Professional cycling team budgets are increasing year on year, with riders and staff earning more and teams spending more on performance, travel, altitude camps and every detail that can help them win races and score UCI ranking points.
Pro cycling's 'teamflation' is driven by some of the top men's squads spending their way to success, with the teams contending for the Tour de France's top prize of the yellow jersey operating on budgets above €50 million per season.
According to official accounts prepared by the UCI and obtained by La Gazzetta dello Sport last winter, the combined budget of all men’s WorldTour teams for 2025 was €570 million, having risen dramatically from €379 million in 2021 and €499 million in 2024.
The average men's team budget for 2025 was €32 million, up from €28 million in 2024 and €20 million in 2021. The median figure sat at €27 million, excluding the near €60 million budget of UAE Team Emirates-XRG and the by-comparison slender €17 million budget of Arkea-B&B Hotels.
Tadej Pogačar is the most successful rider in the sport and naturally the highest earner, picking up a salary estimated to be €8 million per year, with bonuses pushing his total earnings closer to €10 million. Each of the men's WorldTour teams includes several leaders earning over €1 million per season, with a few women's salaries also close to that amount.
Excellent return on investment despite rising costs
According to the La Gazzetta dello Sport's data, 87% of WorldTour team revenue comes directly from sponsors, who fortunately receive return on their investment thanks to team naming rights and excellent brand visibility, especially at the Tour de France. The pro cycling business model is precarious, but fortunately doesn't usually lead to major debts.
When Cyclingnews carried out a one-off sponsorship report in 2013, it calculated that the average WorldTour team delivered €75 million worth of media exposure in 2012, with Team Sky generating a massive €465 million after winning the Tour de France with Bradley Wiggins. The Tour de France generated 80% of the team's television exposure.
EF Education-EasyPost CEO Jonathan Vaughters recently revealed a snapshot of internal 2025 data calculated by specialist agency Nielsen that showed that the team created a media value of €98 million during the 2025 WorldTour, an increase from €84 million in 2024. Ben Healy won a stage at the Tour de France and later wore the leader's yellow for two days, transforming the American squad's season from average to successful.
Pro cycling often imitates life, and behind the multi-million euro budgets and headline success stories, many teams face a battle for survival due to the sponsor-centric business model of the sport and the race for UCI ranking points.
The 18-team men's WorldTour can be divided into roughly three wealth or budget tiers, with the rich getting richer and the poor becoming poorer, and so struggling to compete.
According to data seen by Escape Collective, the top six teams accounted for 48% of the 2024 team budgets, while the bottom six teams accounted for just 21%. Some teams have the backing of sovereign wealth funds and state sponsors, while others depend purely on commercial sponsors, adding another twist of disparity.
There are super teams such as UAE Team Emirates-XRG, Visma-Lease a Bike, Lidl-Trek, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe and Ineos Grenadiers, with Decathlon CMA CGM expected to join them in 2026. They all have budgets above €40 million for 2026.
A second tier of teams like EF Education-EasyPost, Movistar, Alpecin-Premier Tech and Soudal-QuickStep have become the squeezed middle, with budgets of around €30 million. Below them are the teams in the fight to avoid WorldTour relegation, like Jayco Alula, Picnic PostNL and Lotto Intermarché. Their budgets are estimated to be below €25 million, with some teams forced to merge or use 'rider trading' to balance their books.
In recent years, the number of ProTeams has fallen, while the budgets of those that remain have increased massively. Tudor Pro Cycling and Pinarello-Q36.5 have lifted the quality and spending power of ProTeams, with the average close to €10 million for 2025. However, some smaller ProTeams operate on half that amount and need Grand Tour wildcard invitations to survive. New UCI rules mean that only ProTeams ranked in the top 30 can be invited to cycling's three Grand Tours, usually the only reason why they exist in France, Spain and Italy.
A deep dive into Visma-Lease a Bike's income and spending
A recent report on the finances of Visma-Lease a Bike by Money in Sport lifted the lid on where they secure funding and how they spend their budget, with similar reports on Decathlon and Ineos Grenadiers published by the well-informed Inrng blog.
Money in Sport – who investigate the budgets and revenue of Formula 1 teams, golf, cycling and other sports – delved deep into the 2024 accounts of the Visma-Lease a Bike management company. They discovered that Yellow B Cycling is now co-owned by team manager Richard Plugge and Dutch billionaire Robert van der Wallen, the creator of the Brand Loyalty company, which he sold for almost €1 billion before starting a similar company called L-Founders of Loyalty.
