For the third time in four seasons, despite all their success, particularly at Grand Tours – their latest triumph has come through Jonas Vingegaard at the Giro d’Italia – and in spite of even a historic Paris-Roubaix title at long, long last for Wout van Aert, Visma-Lease a Bike find themselves in the position of having to find a new title sponsor for the following season. This is the team that has defined this record-breaking era of cycling, second only to UAE Tadej Pogačar’s Team Emirates-XRG in list of achievements, yet still its future is insecure.
It's both a damning indictment and inevitable outcome of the fragile business model of cycling and the current financial landscape.
Three years ago, just months after Vingegaard secured his second successive Tour de France title, bosses at the team that was then called Jumbo-Visma were forced into entering talks about a possible merger with Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl, a prospect so previously unthinkable that it floored the entire cycling world. Two superteams simply couldn’t be allowed to join forces. In the end, they literally couldn’t. The furore, particularly from Quick-Step riders, was too great, and the business realities were too complicated to overcome in just a few short months. Visma stepped up as lead title sponsor and Lease-a-Bike took their place as the second name. Soudal-Quick-Step also found a way through, with Soudal partnering the Belgian team.
Now Visma wants to 'do a Jumbo’ which is to continue supporting Vingegaard’s and Van Aert’s team but in a lesser role. The ever increasing yearly budgets – the median budget of a men’s WorldTour team has increased from €22m to €28m in just three years, while the best-supported teams are approaching €60m – means that Visma is no longer prepared to stump up tens of millions of euros every year. The Norwegian software company stepped into cycling to grow, to increase awareness and improve their credibility, and now their mission is complete. Their executives don’t need cycling as much as they once did – but the cycling team needs them or someone else to provide even more cash.
One way that this dilemma could hypothetically have been averted is if a budget/salary cap was in place – a measure that the UCI has been supportive of for a number of years and is soon set to relaunch a working group looking into ways to make it feasible. The argument goes that with teams commanding ever greater sums to pay ever higher rider wages, it reduces the number of potential companies who could realistically financially support a team.
Broadly speaking, teams themselves are also in favour of a budget/salary cap, even if riders and the riders’ union, the CPA, are not. There is an understanding that the playing field is about as level as a spirit level resting on a see-saw: those who’ve got the biggest funds rise to the top; those scrapping around for a few million here and a few million there are sinking to the bottom, wondering when – if! – any notable victory will arrive at some point soon.
What teams want first, though, is economic and calendar reform that would in theory improve financial sustainability and help teams become less – but definitely still mostly – dependent on their sponsors. The prospect of a venture like TeamCo, which has the backing of around a dozen men’s teams, materialising anytime soon, however, feels faint. The UCI’s own request for reform ideas is unlikely to yield any significant changes in the short-term.
The upshot of which is it’s not entirely unsurprising that big teams like Visma are in the situation they are in. It’s an uncomfortable reality that reflects badly on the sport: Jonas Vingegaard can win all the Grand Tours he wants, and he might even emulate Pogačar’s Giro-Tour double this summer, but Visma-Lease a Bike and other cycling teams remain entirely reliant on the generosity of big businesses who are banking on the calculated guess that they’ll see a return on their investment.
Half the 2026 season is now complete and there’s still no indication, or even any rumours, that a new title sponsor announcement is imminent, but Visma bosses are projecting an optimism. Vingegaard even recently reminded everyone that he has a contract with the team until 2028, indicating no sign of internal stress or panic. “The title sponsor search is going really well,” Visma’s chief business officer Jasper Saeijs told Rouleur and The Athletic. That’s more or less what Richard Plugge, the team’s manager, told Danish publication Feltet earlier this month when he said “we have big plans for the coming years.”
Convincing new partners, Saeijs said, is all about extolling the benefits of association, and convincing them that cycling’s trajectory is one of steep growth. “We’re in talks with a lot of brands for the right budgets and the budgets are not the issue for them because we validate them in a really good way,” he said. “That means the value and the platform is there, as is the infrastructure.
“Within Formula One brands are running towards them, and the truth is that in cycling we have to search for them. But once we’re in talks with them, brands see that cycling is a really valuable proposition and they’re flabbergasted by our reach and what we can do compared to investments in other sports. Companies stepping into cycling will look smart in a few years’ time because in my opinion Formula One is really overrated at the moment, and cycling is still a bit underrated.
“Brands like Lidl, Red Bull and Decathlon have found cycling, have seen the potential, and teams like ours are the biggest opportunities companies like that can have. We see in the conversations we have right now that companies see that value.” But until contracts are signed and a new partner is formally welcomed on board, the perplexing question will remain: how can it be that the world’s second best cycling team is without a main sponsor?
