Each July, I try to watch as much of the Tour de France cycling race as I can.
It is sport’s hardest, toughest, most draining spectacle — 19 incredibly strenuous stages over three weeks riding around France and usually with a start in another country.
When the commentators mention one day as being a transition day, that usually means the cyclists speeding away from the Pyrenees mountains, soon to continue slogging up another mountain range, the Alps, or vice-versa.
Watching the highlight show one day last week, there was an interesting snippet in which a presenter said he thought it was possible to gauge how the world’s economy was moving by looking at the changes to the sponsorship of the 22 teams that start the race.
The 2023 edition, the 110th Tour de France, covered 2,116 miles.
Originally, the sponsors came from newspapers and food companies. Then sponsorship even came from cigarette companies, a sector today incompatible with the green credentials required.
Increasingly, today, it is hotel firms, and Saudi Arabian ones at that.
There are some voices stating much of this might be greenwashing and sportswashing.
Saudi giga-project AlUla, or more correctly its parent company, Royal Commission for AlUla, sponsor 2023 Tour de France cycling team Jayco AlUla, which includes cycling giants, the United Kingdom’s Simon Yates and The Netherlands’ Dylan Groenewegen.
AlUla is partnering with that team to, in the words of the hotel firm’s website, “share core values such as sustaining eco-friendly environments and the holistic health benefits of sport for all, and in particular cycling.”
Jayco AlUla was never expected to possess this year’s tour winner, known as the winner of the general classification, and it has not won any of this year’s stages.
Winning a stage is important to sponsors as the cameras will be rolling over the winning cyclist wearing a top covered with advertising.
In June, Cycling News published an article looking at the rumors that peer giga-project NEOM is in talks with cycling team Jumbo-Visma to sponsor it during its 2024 campaign.
The newspaper stated the team “needs to find a major title sponsor to complete the €35 million ($39 million) to €40 million budget needed to fund the men’s, women’s and development teams.”
Jumbo-Visma contains Danish sensation Jonas Vingegaard, who won the 2022 Tour de France and, as I write, is on course to win his second Tour de France outing this year.
It also contains Belgium’s Wout van Aert, who is, in my opinion, pound for pound the best cyclist in the world today.
With UAE Team Emirates, it is cycling’s top team and attracts deep-pocketed sponsors.
There are other teams with sponsorship interests from Middle Eastern oil and energy companies, which also has sparked some criticism.
It is not only in cycling that such developments have occurred, with the region spending millions on signing soccer and golf players to its budding leagues in those two sports.
The Middle East’s sponsorship of motor-racing Formula 1 might be more aligned.
Hotel firm Jumeirah sponsors that competition’s Williams Racing team.
French economy hotel firm B&B Hotels sponsored the B&B Hotels-KTM cycling team, which never really got going as a major force in the sport and ended in 2022.
It is jumping back into the saddle in 2024, though, sponsoring a team that will be known as Arkéa-B&B Hotels.
Other nations that sponsor cycling directly include Bahrain, Israel and Kazakhstan.
As the hotel industry continues to see new cycles in performance, it is increasingly continuing to perform in cycling.
The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Hotel News Now or CoStar Group and its affiliated companies. Bloggers published on this site are given the freedom to express views that may be controversial, but our goal is to provoke thought and constructive discussion within our reader community. Please feel free to contact an editor with any questions or concern.