relation. Of course this is not all bad news because I think the amateur scene here is relatively clean for now.
The membership figures are interesting though.
Cycling Ireland = 6,500.
GAA = 1,000,000.
And I would guess that the support base of both are multiples of these.

kennyb3

seamus wrote: »

It's kind of disheartening in this country that we pump more money into the likes of horse and greyhound racing than we do into the entire sports budget.

Surely thats because of the return it provides, the amount of employment it generates and because its one of the few things we are world leaders in?

Cookie_Monster

victorcarrera wrote: »

Cycling Ireland = 6,500.
GAA = 1,000,000.
And I would guess that the support base of both are multiples of these.

the problem with comparing those is GAA is well organised and all clubs are registered with not a huge amount outside of them as such. Cycling is much more personal and I'm sure there are 10,000s of people who just go out and have no interest in joining clubs or cycling Ireland and so you won't see the reflection of that.

Me for example, I have no intention of joining either this year apart form the minimum needed to do the w200, I prefer cycling by myself or with a group of friends.

seamus

victorcarrera wrote: »

Cycling is a minority sport in Ireland
....
Cycling Ireland = 6,500.
GAA = 1,000,000.

Agreed completely, I am referring to investment in sport as a whole in Ireland. It would seem to me that the number of jobs in sport in this country is very small, primarily because the money simply isn't there. Most (if not all) of our sporting infrastructure is completely reliant on volunteers to be sustainable - teachers doing extra-curriculur activities, people voluntarily running clubs and so forth. If money could be provided to even properly fund the facilities, then it frees up more money for jobs.
As it is, sport is seen as a hobby in this country. Very few people see the sporting industry as a place where one can have a career. It's something you do as a kid and aspire to be a star, but then you turn 18, get real and drop the sports.
Many people are probably even unaware that any jobs exist in the sporting industry (obviously not including things like gambling and horse/dog racing).

kennyb3 wrote: »

Surely thats because of the return it provides, the amount of employment it generates and because its one of the few things we are world leaders in?

But they've said that their industries will collapse if the funding is removed. If it provided such a great return, it wouldn't need so much funding. Tbh, it could be argued that we are world leaders and have a lot of employment in this area because we throw so much money at the industry.
One could argue that putting serious funding into sports could generate plenty of jobs, plenty of world-beating athletes and overall investment and encouragement of sports involvement would improve the health of the country as a whole.

I'm not saying "cut the racing budget, give it to sports", simply pointing out that the two "sports" of horse and dog racing receive more funding every year than all of the other sports put together. And then we wonder why we have an increasingly obese population with growing drink and gambling problems.

Lumen

seamus wrote: »

I'm not saying "cut the racing budget, give it to sports", simply pointing out that the two "sports" of horse and dog racing receive more funding every year than all of the other sports put together.

The fact that the default meaning of "racing" in Ireland is "horse racing" says it all

ryan_sherlock

seamus wrote: »

The only thing is, when you consider that they effectively have all of their cycling needs paid for (bikes, parts, clothing, nutrition, mechanics) and all they have to do is cycle 7 days a week, the minimum salary is not that bad a deal at all.

Working as a software consultant - the company I work for provides me with a laptop and Internet - when I look at it like that, I'm paid really well!

lol - all they have to do is cycle 7 days a week. BELIEVE ME, cycling 7 days a week (properly, not tootling around - and everything around that, massage, rest, eating, constantly living like a monk) is a lot harder than my software consultant job!

I remember how easy it was before I cycled, when I just worked!

[having said all the above, I do love cycling ]

Diarmuid

victorcarrera wrote: »

Cycling Ireland = 6,500.
GAA = 1,000,000.
And I would guess that the support base of both are multiples of these.

While I agree with the thrust of your argument, I find it very hard to believe that there are 1 million paid up GAA members in Ireland.

ryan_sherlock

Diarmuid wrote: »

While I agree with the thrust of your argument, I find it very hard to believe that there are 1 million paid up GAA members in Ireland.

