Is cycling's popularity held back because its top stars come from tiny countries?

Pro Racing
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I was sent this interesting piece on Crikey today arguing that tennis commands more public attention than (men’s) cycling because its star players often come from large countries with big media markets, while cycling’s (men’s) current stars, like Pogačar and Roglič, come from small nations like Slovenia.

Is cycling held back from being more widely viewed really about geography, or is it something deeper? Like accessibility (length of races, timezone, characters who can be hard to identify with), or the nature of the sport itself?

(Sidenote: whenever I watch ‘Unchained’ on Netflix I try to put myself in the shoes of a new viewer. Cycling would be a terribly confusing sport to understand and follow)

Curious what you think: does star nationality matter to your engagement, or not at all? My take is that us die hard fans don’t care, but in order to break out of the already converted, the author (Jason Murphy) has a good point.

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This is nonsense. Djokovic is Serbian, Federer Swiss. If anything cycling stars come from larger(?) countries.

Also, held back from being widely viewed? The TdF is often lauded as the most watched sporting event in the world.

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I need to read the article still, but surely it’s some combination of watchability and participation? Not many people race bikes, and I would say that watching cycling is “low reward”. By this I mean that races go for hours, and even when there’s action it’s pretty much just people riding bikes fast. What keeps people watching?

Compare that to other sports where even if you don’t see the nuances in what’s happening, there’s a fairly short cycle of rewards. Basketball has a new play every 40 seconds, tennis has a new point played just as often, NFL has a new play every minute or so, football moves end to end more slowly but there are still “plays” to watch quite frequently.

I love watching cycling, but I love riding and racing bikes. I think it’s a stretch for outsiders to get much out of watching it.

Stars are going to come from those popular sports.

Just my thoughts, but I’ve spent a reasonable amount of time considering this topic. It’s interesting… now to read the article.

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No, I am going to reject that premise. The issues with the lack of widespread cycling appeal have been known for sometime….no confined venue, limited broadcasting, dominance by a single event, confusing tactics / strategies, etc. The challenge long pre-dates today’s stars

The “biggest” cycling ever got was with -7, but that was as much about his story and charisma than the fact that he was American (although that also played a role).

The 2010’s were dominated by riders from GB and the sport declined in popularity (although this also was likely the result of -7)

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Let’s be honest - for the overwhelming majority of the population, it is boring AF to watch. :rofl:

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So by that logic, the world’s most popular sports are table tennis (China) and cricket (India, Pakistan). Clearly, cricket is also easy to watch, understand and follow, right? No, I don’t think that argument holds any water.

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This is a reasonable analysis. Track cycling solves those problems, but it isn’t especially popular either. (Although it was in the early 1900s—big cities might have multiple velodromes.)

On the other hand, there are lots of other sports that seem like they’d be equally viable spectator sports, eg foot racing, but they’re not especially popular either.

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I don’t think it’s the #1 issue with the sport, but it’s reasonable to suspect it might be more popular worldwide with more Asian and African riders.

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It doesn’t matter to me, really. And I think the article oversimplifies things when it leans so hard on the Lance-era statistics about US interest. That development is so much more complicated than just „American won and then stopped winning“ that it’s bold to draw the conclusion that not having a US winner is a major factor for lack of US interest.

That’s not to say that mainstream media doesn’t care. But it’s hard to say how important it is exactly.

I also found it quite weird how US-centric the whole piece is. Why not talk about other big Western markets for cycling like France, the UK, Germany? And what about new markets? How’s the Colombian interest in the TdF doing? What about China? So many interesting questions.

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It’s a half baked argument, and that’s being polite.

I will concede that it seems plausible that any specific country’s interest in a sport may wax and wane to some extent with the prominence of compatriots at the highest level of said sport. The spike in American interest in the Tour de France in an era when no-one won is fairly compelling. Google trends shows similar in the UK in the Team Sky era of Froome, Wiggins etc.

However, that’s where the argument ends. The author really fails to make any further points.

The author states cycling has a “problem” that, by insinuation, tennis doesn’t. It’s unclear what this problem is, or what metric the author is using to measure the success of a sport. It’s also odd to just consider two sports (cycling versus tennis), when any number of sports could be considered.

By pretty much any metric, cycling is a far more popular sport worldwide than tennis.

In terms of TV viewership, most statistics put cycling far ahead of tennis. One website claims 3.5 billion people watched the Tour de France, versus 25.6 million for Wimbledon ( The 15 Most Watched Sport Events (2025) ). I’m a bit suspicious of those numbers, but numerous sources put Tour de France viewership in the hundreds of millions, versus tens of millions for tennis.

