![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/outerline-warnerbros-25dec09.jpg\")
<\/p>\nKey Takeaways:<\/p>\n
\u25cf\u00a0Uncertainty Around WB-D Deal, Impacts on Cycling TV Coverage<\/p>\n
\u25cf\u00a0Strava Report Shows Both Weakness and Opportunity for Cycling<\/p>\n
\u25cf\u00a0Reasons Behind Girmay\u2019s Move to Rebranded NSN Team<\/p>\n
\u25cf\u00a0Sports Valuations Entering an Era of \u201cIrrational Exuberance\u201d<\/p>\n
\u25cf\u00a0Sports Investing Comes to Everyman<\/p>\n
\u25cf\u00a0Giro Route Announced \u2013 Geared to Attract Vingegaard and Evenepoel?<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Sports media rights are the critical link holding the sports league and franchise economic system together \u2013 and recent developments in the pending sale of Warner Bros.-Discovery could completely redefine how consumers access sports broadcasts in the future. Last week, it appeared that Netflix had won the bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery, making an offer valued at $83 billion. But the Netflix bid did not include the WBD cable channels that carry cycling \u2013 Eurosport and TNT. It\u2019s not currently known what would happen to the cable side of the business should this deal close. And of course the process will be subject to complex regulatory scrutiny that could sink the deal at any point. Complicating things further, on December 8th, Paramount announced a hostile takeover bid for $108 billion that\u00a0did\u00a0include the WBD cable channels. The Paramount bid includes Donald Trump\u2019s son-in-law Jared Kushner as well as money from Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia\u2019s Public Investment Fund and the Qatar Investment Authority \u2013 and is rumored to be favored by Trump himself. At this point it\u2019s unclear how the process will proceed, but it seems likely to be highly politicized, and the entire media world is paying attention as there seem to be new twists about every hour. But until a final deal is cut, which could take months or even years, cycling remains caught in the broader instability of the sports-rights economy \u2013 where the only constant seems to be that coverage keeps getting more expensive, more complex, and less predictable for fans.<\/p>\n
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Strava\u2019s recent\u00a0\u201cyear in sport\u201d<\/a>\u00a0compendium provided a remarkably transparent view into consumer interaction with the tech platform\u2019s services, and the contents bolstered momentum towards its expected early 2026 IPO.\u00a0However, cycling was scarcely mentioned in the presentation. Running, on the other hand, is on a participation surge that seems unlikely to crest, given its low cost of entry, and its popularity across various age and geographic demographics; it has become the greatest contributor to Strava\u2019s membership growth and year-around usage. This falls in line with the company\u2019s recent acquisition of online training platforms through which it can retain and upsell these athletes (especially Gen Z cohorts) into higher value subscription tiers for sustained revenue growth and new subscriber acquisition. Yet it\u2019s that cycling data which should worry the cycling industry and the sport in general; Strava was\u00a0built\u00a0on cycling and while it hasn\u2019t abandoned the activity, it is no longer the primary driver. Strava still has many longstanding cycling users, but growth has faded for a variety of factors \u2013 including the sport\u2019s high cost of entry, seasonal participation, and competition from device manufacturers like Garmin that also host native interactive training and social media features.<\/p>\n As we wrote in\u00a0an earlier newsletter<\/a>, Strava usage has become a standard candle for the health of the sport,\u00a0aggregating the activities and fostering important social interactions for its members. With bike sales languishing and race calendars contracting, Strava\u2019s cycling base has bottlenecked. Given Strava\u2019s position as the\u00a0de facto\u00a0global endurance athletics social media platform and as a data hub for related consumer activity, cycling\u2019s downturn laterally indicates rough waters ahead for Zwift and Rouvy. Zwift has pivoted to the opportunity with its running treadmill features while Rouvy has opted to remain focused on cycling and triathlon. However, there are parallels emerging with Peloton, which entered the pandemic as a darling for home fitness and exited nearly bankrupt. The equipment requirements are virtually identical \u2013 Peloton\u2019s ubiquitous, pricy, and unwieldy stationary bikes, and for Zwift and Rouvy, an even more expensive and extensive assortment of stationary trainers and app-compatible devices. Nevertheless, a successful Strava IPO could spur further investment and create opportunities for innovation, potentially attracting new cycling participants, spurring bike sales and overall economic growth in our sport.<\/p>\n The biggest transfer news over the past month has been Eritrean 2024 Tour de France Green Jersey winner Biniam Girmay signing with the newly rebranded NSN Cycling Team on a rumored three-year, \u20ac2 million per season deal.\u00a0The deal was somewhat surprising, with Girmay joining a team which seems to face an uncertain future. The move further highlights the fragile proposed \u201cmerger\u201d between his former Intermarch\u00e9 team and Lotto; the fact that Girmay was apparently free to leave Intermarch\u00e9 \u2013 despite being under contract \u2013 suggests that his contract wouldn\u2019t carry over to the merged outfit. In turn, this implies that Lotto essentially swooped in to take the struggling Belgian team\u2019s title sponsor and a few cheaper Intermarch\u00e9 staff members (while laying off some of their own higher-paid long-time staffers). Should any observers remain confused about why Girmay would take the risk of going to NSN, remember that if he stayed put he\u2019d to have to compete for opportunities against Lotto\u2019s homegrown sprinter Arnaud De Lie \u2013 a direct rival who is two years younger and who ran off seven straight head-to-head wins over Girmay to finish 2025. Additionally, the Lotto-Intermarch\u00e9 group was unlikely to match the superstar-level salary offered by NSN, which was apparently willing to pay top dollar for a marquee signing. The new and already embattled team desperately needed a \u201cnorth star\u201d going into 2026 to distract from its controversial I-PT rebrand and a protracted legal battle with former team leader Derek Gee.