FWIW - L39ion is 3rd in US Crits and none of the riders seem to be in the top 5 … road-results.com - we wrangle data so you don't have to
(yes, I know they left the league) but some how everyone thinks they are unbeatable?
Actually I’m suprised they are listed as 3rd? I thought they won just about everything?
If anyting, L39gion is alot smarter about their marketing than the other teams, which is sort of what pro cycling needs in the US right now…
I agree with this. Their mission is to build the US cycling scene and to make cycling cool and exciting for young people who are currently outside of the sport. They do this by racing the format that they see as having the best chance of success in the US (crits) and by doing where they can have the most impact and outreach (in the states). If they switched to a Rally-like schedule they might become more exciting in the eyes of us bike fans but they would then never get put in front of that kid from LA who rides his bike to get around but has never thought of bike racing as a possible sport. That’s who they want to reach and they will get there by racing crits in cities across the country.
Unless they are able to go to Europe and mix it up with DQS in the classics and sprint finishes then they’ll never reach their target audience.
If you look at the race by race results they missed at least 3-4 of the series. Tyler Williams would almost certainly be in the top 5 if he didn’t have 3 zeros next to his name.
That’s part of the marketing. Make you victories super well known and publicized and then barely mention the failures. It seems to me that they rarely get 5-10th. They either win in a dominant fashion or they are way off the win.
Yup, the US definitely needs this. No one outside of cycling sees it as ‘cool’ and even if they did they are never going to get behind some team that is named after a flooring or home improvement company one year and then some health system the next. They need consistency and a cool factor to get behind.
Legion has sponsors not because they are winners but because they have established proper brand with values behind them that are highly desirable by consumer conscious brands. Sorry to say that but cycling is the niche sport along with other and without this properly and smartly managed brand no sponsor would care if legion was winning every race - because no one cares about cycling outside our cycling bubble. I wish that someday cycling would be on a level with other “strange” sports that become money magnets like golf or cricket but the years have passed by and still, it’s a niche sport and it always be.
We all love cycling but not even cyclists follow the professional or semi-professional stage. I completely agree with Legion and Rapha view on cycling’s pitfalls and how it can be improved. I think that when it comes to road cycling, crits have the most potential to gather a new audience - on the other hand, we have cyclocross and xc - very dynamic, interesting and quite similar from a viewer perspective that is still a niche. ASO in 2017 had €227 of revenue (and they have other things running than cycling) - that’s the level of English Rugby Union (not very popular sport worldwide) and Formula E Championship. Do not get me wrong, I would love to see cycling gain some recognition because it can be a fun sport to watch (especially crits and I am European) but it has to be totally revamped as something new, and different than normal road racing, along with Legion’s ideas and proper big brands support. Only Americans can take some niche sport and create big events that generate huge revenue so I hope it will happen.
I think of it like going back to the days of Major Taylor, 6 Day Races, Henri Desgrange, etc. I think that’s the goal. Building something that spectators can enjoy and vendors can sell. Create heroes and villains. I don’t think L39ion care if you love them or hate them, as long as you show up. As others have said, it brings consumers to town to generate huge revenues for local businesses, higher payouts for riders, and a way into the sport for young and often underprivileged kids who might have chosen different sports.
Fair enough. I’m not denying that crit racing IS the cycling discipline of the United States, that’s 100% true.
However, I wonder how long the road is or so to speak in terms of crit racing. There just isn’t enough money in it yet to draw out bigger names/teams that actually have a chance at giving L39ION some real competition. There already is a league, it’s just that there isn’t any legitimate competition so it’s effectively L39ION winning everything. For this sport to grow we might need teams that can contend so that from a regional perspective we spectators can get behind teams, the women have that with Rally, SDWorx and Tibco to name a few. Add in the fact that L39ION only had two women in 2021 made their races more competitive.
FWIW, their squad is over a dozen men deep, they certainly have the depth to roster teams that do other forms of racing.
Love what they’re doing. Hopefully they have some things up their sleeves. The Lions Den race was a great start.
Why would they make a push for CX, a very niche element of a relatively niche sport.
As much as I think Crit Racing isn’t all that interesting, it seems to be what suits the US market. I think their idea of regional/city team league would be pretty spectacular, but it’d be hard to get off the ground.
The major problem with crit racing is that it’s third tier racing, they are freaking incredible, but like FA Cup, NBA, F1, generally speaking people are most likely to want to watch the very best at a sport. In road cycling that’s the World Tour, MTB/CX the World Cups etc.
I hope they can build a big following in the states because as that market interest grows so does the opportunity for athletes worldwide, but as above they’re still a big, well funded and fun to watch fish in a small pond.
ETA: maybe they’d be better off to copy more of the Fayetteville model and run a week of high dollar, well covered events on interesting courses within one area.
Actually, if you take racing, there are big audiences that go watch trucks, sprint cars, etc race. It’s even on the television sports channels pretty often. I’ve also lived in areas where minor league baseball and hockey draw very large in person audiences.
I specifically mean TV audiences, but I agree of course that local/in person audiences can be large and passionate, but there’s obvious limitations there.
Did you watch the US Nationals? There was a crash on the last lap that heavily influenced the results.