I find that hard to believe too - to the best of my knowledge, I don't know anyone over the 1,000s(?) of acquaintances I have...

seamus

ryan_sherlock wrote: »

Working as a software consultant - the company I work for provides me with a laptop and Internet - when I look at it like that, I'm paid really well!

To be fair, I didn't say "paid really well", I just said "not that bad a deal"

For the amateur cyclist aspiring for top-level competition, I imagine the largest barriers in the way are the need to have a day job to put a roof over your head and the general cost of equipment. €35k, while not exactly throwing around money, plus having all your bike-related costs paid for, removes these two big barriers from your life and gives a relatively respectable level of pay for the boring things like kids and spouses

As I say though, it's a 24/7 job that can't just be forgotten about when you get home in the evening. Everything you do in your life is geared towards improving your performance. Coupled with the fact that you will eventually have to give up well before retirment age, €35k is not a great place to be if you never get off the bottom rung.

sean_d

€35k is the minimum salary for ProTour riders, which is by no means near the bottom rung of the ladder - it's pretty high up in cycling terms!
There's thousands more professional cyclists earning much (much) less than that.

High Nellie

ryan_sherlock wrote: »

BELIEVE ME, cycling 7 days a week (properly, not tootling around - and everything around that, massage, rest, eating, constantly living like a monk) is a lot harder than my software consultant job!

I remember how easy it was before I cycled, when I just worked!

[having said all the above, I do love cycling ]

One thing which bugs me about the GAA is the endless moaning / self-congratulation about 'THE SACRAFICE' and the subtext that someone, somewhere, owes them something for 'the sacrafice'. While not claiming that any one sport is better than another, I don't think there is a full understanding in some GAA quarters what is involved in becoming a truely elite athlete.
I really admire true 'elite' athletes who put their lives on hold to get to the best they can be. I don't understand the carding system in this regard - e.g. while well-paid professionals get grants while very promising riders often don't get any support. Those that get to the professional level will already have had a big investement made in their development ..............

daveconn10

20th Place in the tour is €950!!!!!!!! :eek:

RobFowl

seamus wrote: »

To be fair, I didn't say "paid really well", I just said "not that bad a deal"

sean_d wrote: »

€35k is the minimum salary for ProTour riders, which is by no means near the bottom rung of the ladder - it's pretty high up in cycling terms!
There's thousands more professional cyclists earning much (much) less than that.

There are just over 500 riders in protour teams. Bear in mind that the protour level is the World's "elite level"
There are over 600 pros in the English premiership alone where 35k a week is the norm.

There are also about 12000 other cyclists riding at pro conti, conti or similar. (thats made up of active riders who've scored points in UCI ranked races so could be seen as an underestimation).

Cycling is a hard sport and to get to the level where you are paid well is astoundingly difficult.......

pats22b

sorry about digging up the old thread but came across this today http://www.skysports.com/cycling/news/21683/9914043/just-how-much-do-chris-froome-and-the-rest-of-the-peloton-earn


- seems like there has been some serious wage inflation in the past few years!!- not that i don't think they work for it btw...more power to them

ZiabR

I may be way off the mark here but Carlton and Sean mentioned that Sagan's move to Tinkoff cost in the region of 4 million.

EDIT - Sagan's salary was reported last week to be 3.3 million a year.

ZiabR

A quick check online and I can see that many of the GC guys are in excess of 4 million a year. Froome is on 4.2-4.5 million a year. Cavendish is on 3 million a year. Bertie took a pay cut to help the team in 2013 but is still on in the region od 3.3-3.5 million.

Plenty of money in cycling if you are good.

I think Nico Roche is on in the region of 150k a year.

Beasty

Are those salaries, or do they include sponsorship deals (really cannot see teams being able to afford that sort of money)? Either way those guys are very much the exception - the figure for Nico looks realistic, but I can't imagine many guys in the peloton earn anywhere near enough to live off once they retire from pro cycling

omri

Beasty wrote: »

Are those salaries, or do they include sponsorship deals (really cannot see teams being able to afford that sort of money)? Either way those guys are very much the exception - the figure for Nico looks realistic, but I can't imagine many guys in the peloton earn anywhere near enough to live off once they retire from pro cycling

They're on around €30k apparently so no crazy cash amongst them.