<\/p>\n Girmay\u2019s move contributes another data point on how drastically the sport\u2019s financial landscape is shifting,\u00a0with the NSN team \u2013 which has seemingly far more financial firepower than the long-running Lotto-Intermarch\u00e9 team \u2013 picking off a top rider. In other words, deep pockets continue to become more important even when it\u2019s not clear who the deep pockets actually belong to. Meanwhile, rumors are swirling about the imminent signings of Derek Gee, Sam Welsford, and 2025 Tour de France breakout star Oscar Onley at INEOS. If the latter moves go through, it would mark yet another case of Picnic\u2013PostNL selling high on a mid-contract star rider, but, unlike in the past, it isn\u2019t clear if Picnic-PostNL could bounce back from this departure. Iwan Spekenbrink\u2019s team has been one of the worst-performing teams over the last few seasons, only narrowly avoiding WorldTour relegation in the last cycle, and now it appears to be on the verge of losing the rider who contributed the most UCI points to the team. Meanwhile, after years in the wilderness, the well-funded INEOS team is looking to be a bit more back on track, potentially adding Gee and Onley, along with the previous signing of K\u00e9vin Vauquelin (from Ark\u00e9a\u2013B&B Hotels). All of these moves continue the trend of top riders joining big-budget operations, while smaller teams are forced to adopt development-oriented, transfer-for-profit structures for funding continuity. Yet \u2013 somehow \u2013 the idea of a budget cap which was recently presented was roundly booed.<\/p>\n Investment interest in professional sports continues to explode, with new deep-pocket owners and richer deals seemingly announced every other day. As Front Office Sports recently reported, a quarter of all the NBA franchises have changed hands in the last five years. \u201cThis year alone, three franchises announced sales \u2013 the Celtics, Lakers, and Trail Blazers \u2013 at a collective valuation of more than $20 billion.\u201d The 100 most valuable sports teams in the world were recently valued at more than $550 billion. Mark Cuban, former owner of the Dallas Mavericks, suggests that a lot of \u201coriginal\u201d owners are reaching retirement age and interpreting these valuations as a sign that it\u2019s the right time to sell \u2013 despite recent gambling scandals and ownership disputes here and there, and the controversial influx of private equity stakes in team or league ownership. Although this trend is apparent across all the major sports, it has been more significant in pro basketball due to \u201ca higher cap on private capital, limited labor strife, and a big-money, long-term media-rights deal.\u201d<\/p>\n Unfortunately, this trend has yet to reach into the far dark corners where niche sports like cycling find themselves, but we have to wonder whether we have reached (in the words of former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan) a time of \u201cirrational exuberance.\u201d However, Cuban\u2019s point about \u201coriginal owners\u201d finding now is the right time to sell actually fits ASO\u2019s current state of affairs, as the Amaury family ages and its sporting enterprise revenues are squeezed by shrinking broadcast space for professional cycling. Thus, with apologies to those who reportedly worked on One Cycling (and readers tired of hearing about its failure), the relatively low total valuation of pro cycling\u2019s entire portfolio of teams, monuments, and grand tours leaves the possibility open that a super-patron could pull the right governance, diplomatic, and financial acquisition levers in the future.<\/p>\n Given this explosion of investment interest in various sports properties, it was only a matter of time until new financial instruments became available to smaller investors.\u00a0CAIS, an investment platform for independent financial advisors,\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0the formation of a Sports, Media and Entertainment Fund that will be accessible to accredited individual investors, offering the opportunity to invest in all five of the major North American professional sports leagues, sports-related film and television companies, live event properties, and other entertainment assets to the broader public. In short, a highly attractive investment area that was previously really only open to the billionaire class or sovereign wealth funds will now be available to anyone with as little as $25,000 to invest. Arctos and Eldridge, two investment firms with significant sports exposure were selected to jointly manage the new fund. \u201cWe believe the Fund will be well positioned to provide accredited investors the opportunity to participate in industries that have historically been difficult to access, yet influence culture in significant ways.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Further evidence of the challenges facing the bicycle industry were underscored last week, when the iconic Campagnolo brand\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0that it was laying off up to 40 per cent of its staff.\u00a0The company indicated that it has suffered three straight years of operating losses, which amount to more than $25 million. The company is by no means alone, as almost all bicycle, components and accessory manufacturers have faced serious financial challenges ever since the COVID era turned the industry upside down. Manufacturers blame declining demand, excessive inventories and the Trump administration\u2019s chaotic tariff policies for most of the problems. As we noted recently, Campy\u2019s primary competitor, Shimano, has also suffered from declining revenue and profits over the past few years, with the company recently indicating that its\u00a0profits had slumped<\/a>\u00a0despite steady sales. Campagnolo had said there is \u201cno alternative\u201d to this round of redundancies \u201cwithout dramatic consequences\u201d for the company.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/outerline-teamnsn-25dec09.jpg\")
Girmay going to NSN<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/campagnolo22-sign.jpg\")
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