According to Money in Sport, Visma-Lease a Bike had revenues of €52 million in 2024 but lost €6.1 million, with the cost of the sale of the team also adding €1 million per year to the balance sheet for the next ten years.
A 72% chunk of the team's total revenue came from sponsors such as Visma, Lease a Bike, Skoda, Cervélo, Jumbo supermarkets, SRAM and Rabobank. €37.3 million was in cash, with €9.6 million in what Money in Sport described as barter transitions or value in kind, when products but no cash changed hands. This amount likely includes bikes and vehicles, but the team also noted amortisation and depreciation charges totalling €4.1 million for 2024.
Other revenues listed include €1.8 million from marketing and fan base, such as selling team merchandise and clothing.
Additionally, the Dutch team reported €1.2 million from partnerships and events, €800,000 from race participation, €500,000 from end-of-season equipment sales and €500,000 in race premiums, which could be additional race participation fees negotiated directly with major race organisers.
Visma-Lease a Bike's operating costs in 2024 were revealed to be €58.7 million. Employee costs were €32.9 million, or 56% of the total revenue. The team spent €2.6 million on race and training camps, €1.9 million on partnerships and events, €1.1 million on its fleet of vehicles, €800,000 on materials and nutrition, and €3.9 million on other operating costs.
Visma-Lease a Bike did not wish to comment on the details of its finances when contacted by Cyclingnews, but highlighted that the €6.1 million loss in 2024 includes several investments and some annual amortisation and depreciation costs.
The Dutch squad's budget is higher than some rivals, but they also run a highly successful development team and a Women's WorldTour team that won Paris-Roubaix Femmes and the Tour de France Femmes in 2025 with Pauline Ferrand-Prévot.
One source estimated to Cyclingnews that major teams now spend around an average of €400,000 on altitude camps each year, with coaches, sports directors and even team chefs also attending the vital blocks of race preparation.
Visma-Lease a Bike have long believed in the benefits of altitude training and spent six times that amount according to their 2024 accounts. When at Movistar, Matteo Joregenson once lamented the fact that he spent most of his salary on altitude camps, diet and personal performance support. At Visma-Lease a Bike, and most other teams, all those costs are now included as part of riders' employment.
Due to national employment laws, teams registered in France and Belgium have to employ many of their riders – rather than contract them as self-employed workers – and so they pay additional tax and social security contributions.
Other teams pay most riders and staff as external contractors, meaning that they pay their own tax and contributions. This usually allows teams to offer higher basic contracts, with riders saving on tax and contributions by living in Monaco or Andorra.
This reportedly raises rider and staff costs by 35% but ensures they will have pensions and access to other state benefits.
Cycling millionaires and ever-bigger teams
Rider and staff salaries are logically the lion's share of every team's budget and annual costs. Fortunately, riders' success in the biggest races generates huge media value, with each of the 30 riders creating far more value than the cost of their salary.
According to 2024 data seen by Cyclingnews, UAE Team Emirates-XRG spent €27.3m on salaries, by far the highest. Contracted with the team until 2030, Tadej Pogačar's €8 million salary makes him the highest-paid rider in the men's WorldTour. In comparison, Tour rival Jonas Vingegaard earns around €5 million a year.
A well-informed source broke down the estimated earnings of other riders for Cyclingnews.
A big-name sprinter able to win Grand Tour stages earns around €1.5 million per year, a Tour de France super domestique earns close to €1 million, while a smaller-name WorldTour domestique earns at least €200,000. La Gazzetta dello Sport claimed that the average earnings for an employed rider was €350,000, with a contractor earning €630,000 before their own pension and insurance costs.
Mads Pedersen is believed to earn €2.3 million, Wout van Aert takes home €2.5 million and Mathieu van der Poel, approximately €3.5 million. UAE Team Emirates-XRG won the bidding war to sign Isaac del Toro in 2024, offering a reported €2 million a year.
Seventy riders in the men's peloton earn more than €1 million a year, with all the riders on the UAE Team Emirates-XRG Tour de France squad all likely to be earning nearly seven figures, even if Tim Wellens recently played down the level of UAE salaries.
"In the past, UAE riders might have been paid a lot to lure them to the team. These days, it's a bit the other way around. Now everyone wants to ride for the team, so the salaries really aren't as high as people think," Wellens told Het Laatste Nieuws.
