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RIP Sky Train
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According to the BBC...Sky to exit Cycling....RIP Sky train...




https://www.bbc.com/sport/46535894
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Re: RIP Sky Train [Zulu] [ In reply to ]
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WHat company would have the money and desire to take over that sponsor ship?
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Re: RIP Sky Train [Zulu] [ In reply to ]
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Not that surprising, there has been a lot of negative publicity in the last couple of years despite all the on-road success. Think in the current climate they're going to struggle to find another sponsor prepared to fund at the levels they're used to. And they've got a pretty expensive roster with the likes of Froome, Thomas and Bernal being signed to quite long term deals.

I guess at least with a year's notice there is time for riders to look for new contracts (assuming Brailsford can't find the funding to continue the team). On the plus side, if he's still going strong in 2020 it would be fascinating to see what Froome is capable of without the Sky train. A Froome in his twilight years who has to fend for himself and take more risks could just help improve his popularity in a similar way to Contador's last few years.
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Re: RIP Sky Train [cartsman] [ In reply to ]
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.. US cable giant Comcast completed a £30bn takeover of Sky earlier this year ..

*
___/\___/\___/\___
the s u r f b o a r d of the K u r p f a l z is the r o a d b i k e .. oSo >>
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Re: RIP Sky Train [sausskross] [ In reply to ]
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sausskross wrote:
.. US cable giant Comcast completed a £30bn takeover of Sky earlier this year ..

Another reason to dislike Sky.

Seriously though, it would be nice if this forced cycling to adopt a better revenue model. Teams should get a portion of the TV revenue. There is to much disparity in team budgets and the number of companies that are willing and able to bankroll a team is probably shrinking.
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Re: RIP Sky Train [Zulu] [ In reply to ]
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Money comes and money goes in the sport.....McLaren boosts Bahrain Merida
https://www.bbc.com/sport/cycling/46536013
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Re: RIP Sky Train [lassekk] [ In reply to ]
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lassekk wrote:
WHat company would have the money and desire to take over that sponsor ship?


<pink>

Didn't Lance made 10 billion on Uber

or

maybe the current Ironman world champion </pink> (Prince of Bahrain)
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Re: RIP Sky Train [marcag] [ In reply to ]
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marcag wrote:

maybe the current Ironman world champion </pink> (Prince of Bahrain)



There's no pink there. He funds the Bahrain-Merida team. They are certain to be competing for the Sky riders as they come off contract.
Last edited by: trail: Dec 12, 18 6:56
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Re: RIP Sky Train [trail] [ In reply to ]
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trail wrote:
marcag wrote:

maybe the current Ironman world champion </pink> (Prince of Bahrain)



There's no pink there. He funds the Bahrain-Merida team. They are certain to be competing for the Sky riders as they come off contract.

yes, I know. The pink was for "current Ironman world champion"
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Re: RIP Sky Train [marcag] [ In reply to ]
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marcag wrote:
yes, I know. The pink was for "current Ironman world champion"

Ah, gotcha.
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Re: RIP Sky Train [trail] [ In reply to ]
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I think he's talking about this champion :
http://m.gdnonline.com/...pion-in-his-category

Will this cutting ties influence broadcasting of the cycling? I mean, I assume sky is sky sport and that they amped up the coverage with thier boys dominating all day, not just tour De France but year round... That's less fun to broadcast when it's other sponsors

Its a shame that even after 10 years of prime sponsorship and top end racing without positives, it becomes another drug doubt story opportunity in the press. 10 years is a nice round number so could have been the original plan, and maybe the new sky investors aren't as big bike race enthusiasts.

Did the Sky article say someone signed a 5 year contract just in October? That would be an awful chain of events

What about British Rail? Do they have a team?
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Re: RIP Sky Train [lacticturkey] [ In reply to ]
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lacticturkey wrote:
Did the Sky article say someone signed a 5 year contract just in October? That would be an awful chain of events
Egan Bernal
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Re: RIP Sky Train [lassekk] [ In reply to ]
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Team Walmart! They would of course wear Rapha.

"It's good enough for who it's for" - Grandpa Wayne
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Re: RIP Sky Train [cartsman] [ In reply to ]
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cartsman wrote:
Not that surprising, there has been a lot of negative publicity in the last couple of years despite all the on-road success.

Yes, because Comcast cares so much about negative publiccity.
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Re: RIP Sky Train [lacticturkey] [ In reply to ]
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lacticturkey wrote:
coverage with thier boys dominating all day, not just tour De France but year round...

Dominate year round? Not the cobbled classics or Ardenne classics. So the spring is out. Not the fall classics. Not the WC or Olympic RR. Wiggins and Froome do well in TT when they care. Other than that it's Grand Tours and GT tuneup stage races.
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Re: RIP Sky Train [trail] [ In reply to ]
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trail- your my cycling guy here on ST.

