Getting paid €4 million a year to ride a bike, yeah, you push as hard as you can for as long as you can, and oh yeah defiantly train like your job depends on it.
Not at all surprising. If you’re among the best in the world in anything you’re going to get paid.
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It’s interesting how little (relatively speaking) they make compared to the highest paid NBA, NFL, and soccer stars.
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Those sport organizations actually make LOTS of money. 
It’s also interesting how quickly salaries fall off below the top guys. Don’t Neo-pros typically make like under $50k?
For comparison, the NFL has ~1600 active players and the AVERAGE salary is $2.8 million, i.e. what Remco makes as one of the very best riders in the world.
Those are salaries from their team only. The smart guys also have other businesses and essentially NIL stuff. Van der Poel and all his endorsements have to be worth at least what he is making from his team, I mean the guy owns his own (very legit) nutrition company
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Despite their side gigs, it’s still pocket change compared to other sports. Messi’s contract is for around $50M/year plus he has his side gigs.
Cycling’s problem seems to be the lack of a stadium. There’s no home turf for fans to bond with. And there is little identity. Riders ride under helmets and behind glasses so we barely know what they look like in real life these days. They change teams every few years. They have no name on the back of their jersey.
Teams also have little power or lasting equity. They are often one big sponsor loss away from insolvency. When a team folds, all they own is some bikes and a few vehicles.
And ASO seems to rake in most of the money…
Well I mean nobody makes Messi money, also I’m pretty sure he gets north of $200 million/year these days or that’s about what he was getting at Barcelona. That’s probably not the fairest comparison for anyone. Like “Lebron only makes $90 million/year, that’s not Messi money, the NBA really has a ways to go” probably not.
ASO and UCI are the problem IMHO. The way they run things would never fly in the US, but the crown of tradition lies heavy in Europe.
And just think of how rich the people are that write the checks for Messi & Lebron. 
Thats the mean. The median NFL salary is $860 K–still a lot, and still a lot more than pro cyclist, but always important not to conflate “average (statistical mean” with “typical”.
This was permanently drilled into me in grad school statistics, when in the first lecture slide said something like “The UNC Deparment of Geography is one of the best in the country. The average annual income for someone with an undergraduate degree from the department received n the past 15 years (this was early 90’s) is over $5 million.”
UNC does have an outstanding geography program, but their graduates are well prepared for success in a wiide range of endeavors
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When I googled, articles said that Messi’s contract was $150M over 3 years, so $50M/year.
It just seems that pro athletes cyclists get the short end of the stick. Teams also build no equity and are also losers in this game. Race promotors sell the TV rights and rake most of the cash in. ASO is privately held so you can’t even know how lucrative their deals are.
Admittedly we are way off topic but Messi made $674 million over 4 years at Barcelona. Market determines worth
Their salaries are largely a function of the sports ability to generate advertising revenue. No, not to sell bike equipment, but general consumer products to general consumers. Watch a NFL game and you see commercials for beer, automobiles, fast food, etc. Not many people even watch cycling, especially in USA, which is one of the largest consumer markets in the world
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The NFL, NBA and many of the top soccer leagues bring in wayyyyyyy more money than cycling does. Simple economics.
The NFL minimum salary is so high because NFL teams are worth BILLIONS of dollars. Espn, NBC, CBS etc. pay billions to show games. It’s simple economics. I love cycling and follow it way more than the average American but it’s not surprising at all why they make substantially less money. Cycling is a niche sport no matter how much we love it. Football, basketball, futbol and even hockey are mainstream sports that bring in tons of revenue
Good point. Watch the tour and the advertisements are for small companies. All of the biggest networks in the world ESPN, NBC, CBS and even Amazon are all bidding billions of dollars for the right to show football, basketball and soccer. Throw formula 1 in there too
As mentioned they get an enormous amount of money from TV but they also have a players union fighting for a fair piece of the pie.
More importantly, the teams (through the leagues they form) get the television revenue. In cycling, the television revenue goes to the organizers. In turn, the organizers don’t share it with the riders.
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They deserve every penny good luck to them
Cycling salaries are doo-doo. Worst guy in the nba that never plays one game makes 1.1M
Interested to see what happens to Roglic with that redbull money
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