Having looked at the financial fortunes and prospects for teams last year, the topic keeps coming up already in 2026 so here’s a fresh review of pitfalls ahead.
Like last year’s post, the point here is not to shout “fire” in a crowded place and spread doom. It’s just a look at the issues ahead and how some teams have challenges to solve.
We’ll start with Picnic-PostNL as the team only got a one year licence from the UCI. This decision wasn’t helpful but practically one or three years, there’s always an annual review in October so it’s less admin and more a way of saying out loud the team must resolve financial issues. The team has a side-hustle in selling off riders which reached a new level with the sale of Oscar Onley to Ineos, generating millions in revenue. But this probably backfills previous losses. Fabio Jakobsen is on the last year of big contract while still struggling for results so the outlook could ease but right now the team hasn’t had a win this year and sits on 25th place on the UCI rankings, all early but a tough start. Some good news is that Dutch postal service PostNL is keen to back the project.
Bahrain-Victorious is code for Bahrain-Your Name Here and the team has been open about wanting a co-sponsor but so far nobody. It’s not an obvious match to have a co-sponsor named alongside a repressive state and this juxtaposition limits the scope. But the team’s ambitions are restrained by the lack of another sponsor.
EF Education First-Easypost has gone public to find a co-sponsor. It’s not clear if Easypost is stopping but the the point is EF is willing to become the junior partner in naming rights if the team can find a new backer. A lot hinges on this because if they can land one then the team can get the financial firepower it needs, right now it can sustain a grand tour GC challenge with the likes of Richard Carapaz and in Ben Healy it has as solid chance of a Tour de France stage win too, short of hiring Jonathan Milan or Tadej Pogačar. If no sponsor is found then the troubles could begin because while EF wants to stay, can it shoulder all the costs?
As said here a few times last year you could see a few dark clouds for Visma-Lease a Bike. The jersey is getting crowded with logos as the team seeks as much revenue as possible, costs have been cut with riders unloaded. Visma’s stockmarket float was also cited as a possible threat as the Norwegian IT company could change its marketing; now it’s doing this ahead of the float where saving tens of millions a year can make the business hundreds of millions more valuable. Which leaves the team searching for a big backer. For all the relaxed briefing from the team there’s still an alarm bell as it needs to find someone soon, there’s no cushion of capital to spend while waiting for a new backer. It ought to be an easy sell but that makes it a bellwether case.
Groupama-FDJ have a joint sponsorship agreement that runs until the end of 2027. That sounds like a long time away but now is the time to review this and here comes the problem. The costs of backing the team go up and up but the results have gone in the other direction, especially after Thibaut Pinot has left. They haven’t won a Tour stage since 2018. The development team is a calling card as it can unearth talent but it’s also a cost to run it.
Lotto-Intermarché is newly formed from the merger and so for now there’s no worry. But is it a sustainable project? Time will tell but Lotto brings a political angle as the Belgian state lottery funding means the team’s funding is a national affair and comes with scrutiny from politicians. Like other teams can the costs of backing the project can keep rising but will politicians support this? It places more burden on Intermarché and the French sponsor needs to be aligned with the Belgian backers, you can imagine Intermarché wanting more French riders but Lotto insisting on an even balance of Flemish and Walloon Belgians.
Soudal-Quickstep is in an interesting season. It’s built the team around Remco Evenepoel only he has left and so it is trying to revert to the wolfpack of old and pivot back to classics and one day races, stages included. Only this turn might take time. The nervous part is the Soudal sponsorship. Remember the sponsor and its founder Vic Swerts almost dropped the team to “merge” with Visma in the wake of the Jumbo supermarket quitting the Dutch team. But Swerts stayed, in part keen to support Evenepoel. Now that’s changed it’s a story to watch.
NSN? In a sport driven by naming rights, being called Never Say Never is bold. There is a concept of having a cycling team that is not a textile billboard. Instead the strength comes from establishing a visual identity so strong that you don’t have to read “Soudal” on the shorts or “Tudor” on a jersey because you’ve already thought it. However this squad appears to be more like “Never Say Israel” and a rebrand to keep protestors away. It is backed by some wealthy companies and individuals but what they’re getting back isn’t clear. So look to see if the project evolves during the year and what it does once the thrill of the Tour de France start is over.
Jayco-Al Ula had a wobble on the final approach to World Tour registration for last year but in the end Jerry Ryan came good and backed the team for three more years. But it came close to stopping, this was not an admin bungle. Ryan is another backer confronted with rising costs but diminishing returns and also the tricky path of promoting Australian sport and giving their riders a path to the top. The team needs Australian talent but has to bid alongside other squads for it which creates an asymmetry, they really want Aussies more than others and so risk paying a premium for them. They may not have to outbid every team to lure Aussies “home” but they have to be close.
Uno-X have the same issue as Jayco when it comes to recruiting home talent and only compounded since they only hire Norwegian and Danish riders. It does make for a coherent project whether on the team bus or in business given the sponsor only has business in these markets but again they have to bid big to secure home talent. The real concern is how long can a relatively small business sustain a World Tour team? Uno-X is a brand within the Reitan conglomerate whose name also appears on the kit, itself and also the Rema 100 stores it owns and the wider business has interests across the Baltic so there’s probably cover to recruit here too. But for now how long does Uno-X want to stay in the sport? But there’s good news this morning as the team has picked up a sponsor outside of Reitan’s portfolio in Faxe Kondi, a soft drink brand.
Ineo Grenadiers has TotalEnergies as a co-sponsor, the template for many teams looking to retain ownership but expand with a co-sponsor so it’s ahead of others. So safe? The parent company Ineos has financial strains and has cut back on its sports sponsorship. Since then things have not got easier, its bonds have taken a dive which signals corporate distress and specifically the Grenadier car project has had some headwinds too. But the saving grace is personal as Jim Ratcliffe really enjoys having a cycling team. The only remaining question is the burden-sharing between the two sponsors for the future.
XDS-Astana seem to be thriving as a team. But can this sustain the sponsorship? XDS is the Cinese bike company with eyes on mimicking the growth story of Giant, selling everything from kids bikes to World Tour team issue bikes and keen to do this in its own name rather than as an OEM manufacturer. But funding a World Tour team is an expensive way to do this, it can easily cost ten times more. Canyon and Specialized find it more efficient to supply two teams each; there’s only Trek left and now it’s junior partner; Decathlon is a sponsor but to promote wider retail sales. Plus there’s Kazakh political risk, the team can promote the nation and its sovereign wealth fund but is down to three Kazakhs now.
Conclusion
As established in the previous blog post, there’s more money than ever coming into the sport. It’s boom time. So this post feels like pointing out the lone cloud in the sky on a summer’s day.
However it’s not poking around for the sake of finding negatives, indeed one team has been put on notice by the UCI and others have gone public about needing to find extra funding. Some of these questions can be existential, but in many cases it’s not binary and more about where teams want to get to in the coming years. So while you watch their riders on the road, keep an eye on the moves management make this season too.