The super teams spend far more than their weaker WorldTour rivals, and that spending power is why the best riders are concentrated more and more at the biggest teams. The biggest WorldTour teams spend around 60% of their budgets on their riders and staff, while smaller teams can only spend between 35-40% due to facing similar fixed costs.
In the UK, the average wage-to-revenue ratio in the Premier League was 64% for the 2023/2024 season, with a maximum limit of 85% for squad costs, which includes player wages, transfers and agents' fees.
Meanwhile, in the US, under the NFL collective bargaining agreement, players receive 48% of the overall NFL revenue. In tennis, it is 17.5% but with only the top-100 ranked professionals taking home a considerable amount, despite the multi-million dollar prize money and high earnings of the Grand Slam winner.
Team spending on staff, and especially strategically important performance staff, has increased massively in recent years and is estimated to be about 20% of a team's revenue, with staff contracts rising faster than rider contracts. Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe have invested massively in performance staff in the last two years as they try to catch up with UAE, Visma and Lidl-Trek.
Three decades ago, most teams travelled to a race with two sports directors, two carers and two mechanics. The introduction of team buses sparked a change in spending and rider support. Staff numbers have increased massively as performance, coaching, nutrition and marketing have become more and more important.
Most men's WorldTour teams now have a staff of at least 80 personnel, with a dozen mechanics and carers, eight sports directors and vital service course and office staff to keep a team on the road throughout the ever-expanding season. XDS Astana hired a data scientist to help them successfully plan their ranking points strategy for 2025, while other teams have mental coaches, aerodynamicists, fleet managers and logistics experts.
The so-called super teams are even bigger, with headcounts above 170 or even close to 200 if a successful Women's WorldTour team and a development team are also part of the project.
The Visma-Lease a Bike team has a 30-rider men's WorldTour roster, a 15-rider Women's WorldTour squad and lists 170 staff on its website. Lidl-Trek and other major teams are expected to be similar in size.
Under UCI rules, race organisers have to reimburse a limited number of hotel beds for each team. The number has recently risen from 25 to 30 places for a Grand Tour, but teams are often far bigger for the three weeks on the road. This year, Ineos Grenadiers' Tour de France group consisted of eight riders and 32 staff. Teams have to pay for any extra hotel rooms, with some teams spending around €100,000 a year, just at the Tour de France. The teams receive that same amount from the Tour organisers for other expenses such as fuel and logistics, but most teams spend more than they receive, sparking claims from teams that they 'pay to race'.
'A budget cap is for losers' but some see it as vital for survival
The significant increase in some team budgets and the amounts they spend is outpacing inflation and testing sponsorship limits.
Some see the arrival of major new sponsors as a sign of cycling's good health, but others are concerned about the narrowing of an increasingly high-peak pyramid, creating a budget bubble that will eventually hurt competitiveness across the sport and so ultimately the attraction of the WorldTour to fans and major sponsors.
Some stakeholders are calling for a salary cap or budget cap of some kind to level the playing field, like in US sports. Others prefer a more free-market economy approach.
The UCI approved, in principle, the implementation of a budget cap of some kind for UCI WorldTour and Women's WorldTour teams for 2026. However, that never happened, with UCI President David Lappartient claiming the teams voted against the idea because they also wanted wider reforms to the sport.
"We're going to get to the point where three teams dominate the sport, but that won't make it exciting," Brent Copeland told Cyclingnews, speaking as the Jayco AlUla team manager rather than his wider representative role as president of the AIGCP teams association.
"It's great to see some big new sponsors come in, but it's very difficult for all the other teams to secure similar investment. Some kind of budget cap regulation has to be put in place. Of course, in parallel, we also need a new business model, and that's something that I'm very much wanting to push for in the future."
Leading rider agent Alex Carera defends his rider's ability to maximise their earnings and so is against a budget cap, telling Cyclingnews that "a budget cap is for losers!"
"You can't manage a commercially driven sport by limiting the work of the best managers and teams. We've got to help and stimulate the other teams to find new big-buck sponsors.
"The decision of Lidl, Red Bull and Decathlon to all become team owners is a significant change for one year and a sign of cycling's good health. We overcame the huge problems of doping in cycling, so we can surely resolve the financial problems and look after the riders much better.
"There are numerous brands and companies around the world that can and want to spend huge amounts in the sport. The problem is attracting them to pro cycling by making the sport a great product," Carera continued.
"Cycling is a beautiful sport, but it needs to resolve its problems, and everyone needs to work together. That way, we can see teams with €100 million budgets, and so everyone can earn more."
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