World of Pro Cycling: How much money do they make?

bentakespictures (51)in #sport • 7 years ago

Hello Steemians!

As you may or may not know, I am a big fan of road cycling, mainly as a sportsman and not a spectator. Now that I have a broken ankle and I won't be able to cycle for a while, I have nothing else just to watch and read about cycling. Though it is October already, the season is almost over, so I am mostly reading about it.

Anyway, I think I am going to make a few posts about cycling, because I think Steemit is lacking some content in sports. At least something other than Baseball, NFL and soccer.
Today I would like to talk about how much money do pro cyclists make. To get to the point we need to clarify the structure of pro cycling, just in a nutshell.

There are 3 categories in pro cycling racing.

World Tour
Pro Continental
Continental

Riders are racing in certain categories based on their performance. They can earn points on races based on final positions or stage positions as well. There are a lot of races in a season (Tour de France, Giro d`Italia, Vuelta a Espana, Tour of California, World Championship, Paris-Robouix and a lot more). Grand Tour races are the most important ones, they are the ones which last for several days or weeks (like Tour de France). Here they can earn a lot of points and decent money as well. Riders progress to the next category by making a lot of points and achieving a lot of good positions.
Without doubt the most famous and prestigious race of the whole season is the Tour de France. So, let's talk about money prizes on this race for a bit. How much money do the top of the riders make on this two-week long Grand Tour?Below there is a table showing the prize money for the individual top finishers in 2016.

Source: table link

As you can see if you are a really good cyclist, you can make decent amount of money. But obviously not everybody can win big races or even finish in top 10.

Believe or not there is a minimum salary set for pro riders. It was recently increased by the cycling governing body (UCI). Though it is not as glamorous as you would think.

Minimal salary for World Tour riders is 38k and for Pro Continental riders is 31k, all in Euro. Continental riders don’t get a minimum salary. They are usually riding to get noticed and get signed by a pro team.
Of course, pro teams pay a lot more to their riders depending on the role they play in the team. Big shot team leaders usually make 7 figure salaries and a decent middle man makes more than half a million.
Fun fact (not so funny actually): women still don’t have a minimum salary, no matter how good they are, which is a shame, because lot of them have to have a job to be able to support themselves.