In England at least, far more adults participate in cycling recreationally than in tennis: https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8181/CBP-8181.pdf

Globally, the cycling industry is worth roughly USD 70 billion, versus around USD 5 billion for tennis: Bicycle Market Size, Share & Trends | Industry Report, 2030 Vs Tennis Market Size, Industry, Share, Demand, Growth -2032

All this would seem to seriously undermine the author’s argument that tennis is somehow doing better than cycling.

I would note that the author’s bar charts are simply batshit crazy - why on earth would you stack a country twice because two people from that country are in the top ten? The population a country doesn’t magically double…

Maybe, maybe, there would be a nugget of truth if the argument was:

The cycling industry is dependent on amateurs buying cycling equipment for their own recreational use. America, being a wealthy country, is disproportionately important to the global cycling market. American interest in cycling would be higher if there were more Americans amongst the top ranked cyclists. This would therefore help reduce the financial problems that some companies within the bicycle industry are currently facing.

But, of course, that is not the argument put forward.

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I agree that the article is a bit of a mess and that the success = interest relationship isn’t accurate.

I’m interested in why there aren’t “superstars” whose fame extends beyond cycling, and essentially I’m arguing that this is because cycling just isn’t that popular a sport to watch world wide.

Almost everyone rides a bike at some point, but that clearly doesn’t translate to interest in professional racing.

I also think the tour is a yearly blip, a strange and unique phenomenon where people watch this one event every year and are then otherwise completely disengaged from the sport. I dont think people watching the tour equates to being fans of cycling.

Even in Spain, Italy, France, the Netherlands, and even Belgium, how many people prefer watching cycling over a watching their club or national football team? As an Australian I genuinely don’t know this so am curious what people think.

If people think cycling is actually a popular sport then sure, but the first question from the article is why aren’t there any superstars?

Thanks for the interesting post!

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Remco is an example of being a superstar outside of cycling but pretty much only in his home country Belgium. As is Pogi actually and as were many German riders back when I grew up.

But cycling is a top tier sport in Belgium and it was for a long time in Germany. And I do believe that you have to be a road cyclist yourself to have interest in the sport. Otherwise it’s just simply boring as! There is also no stadium where you can go to, hang out with your family, drink, eat, be merry. It’s a complicated sport to watch live and requires to be organised . And even if you are you only see the riders for a few minutes. That’s why events like the TDU work so well. One city, one event village, one place to be! Cycling needs more of this and people will come. Decomplicate the viewing experience and make it something to enjoy for the whole family.

As in the argument itself, yeah I also believe it to be nonsense. Cycling didn’t have a bigger audience when countries like the US and Germany had successful riders present. I do think riders can make a difference in viewership. I have no idea how the numbers were in Germany as I don’t live there anymore since many years but I bet that Florian Lipowitz helped massively to grow the numbers.

I also think it’s a sponsors game and that’s why I am particular happy about Red Bull entering the sport in a bigger role. They’ll make sure that they are seen and they put the money in there to grow superstars.

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There are many riders that transcend cycling itself within their home nation. Armstrong of course (cough), but also Bradley Wiggins, Chris Hoy, Mark Cavendish, Victoria Pendleton, Sarah Storey in the UK, many Belgians (Wout, MVdP (kinda Belgian), Remco, Pauline FP in France, etc. This is not by any stretch of the imagination the first US centric piece that fails to appreciate the scale of professional cycling interest outside of the US, and the impact it has on the broader public. If you went on to any high street in Wales and asked a stranger who Geraint Thomas was, they would be able to tell you. Same for the names I mentioned above in their respective nations.

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I think there are multiple factors that influence popularity of a sport, the home of its stars being one.

As others have said, I agree people need to understand road cycling to be more easily become a fan. I have friends who are endurance runners and they like cycling. They understand the subtleties of endurance sports and what makes road cycling interesting. Average punters do not and cycling confuses them.

I can believe Lance made cycling more popular in the US when he was winning. But I’ll bet only a minority of that interest was genuinely in the sport at depth, while the majority was probably just compatriots riding the vicarious wave of his victories.

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I am not sure if this is 100% true. My partners cousin is Belgian and had never heard the name Wout van Aert before I asked her. She didn’t even know cycling is popular in Belgium.

Therefore I find it hard to gauge.

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Despite in traditional media. My subscribed newspaper sports part is 90% soccer (Germany), but then pretty closely followed by lots of other sports, that are not cycling.

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Ok but there are people in the UK that don’t know we have a king… perhaps I should have said ‘the vast majority’ rather than everyone.

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I think the eejits who keep throwing beer at him at cross races would disagree. Definitely kinda French, though.

Also, nationalism is far too often dumb and/or harmful.

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