Legion is trying to make something out of cycling where the cyclists and teams have a much larger presence.
Right now, a team could be name Coca-Cola one year, Pepsi the next, and then Pepto-Bismal after that. There is zero brand. A team can’t even sell jerseys because they change so often.
Riders are often anonymous these days. Helmet, glasses, and kit that changes year to year. Unless you watch pro racing all the time it’s hard to know who is who. I do watch almost every race and at the Olympics with different kit and poor info-graphics on the broadcast, I had a hard time figuring out which rider was which. Legion wants riders to have their name on their jersey and maybe even a number like in football.
Cycling is so small compared to other sports. I bet John Elway sells more in jerseys than Pogacar earns in salary for a whole year.
Will Legion succeed? They might create a sustainable crit series but I don’t think they will ever resurrect pro or amateur cycling in the US.
To me, the domestic cycling scene is about participation, not spectating.
I’m a huge cycling fan and follow all the classic European races (monuments, grand tours, etc.). I have zero interest in following any US criteriums or domestic road races. There’s no history, no narratives that bring any emotion to them. I feel the same way about the various national road and TT championships in Europe - boring, whatever. Even the world championships get little more than a glance.
I try to follow and support L39ION a bit because I’m black and raced in the 80s and still ride a bike. I like what they’re trying to do and pay a little bit of attention but I’m frankly not that interested in the races they do. Their timing is great for getting corporate support, but I doubt mass audiences will follow or stick around…
Something like Dirty Kanza is different. I find it much more intriguing than any Crit. It is way more interesting on a purely visual level, and as a story of struggle and perseverance against physical and environmental challenges. I probably wouldn’t watch in person or a live stream, but I’d definitely watch a well edited race summary condensing it down to a few hours with some supporting non-race content.
Not sure how I’d tackle development of cycling as a commercial sport in the US… but I’m pretty confident the solution isn’t replicating European cycling with multi-day road stage races. I don’t think criteriums are going to achieve any kind of scale beyond enthusiasts. I’d start from scratch. Maybe design for e-sports and turn Zwift into some sort of video game with cyclists powering the physics model behind crazy avatars in a bunch of whacked out virtual environments with combat challenges thrown in. Maybe team cyclists with gamers in chariots with weapons. No idea, but needs to be something different and designed for now.
The mass participation events model with a strong brand and licensing and corporate sponsorship seems doable for cycling in a social media based world - Ironman & Rock and Roll Marathon, something along those lines. Advance Publications bought the parent company of those events for $730M in 2020. Someone will probably do it for cycling eventually.
I really, really liked how the L39ion kits had rider names on the back at the race. Without that you just have to “know” what the riders look like. I’d love to see this change at the WT level as well.
I knew there were some well known women at the race, but I had to wait for the call-up to see who was who. I correctly recognized Coryn Rivera (now Labecki), but that was it for me, and for her it would have been nice to have some confirmation.
Mariokart with someone providing the motive power on a smart bike, I love this idea!
Perhaps things have changed, but my understanding is that L39ION wants to be a team that searches for talent in unusual places and develops it. That sounds like a great mission. Yes, more competition would be nice, but time will take care of that.
I think L39ION has a clear vision of what it wants to be and from what I understand their athletes make a lot more money than a lot of “proper pros”. If they were to become a proper UCI world tour team, their budget would explode, just all the traveling will be expensive. And they’d be confronted with multiple people of the caliber of MvP. Their sprinters might be competitive with other pros, but they wouldn’t be able to dominate the international scene.
Perhaps there’s a component of promoting racing and cycling development in the youth ranks. Targeting the youth is the only way to make cycling something in America. And culturally speaking it’s highly unlikely it would ever become mainstream, but it certainly could improve.
I think in American cities, cycling will become a standard mode of transportation just like everywhere around the world. Perhaps not to the same degree, but it’ll be enough so that cycling isn’t a kids’s activity.
Dude, someone should implement this and sell the format to Netflix!
I feel a bit more like an outsider as I do not spectate anything. I have never watched a pro tour, probably never will. I don’t even watch MotoGP or WC XC/DH which I am far more connected to. I did a crit, didn’t like it, no interest in doing another.
From the outside, the Legion team is making a sport look exciting to people who don’t think of cycling as exciting. Road cycling is a total sissy and boring sport to everyone who doesn’t ride (well, even to a lot of people who ride too). So making a sport look cool to a whole new audience is definitely not a bad thing.
It took 25 or so years for an American to win a WC XC race again? You need to look pretty far into the future if you want to see any change.
Cheap e-bikes are definitely going to be the driver for this if it does happen. I live in a medium sized midwest college city and see a fair number of people on cheaper e-bikes (almost 0 from any big cycling brand). Cycling Tips even talked about this on a recent podcast about how so many people are now using these cheap e-bikes as on of their primary modes of transportation.
But if would be awesome if this drives more people to seeing bikes as more than just a thing 12 year olds use to get to their friend’s house and then maybe that translates into interest in the sport.
Yous shirt comment is interesting.
Into the Lions Den got rid of Bib numbers and put Rider’s names on the back of their shirts, which is a good idea.
I’m sure I saw the nationals highlights but I’ll need to go back and remind myself… didn’t Corey crash out?