Professional team budgets are growing year by year: riders and staff earn more, and teams are spending increasingly on achieving results, travel, altitude training camps, and every detail that helps win races and gain UCI ranking points. The Cyclingnews portal analyzed the figures of major teams to find out where they are spending their ever-expanding budgets.
The growth in expenses is primarily driven by top-tier teams who are buying their way to success. Teams competing for the Tour de France's yellow jersey operate with annual budgets exceeding 50 million euros.
According to official reports compiled by the UCI and obtained by La Gazzetta dello Sport last winter, the combined budget for all men's WorldTour teams in 2025 was 570 million euros. This is a sharp increase from 379 million euros in 2021 and 499 million in 2024.
The average WorldTour team budget in 2025 was 32 million euros (28 million in 2024 and 20 million in 2021). The median was 27 million euros, excluding the nearly 60 million euro budget of UAE Team Emirates-XRG and the approximately 17 million euro budget of Arkea-B&B Hotels.
Approximately 60% of team budgets are spent on rider and staff salaries. The remainder goes towards logistics and vehicles, training camps, altitude camps, nutrition, specialized equipment, and marketing.
Tadej Pogačar is currently the most successful cyclist and naturally has the highest salary – his annual earnings are estimated at 8 million euros, and with bonuses, his total income can reach nearly 10 million euros. Every WorldTour team has several leaders who earn over a million euros per season; some female riders' salaries are also close to this level.
Women's team budgets are generally much smaller – perhaps only a tenth of men's – but the growth rate is much faster. This highlights the rapid development of professional women's cycling and the potential for further growth in budgets and salaries.
According to La Gazzetta dello Sport, 87% of WorldTour team revenues come directly from sponsors. Fortunately, sponsors receive value for their investment through team naming rights and excellent visibility, especially at the Tour de France. The business model of professional cycling is fragile, but it typically does not lead to large debts.
When Cyclingnews conducted a one-off sponsorship analysis in 2013, it was calculated that the average WorldTour team earned 75 million euros in media coverage in 2012. Team Sky, after winning the Tour de France with Bradley Wiggins, generated as much as 465 million euros in media value, with 80% of that coming from the Tour de France.
Jonathan Vaughters, CEO of EF Education-EasyPost, the employer of Madis Mihkels, recently released 2025 data compiled by Nielsen agency, which shows the team generated 98 million euros in media coverage during the WorldTour season (84 million in 2024). Ben Healy's stage win and two days in the yellow jersey turned the American team's season from mediocre to successful.
At the pinnacle of cycling, behind multi-million euro budgets and headline-grabbing success, lies a survival struggle for many teams. The sport's sponsor-centric model and the pursuit of UCI ranking points put teams under immense pressure. The men's WorldTour, with 18 teams, can be roughly divided into three tiers based on budgets: the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer, making it increasingly difficult for them to compete.
According to Escape Collective data, the six richest teams accounted for 48% of the total budget in 2024, while the six poorest accounted for only 21%. Some teams receive support from national investment funds or state sponsors, while others rely entirely on private backers, which exacerbates inequality.
There are so-called super teams like UAE Team Emirates-XRG, Visma-Lease a Bike, Lidl-Trek, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, and Ineos Grenadiers, which will be joined by Decathlon CMA CGM in 2026. All of their budgets will exceed 40 million euros by 2026.
The second tier consists of teams like EF Education-EasyPost, Movistar, Alpecin-Premier Tech, and Soudal-QuickStep, with budgets around 30 million euros. They are followed by teams trying to avoid relegation from the WorldTour – such as Jayco AlUla, Picnic PostNL, and Lotto Intermarché – whose budgets are below 25 million euros.
The number of ProTeam teams has decreased in recent years, but the budgets of those remaining have grown significantly. Tudor Pro Cycling and Pinarello-Q36.5 have raised the level and spending of ProTeams; the average budget for 2025 is nearly 10 million euros. However, some smaller ProTeams operate with half that amount and rely on Grand Tour wildcards for survival. New UCI rules only allow ProTeams ranked in the top 30 globally to be invited to Grand Tours.
A deep dive into Visma-Lease a Bike's revenues and expenses
A recent report by Money in Sport on Visma-Lease a Bike's finances revealed where the team gets its money and where it spends it. Similar analyses have been done on Decathlon and Ineos Grenadiers on the Inrng blog.
Money in Sport thoroughly examined the 2024 reports of Visma-Lease a Bike's holding company. It was revealed that Yellow B Cycling is now jointly owned by team manager Richard Plugge and Dutch billionaire Robert van der Wallen. The latter sold his Brand Loyalty company for nearly a billion euros and subsequently founded L-Founders of Loyalty.
