Visma-Lease a Bike face a race against time to find new title sponsor worth at least €30 million if they hope to continue as a super team in pro cycling and compete against UAE Team Emirates-XRG, Lidl-Trek, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, and Decathlon-CMA CGM.
Cyclingnews understands that Visma is expected to remain as a minor sponsor but is likely to significantly reduce its funding, leaving a search for a new naming rights title sponsor.
Visma-Lease a Bike won the Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a Espana in 2025, and Jonas Vingegaard again finished second to Tadej Pogacar in the Tour de France, while Pauline Ferrand-Prévot won the Tour de France Femmes and Paris-Roubaix.
The team is believed to have the fifth or sixth biggest budget in the men's WorldTour and one of the biggest women's budgets but team manager Richard Plugge needs to increase his budget by around €10 million to close the gap on his super team rivals and stay competitive in Grand Tours and major Classics.
The team's financial report revealed that sponsor revenue totalled €37 million in 2024, with €9.6 million of barter value from sponsors via equipment and goods. The team generated another €5 million in 2024 but faced salary costs of €30 million and operating costs of €23 million.
€20m to cover Visma and €10m to catch up
The Dutch team can count on continued sponsorship from Lease a Bike, Skoda, Cervélo, Jumbo supermarkets, SRAM and Rabobank but Visma was not able or willing to make the 'next step' beyond 2026, forcing Plugge to start a search for a new title sponsor.
It is estimated that Visma currently provides close to €20 million of the team's annual sponsorship revenue. Plugge needs a new title sponsor that will cover most of Visma's €20 million sponsorship and increase it by at least €10 million if they are to compete at the highest level in the years to come.
One trusted source told Cyclingnews that Rabobank could be a logical sponsor to boost Visma-Lease a Bike's ambitions. However, the Dutch bank seems to be focusing on funding the grassroots of Dutch sport rather than a single sports team.
Visma-Lease a Bike need to secure a new title sponsor in the next few months or face drastic decisions on spending, their ambitions and so their rider roster for 2027 and beyond.
"Visma has played at the absolute top, and if you want to continue doing so, you need to find stronger sponsors. But where they'll find that money is the million-dollar question," Marko Heijl told Sporza.
Heijl deals with sports marketing for the Soudal company that sponsors the Soudal-QuickStep team.
"If you look at the past 20 years, the budget has increased by 3.5 times. In the last four years, there has been a 30% growth. So it's a major challenge to find sponsors with strong budgets who can participate in that bidding war."
A tough sponsorship market
Due to the precarious business model of professional cycling, Plugge has been in this situation before.
He took over management of the Dutch team in 2013 when Rabobank quit following a string of doping scandals and the Lance Armstrong case. He found Belkin as a sponsor after a spell racing as 'Team Blanco' and then convinced the Dutch supermarket chain Jumbo to back the team. Visma took over when Jumbo reduced their support.
Plugge has reportedly held talks with a number of big companies and multinational brands that could be interested in providing the €30 million+ title sponsorship.
However, a number of rival WorldTour teams are also looking for new sponsors to boost their budgets. Race organisers and even the UCI compete with teams for sponsorship from cycling-friendly brands.
Three weeks ago, EF Pro Cycling announced they are looking for a first naming rights sponsor to boost their current budget so they can compete with the biggest teams and try to win the Tour de France and the Tour de France Femmes.
The rising costs of cycling team sponsorship have reduced the number of potential sponsors that can afford to invest in cycling. A brand would also need to invest a significant sum in activating their sponsorship and so probably needs business interest across Europe, where pro cycling is more popular, and an annual turnover of close to a billion dollars, to justify a €50 million spend on a single sports sponsorship.
An alternative could be funding from state-owned or state-influenced entities or sovereign wealth funds, as we have seen with the Astana, Bahrain and UAE teams.
However, the global sponsorship market is highly competitive. Most major brands have already planned their sports sponsorship for years to come, with the 2026 soccer World Cup in the USA and then the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles capturing significant spending.
The unsettled global outlook and the impact of tariffs have also disrupted the sports sponsorship market, making it hard to convince sponsors to make major new strategic investments.
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