'If there are negative responses, at least we’ve stayed true to what we do' - Maap makes WorldTour debut with sponsorship of Jayco AlUla and Liv AlUla Jayco

Melbourne-based cycling apparel brand Maap has today announced a multi-year sponsorship deal of Australian WorldTour teams Jayco-AlUla and Liv-AlUla-Jayco, as well as the women’s Liv-AlUla-Jayco Continental team. 

Visually the new team kit, common across both men’s and women’s teams save for sponsor logos, is a departure from the norm for the WorldTour. But rather than the purple and deep blue jerseys, it is likely the light grey of the shorts here that will turn heads initially. Outside of the world champion and national champions’ occasional use of white shorts, black is very much the standard option in the pro peloton. AG2R La Mondiale created a certain cult following around their brown shorts in recent years (this writer being a big fan), but have since returned to black. 

Alé, the team’s former clothing sponsor, will remain in the Men’s WorldTour on the backs of the riders of Team Bahrain Victorious and Groupama-FDJ.

The colours of the jerseys are based on things as varied as the Aurora Australis - the Southern Lights, a phenomenon mirroring those seen in northern latitudes but in the Australian Outback - the sunsets seen at the Saudi Arabian City of AlUla, and the shifting forms of desert sands. The light grey, or ‘Shadow’ to use the brand’s terminology, is to “speak to MAAP's pursuit of change and reluctance to follow trends.”

When pressed about the potential reception from rival teams in a sport so steeped in tradition, Oliver Cousins, Maap’s co-founder said:

“It’s something you’d expect to see from us if we were entering the WorldTour… If there are negative responses, at least we’ve stayed true to what we do and we’re really backing it."

The Shadow colour shorts are a staple within the consumer line of Maap products already, with the brand exercising some strategy to tie the pro kit into the consumer-facing ranges that we haven’t seen since the Rapha sponsorship of Team Sky. 

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Speaking to Maap in advance of the launch it was clear that the brand had targeted the GreenEDGE team for some time, partially due to the Australian connection but more recently because the team allowed the brand a high degree of creative control, something which Cyclingnews understands other teams were less willing to relinquish.

Of the partnership, Maap’s co-founder Jarrad Smith said:

“Since founding MAAP a decade ago, partnering with GreenEDGE has been a long-held dream of ours. We are so proud to be in this position and aim to do everything we can to enable both the men’s and women’s teams to realise their full potential race after race while also serving to inspire a whole new generation of riders coming into the sport.”

When a brand makes the jump into a WorldTour sponsorship spot we often see a shift in focus towards more performance-oriented clothing in the brand's consumer products too. This was very evident with Rapha following its sponsorship of Team Sky and latterly EF Education. When asked whether it’d had to develop new products specifically for the teams, or if the existing suite of garments would be used initially, Cousins said:

“Generally most of the product has been designed specifically for the team. There’s probably only a handful of styles that translate exactly across, even with some modifications. A lot of focus has gone into the road suit, the lightweight road suit, and the TT suit, which will be what they race in, with bibs and jerseys more used just for training".

Given the popularity of the brand, Cousins was clear that some of these new garments would be filtering into the consumer lines in due course:

“For us, this has been long overdue. We’re launching a race jersey, a lightweight aero jersey, and we will launch the team versions of those skinsuits with minor modifications. It’s been a push to get the factory commercialising those collections for 2025.”