The opening weekend of racing at the 2026 Tour de France Femmes attracted over two million viewers in France and around 80% of the audience for the men's equivalent opening stage, but Fenix-Premier Tech team manager Philip Roodhooft has warned that the economics of women's cycling are under pressure.
Saturday's opening stage of the Tour de France Femmes attracted 2.17 million viewers and an audience share of 27.6% in France according to Puremedias, with 2.51 million and a 30.1% share of viewers watching stage 2 on Sunday. Puremedias suggested that those numbers were roughly 80% of the audience for similar stages of the men's Tour, although an exact like-for-like comparison is difficult due to different dates and time slots.
Women's cycling has grown massively in the last decade and especially since the Tour de France Femmes was created five years ago, but a special report by Cyclingnews in February revealed that team budgets, salaries and costs are growing far quicker than many sponsors can afford, creating dangerous stress points in the women's sport.
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Roodhooft manages the Fenix-Premier Tech women's team that includes Puck Pieterse and the Alpecin-Premier Tech team of Mathieu van der Poel and Jasper Philipsen. He is well aware of the financial problems of professional cycling and women's cycling.
"In the last two editions, the crowds have increased. Last year, in particular, they were huge because a French contender for the win, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, also emerged. Since then, the atmosphere and enthusiasm have been comparable to what we have with the men," Roodhooft told Nieuwsblad.
"Economically, it's a different story. On the one hand, you see a number of teams that are becoming too small (for the Tour), teams that still arrive at the start in a camper van. On the other hand, you see a number of teams that are investing heavily.
"Whereas they used to think they needed a women's team to be politically correct, you now see that they really want to perform. These are the same teams as the men: Lidl-Trek, UAE…
"Teams that are struggling to play a significant role in men's racing are going to extreme lengths to be dominant among the women, like Movistar. There are also the typical women's teams like FDJ, Canyon-SRAM, SD Worx, that have large budgets at their disposal. In that respect, the gap is even wider than with the men.
"The disadvantage of those unique women's teams is that they lack scale. We, for example, invested in ice baths. These were used by the men in their Tour over the past few weeks and are now here for the women. If you have to make all those investments in logistics and performance just for the women, it becomes an expensive undertaking."
Roodhooft revealed that Premier Tech wanted to sponsor a team that had both a men's and women's team, with Fenix happy to become the first title sponsor of the women's team.
The Women's WorldTour was introduced in 2020, and the average WorldTour team budget has risen to €4.67 million, with some teams apparently spending even more as they try to compete and win the Tour de France Femmes.
FDJ United-Suez is understood to have a budget of around €5 million and have Demi Vollering as team leader. They have recently announced a partnership with Red Bull, but team manager-owner Stephen Delcourt is worried about the above-inflation cost increases.
"We are like a start-up without funds," he told Cyclingnews in the spring.
"We play with money that we don't have in our pockets. That's dangerous. The consequence is that we have 15 WorldTour spots, and only 14 [teams] apply. We need to analyse that. We go too fast because we have no rules. There is space for the big teams, but for the others, there is no place."
Roodhooft issued a similar warning.
"The investments have become too large to work with the current calendar. Salaries are being paid that defy all logic," he said.
"There is insufficient talent to fill all the spots, meaning good riders are being overpaid. Something must be done in return. However, there are still too many races that generate too little media attention to justify the investments in women's cycling.
"There are two Grand Tours – the Giro and the Tour – and about ten one-day races that matter. The women's season consists of 25 to 30 commercially interesting days. A men's Grand Tour is 21 days; here it is nine. Only nine.
"We need more talented riders, a broader calendar, more competition in the sprints, and we would also like to see even more Belgian talents. The fact that there is nothing to be earned from it should no longer be an argument."
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