Zzippy

logik wrote: »

A quick check online and I can see that many of the GC guys are in excess of 4 million a year. Froome is on 4.2-4.5 million a year. Cavendish is on 3 million a year. Bertie took a pay cut to help the team in 2013 but is still on in the region od 3.3-3.5 million.

Plenty of money in cycling if you are good.

I think Nico Roche is on in the region of 150k a year.

Going on the article posted just before your post, I'd imagine Nico is on a lot more than that

on_the_nickel

logik wrote: »

I think Nico Roche is on in the region of 150k a year.

Sky's super-domestiques (though Roche's status as a super dom must be questioned given his input to this year's tour) earn north of £650k.

ZiabR

Beasty wrote: »

Are those salaries, or do they include sponsorship deals (really cannot see teams being able to afford that sort of money)? Either way those guys are very much the exception - the figure for Nico looks realistic, but I can't imagine many guys in the peloton earn anywhere near enough to live off once they retire from pro cycling

Seems that these are infact salaries alright. Oleg is trying to lower Sagan's salary at the moment sighting poor performance.

derealbadger

Sagan is so good that Oleg pays him by the second

omri

derealbadger wrote: »

Sagan is so good that Oleg pays him by the second

If I was in Sagans boots and had an assh##e boss like Tinkoff I would take that 3.3m and enjoy my 2nd places

YeahOK

Diarmuid wrote: »

While I agree with the thrust of your argument, I find it very hard to believe that there are 1 million paid up GAA members in Ireland.

500K in 2014 accoridnt to their website;

http://www.gaa.ie/clubzone/club-info/membership/

gordongekko

derealbadger wrote: »

Sagan is so good that Oleg pays him by the second

how long were you waiting for the chance to say that?

derealbadger

gordongekko wrote: »

how long were you waiting for the chance to say that?

A second

Unknown Soldier

http://espn.go.com/golf/player/_/id/3470/rory-mcilroy

235,316 for ninth.

Ninth!

eeeee

Unknown Soldier wrote: »

http://espn.go.com/golf/player/_/id/3470/rory-mcilroy

235,316 for ninth.

Ninth!

Yeah but you have to play golf. Golf. *shudder*

godtabh

Didnt Oleg tweet Roches salary last year. Thought it was €1m?

el tel

I was pleasantly surprised to see that Sam Bennett earns enough to live in Monaco which I thought was the preserve of multi millionaires only.

G1032

Unknown Soldier wrote: »

http://espn.go.com/golf/player/_/id/3470/rory-mcilroy

235,316 for ninth.

Ninth!

Nice work if you can get it!!

godtabh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xis1_1_Bfgg

Worth watching

Brian?

el tel wrote: »

I was pleasantly surprised to see that Sam Bennett earns enough to live in Monaco which I thought was the preserve of multi millionaires only.

I think he lives in apartment owned by the team.

Lusk_Doyle

el tel wrote: »

I was pleasantly surprised to see that Sam Bennett earns enough to live in Monaco which I thought was the preserve of multi millionaires only.

Ah yeah but sure he shops in the local Aldi there. Thursday deals on cycling kit and he is all over it.

jntsnk

How about the lower ranks, Sean Kelly team for instance, no pay ? just bikes, food accommodation ?

odyssey06

Mikel Landa being offered in the region of €1.2 to €1.5 million per year by Sky and Movistar...

Beasty

jntsnk wrote: »

How about the lower ranks, Sean Kelly team for instance, no pay ? just bikes, food accommodation ?

If anyone pushed it I am sure some of those guys could successfully claim they should be paid the minimum wage - suspect no-one will though as there's every chance it would put their employer out of business

godtabh

Beasty wrote: »

If anyone pushed it I am sure some of those guys could successfully claim they should be paid the minimum wage - suspect no-one will though as there's every chance it would put their employer out of business

I cant remember where I read it (probably sticky Bottle) but I think the lads on the SK team are given walking around money. I doubt it was much