In 2024, Visma-Lease a Bike's revenues were 52 million euros, but the loss amounted to 6.1 million euros. Expenses related to the team's sale will add approximately 1 million euros annually to the balance sheet over the next ten years.
72% of total revenue came from sponsors such as Visma, Lease a Bike, Škoda, Cervélo, Jumbo supermarkets, SRAM, and Rabobank. Of the financial revenues, 37.3 million euros constituted 'pure cash,' and 9.6 million euros were barter deals, meaning non-monetary value (e.g., bikes and vehicles). In 2024, 4.1 million euros were accounted for as depreciation and amortization.
Other revenues included 1.8 million euros from marketing and fan base (e.g., team fan merchandise), 1.2 million from partnerships and events, 800,000 euros from race participation, 500,000 euros from equipment sold at the end of the season, and 500,000 euros from race prizes.
The team's operating expenses in 2024 amounted to 58.7 million euros. Labor costs were 32.9 million euros, or 56% of total revenue. 2.6 million was spent on race and training camps, 1.9 million on partnerships and events, 1.1 million on the vehicle fleet, 800,000 on materials and nutrition, and 3.9 million euros on other operating expenses.
Visma-Lease a Bike declined to comment on its budget details but emphasized that the 6.1 million euro loss includes investments and annual depreciation and amortization costs. While the Dutch team's budget is larger than some rivals, they also maintain a very successful development team and a women's WorldTour team that won Paris-Roubaix and the Tour de France Femmes in 2025 with Pauline Ferrand-Prévot.
Major teams reportedly spend an average of about 400,000 euros annually on high-altitude training camps, with coaches, sports directors, and even team chefs participating. Visma-Lease a Bike has long believed in the benefits of training in the mountains and spent six times that amount in 2024. While at Movistar, Matteo Jorgenson once complained that most of his salary went towards altitude camps, diet, and personal support. At Visma-Lease a Bike and most other teams, these expenses are now part of the employment contract.
Teams registered in France and Belgium must hire many riders as employees rather than independent contractors due to national labor laws, thus paying more taxes and social security contributions.
Other teams pay riders and staff as subcontractors, so they pay the necessary taxes themselves. This allows teams to offer higher gross salaries, and riders save on taxes by living in places like Monaco or Andorra. This system increases labor costs by about 35% but ensures a pension and access to national benefits.
Cycling millionaires and ever-growing teams
Rider and staff salaries logically form the lion's share of any team's budget. Fortunately, success and major victories bring immense media value – every 30 riders create value that significantly exceeds their salary cost.
According to 2024 data, UAE Team Emirates-XRG spent 27.3 million euros on salaries – by far the most. Tadej Pogačar's 8 million euro annual salary (contract valid until 2030) makes him the highest-paid rider in the WorldTour. In comparison, Jonas Vingegaard earns about 5 million euros annually.
A sprinter who wins stages in Grand Tours earns about 1.5 million euros annually, a top domestique at the Tour de France earns nearly a million euros, and a lesser-known WorldTour domestique earns at least 200,000 euros. According to La Gazzetta dello Sport, the average salary for an employed rider is 350,000 euros, and for a subcontractor, it's 630,000 euros before pension and insurance costs.
Mads Pedersen is believed to earn 2.3 million, Wout van Aert 2.5 million, and Mathieu van der Poel around 3.5 million euros annually. When signing Isaac del Toro in 2024, UAE Team Emirates-XRG reportedly offered him 2 million.
Over 70 male riders earn more than a million euros per year. All riders in the UAE Team Emirates-XRG Tour de France squad likely have seven-figure incomes. Super teams spend much more than weaker WorldTour rivals, and it is this financial power that increasingly concentrates the best riders in top teams. Large teams spend about 60% of their budget on salaries, while smaller ones only 35-40%, as fixed costs are similar.
Budget cap – for losers or essential for survival?
The rapid growth of some team budgets exceeds inflation and tests the limits of sponsorship. Some see the arrival of new major sponsors as a sign of the sport's good health, while others fear an ever-narrowing pyramid that could harm competitiveness and interest in the WorldTour.
Some stakeholders call for salary or budget caps, like in US sports, to strengthen competition. Others prefer a free-market approach.
The UCI had in principle approved the introduction of a budget cap for the men's and women's WorldTour by 2026, but it was not implemented. UCI President David Lappartient stated that the teams voted against it, wanting a broader reform.
"We have reached a point where three teams dominate, and that doesn't make the sport exciting," said Brent Copeland, manager of Jayco AlUla.
Leading agent Alex Carera is against a budget cap, saying, "A budget cap is for losers!" According to him, other teams need help finding new major sponsors and making cycling an attractive product. "Cycling is a beautiful sport, but it needs to solve its problems. If everyone works together, we can see teams with budgets of 100 million euros, and everyone will earn more," Carera concluded.