Has the team picked up a new sponsor? Does the new sponsor have "deep" pockets too? I'm shocked I didn't hear of this earlier, although my checking in on cycling news has dropped the last 5 years. And in the "off season" I dont think I've looked at cyclingnews once since mid Oct.

Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II
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Re: RIP Sky Train [B_Doughtie] [ In reply to ]
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I don't know any more than what's on the cycling news sites. There appears to be no new title sponsor(s) yet. They didn't appear to have had much advance warning either.

I think they'll have a very hard time matching their Sky sponsorship $ which is way above market average. It was a lucrative setup.
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Re: RIP Sky Train [trail] [ In reply to ]
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Nevermind it says 2019. I was thinking for some reason it was ending like right now based on the OP's thread title.

The big names will be fine. Atleast the young big names. It's riders 19-23 (and the low level workers) who really get "pinched" if teams truly do fold completely.

Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II
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Re: RIP Sky Train [Zulu] [ In reply to ]
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Sky as a great team around them and sure they will be able to find a new title sponsor.
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Re: RIP Sky Train [Zulu] [ In reply to ]
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Zulu wrote:
Money comes and money goes in the sport.....McLaren boosts Bahrain Merida
https://www.bbc.com/sport/cycling/46536013

Interesting resource to have as a sponsor.
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Re: RIP Sky Train [cschroeder1994] [ In reply to ]
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I think it's likely the team sticks around in 2020 but it's extremely unlikely that Brailsford has a 35MM Euro budget to work with in 2020.

My opinions on this:
- Froome is a great GC rider but he has certainly benefited from having one of the greatest collection of domestiques ever assembled. Froome is not going to have million Euro guys getting him bottles anymore and his results will suffer.
- I'm uncertain of his contract terms, but it's likely that G Thomas is gone. Only a team with a massive budget can support both him and Froome. Someone is going to snap G up.
- Brailsford will pull out all the stops to keep Bernal. Bernal's on a five year contract but I think losing Sky as a sponsor puts him back in play. The guy is the future of GC and Brailsford is a Grand Tour GC guy. His top priority will be to keep Bernal.
- The Tour might actually become watchable again. One can only hope.
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Re: RIP Sky Train [hiro11] [ In reply to ]
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Yeah looking forward to the 2020 tour being a proper fair race and not the sky show.
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Re: RIP Sky Train [cschroeder1994] [ In reply to ]
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cschroeder1994 wrote:
Sky as a great team around them and sure they will be able to find a new title sponsor.


I would bet money against it. More cycling sponsors are leaving the sport than are coming in. Every year there are UCI level teams that are either desperately searching for a new sponsor, folding, or combining with other teams. Which then leaves room for minor sponsors or pro continental teams to step in. You never see headlines that the biggest teams get "bought out" by big sponsors in a bidding war because they are such great investments.

Factor in that Sky's budget is astronomical, they do have a few riders tied up long term, and that they are built with a very niche focus on Grand Tours. Not ever sponsor is going to find that appealing, especially when you consider national interests. Highly unlikely that a major company with strong roots and customer base in Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, or Germany are going to want to back Froome, Thomas, and Bernal as their poster boys.

My guess is that after 2019, Sky will be dismantled as they are today. Another team will step in, and the riders will get picked up. Very similar to what happened to Tinkoff.
Last edited by: Jason N: Dec 12, 18 18:16
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Re: RIP Sky Train [all] [ In reply to ]
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is it classics season yet?
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Re: RIP Sky Train [Jason N] [ In reply to ]
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I think Sky's search for a new sponsor is basically an unprecedented case and nobody really knows whether they'll find one willing to fund at the same level.

They're the most expensive team in the world, with a budget so much bigger than everyone else that it's produced a years-long call for some sort of (always ill-defined) cycling salary cap. They're also the best team in the world, and with not only Froome, Thomas, and Bernal, but also maybe the best collection of grand tour domestiques in the history of cycling, they have the tools to dominate grand tours for years to come.

If you step in as Sky's title sponsor, you're not buying a baseball team, you're buying the Yankees. And not just any Yankees team, but the 1920s era Murderers Row Yankees. Or the 1990s Chicago Bulls, or the 1980s Showtime Lakers.

The market for "strap your corporate logo on a basically guaranteed Tour de France winner" has to be a little different than the market for a regular world tour team.

But there are also good reasons to think there won't be a huge line of sponsors waiting their turn to pony up $40+ million for Brailsford. First, nobody else's budget is even close to Sky's. Anyone who might want to step in as the new Sky sponsor could have stepped in last year to sponsor some other team and spent $40 million (or $50 million or $60 million) to put together their own superteam to win the Tour. (They would have had to compete with Sky, but they could have tried and they didn't.) And Sky's press obviously hasn't been all positive, between the doping scandals and many cycling fans' antipathy toward Sky's predictable, race-strangling tactics.

This is uncharted waters, and, unless someone's in meetings with Brailsford, it seems impossible to know what this market looks like.
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