Pro cycling is a beautiful sport. Grit, speed, suffering, glory—it’s all there. But here’s the catch: almost nobody outside the hardcore cycling bubble gives a damn.
Most people have a bike. Most people like riding a bike. So why do they not watch cycling?
Why does the average sports fan know more about competitive cornhole than the Tour of Flanders?
Because pro cycling has a marketing problem. A storytelling problem. A stubborn, Lycra-clad, tradition-worshiping problem.
But hey, no sport is beyond saving. Here’s how cycling could turn casual riders, Netflix bingers, and sports junkies into lifelong fans.
1. More Netflix, Less Nonsense
Sports are not just about competition. They are about people. You don’t watch a race just to see who wins—you watch to see the struggle, the heartbreak, the barely-there gasps for air when the road rises and the legs say no more, but the heart says one more kilometer.
Drive to Survive made people care about Formula 1 because it wasn’t about tire compounds and aerodynamics—it was about personalities, drama, ambition. It turned team principals into Shakespearean villains and turned drivers into protagonists of a story bigger than the sport itself.
Cycling needs that. Tour de France: Unchained was a start, but it was just the first turn of the pedals. The sport is an endless soap opera—Wout van Aert grinding his teeth as he works for Vingegaard, Pogacar attacking like a dog that doesn’t know when to quit, Evenepoel with his young arrogance, Alaphilippe looking like a rockstar on two wheels.
The drama is there. But it needs to be packaged for people who don’t know what a peloton is.
2. Stop Treating Casual Fans Like Outsiders
The worst thing cycling does? It makes new viewers feel like they’ve crashed a secret club where everyone speaks a language they don’t understand.
They tune into the Tour. They see 100 riders cruising through sunflower fields.
No one explains why a team is burning itself out on the front or why some guy in polka dots is sprinting for points at the top of an otherwise insignificant hill.
The commentators ramble on about watts, but no one tells the audience why it matters that this breakaway might survive, why a crosswind could shatter the race, why an attack at just the right second can be the difference between glory and anonymity.
New fans don’t need dumbed-down coverage. They need good storytelling.
More Lanterne Rouge-style breakdowns. More on-screen graphics showing why gaps matter, why teams make the choices they do. Less assuming that everyone has memorized the entire palmarès of Bernard Hinault.
Because if you don’t make people care, they’ll change the channel.
3. Market the Spring Classics Like the Chaotic Carnivals They Are
You want to hook a new fan? Don’t start them on a three-week stage race where nothing happens for 80% of the time.
Start them with Paris-Roubaix.
Tell them: “Watch this. You will see men and women thrown against the stones like rag dolls, bouncing over ancient cobbles that have ruined lives and made legends.”
Tell them about the Arenberg Forest, where the light filters through the trees like something out of a dream, and the riders plunge in knowing full well that one slip could mean a broken collarbone or worse.
Tell them about Flanders, about the steep little hills that look innocent on a map but become torture chambers when the strongest riders in the world hit them full speed, fighting for their place in history.
This is where cycling is raw, where it feels like a sport of fighters, not just lycra-clad mathematicians calculating their watts-per-kilogram.
Show them the mud. Show them the crashes. Show them the glory.
And they’ll be hooked.
4. Give Riders Permanent Numbers & Market Them Like Stars
Nobody buys a soccer jersey that just says “Sponsor Name FC.” They buy a Messi jersey. A LeBron jersey. A Mahomes jersey.
Cycling should do the same.
Imagine if Pogacar was always #17. If Van Aert was #7. If Evenepoel was #99. If a kid could walk into a shop, pick up a jersey with their favorite rider’s number on it, and wear it like a badge of honor.
This is not rocket science. It’s just basic marketing.
Right now, fans can barely buy a jersey that isn’t covered in sponsor logos like a stock car at the Daytona 500.
But if cycling embraced real merchandise—signature jerseys, permanent numbers, actual brands around the riders—it could tap into the same tribal loyalty that makes soccer, basketball, and football massive.
Give people a way to wear their fandom, and they’ll wear it proudly.
5. Make Watching Cycling Not Feel Like an IT Problem
The biggest race of the year is happening. You want to watch.
You turn on your TV. Nothing.
You check the streaming services. You need a VPN. Maybe GCN+. Or Eurosport. Or Peacock. Or a pirated feed that looks like it was filmed on a toaster.
This is madness.
Cycling will never grow if people can’t even find the races.
The solution? Free, easy-to-access streaming for at least the major races. Put the biggest classics and Grand Tour stages on YouTube.
Offer a one-stop streaming service with every race in one place, not spread across a dozen different platforms like a scavenger hunt designed by sadists.
Make it easy, and people will watch.
6. Bring Cycling Back to the U.S.
Americans love sports that feel big. The Tour of California had potential, but it faded into nothing.
Time to fix that.
Imagine a women’s-only U.S. stage race—big cities, stunning landscapes, full media coverage. The best female cyclists in the world battling it out on American soil.
Imagine a proper one-day classic through the streets of New York or the hills of Colorado. A race with personality, not just a watered-down Euro imitation.
Get America back into cycling, and the sport gets a whole new audience.
7. Stop Accusing Every Strong Rider of Doping
There is nothing that drives away a new fan faster than saying, “Yeah, but he’s probably juiced.”
Yes, cycling has a past. But so does every sport that demands superhuman performance.
The conversation needs to shift. Not to blind faith, but to a recognition that the sport has changed, that we can marvel at greatness without assuming it’s built on a house of lies.
Because if every new legend is met with cynicism, why should fans even bother?
Conclusion: The Wake-Up Call
Right now, cycling is like that grumpy old man yelling at kids to get off his lawn. “This is OUR sport! You have to suffer to understand it! If you don’t know who Eddy Merckx is, get out!”
But here’s the thing—if cycling doesn’t open its doors, no one will bother knocking.
This sport has everything it needs to be bigger. The suffering. The rivalries. The drama. But it needs to drop the gatekeeping, embrace modern media, and stop acting like a secret club for Lycra-loving purists.
Because if it doesn’t?
Well… enjoy being less popular than competitive cornhole.
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