Reigning World Champion and multiple Tour de France winner Tadej Pogačar is 'massively underpaid' given the amount of star power he brings to the sport, former US rider Tejay van Garderen has suggested. And that's even if Pogačar is already likely the best-paid bike rider on the planet.
Following his best season to date, La Gazzetta dello Sport reported that Pogačar had received both an extension and pay rise to his current contract with UAE Team Emirates. His deal is now due to end in 2030, and during that time he will reportedly earn €50 million in six years, as well as having a €200 million buy-out clause.
Remco Evenepoel will earn close to €5 million a season under a new contract with Soudal-QuickStep, with Jonas Vingegaard earning a similar figure as leader at Visma-Lease a Bike.
Speaking on the NBC 'Beyond the Podium' podcast, Van Garderen, who twice placing fifth overall at the Tour de France and now works for EF Education-EasyPost as a directeur sportif, argued that compared with stars in other sports, particularly in the USA, Pogačar's recently inflated wage packet was still not enough.
"I definitely like seeing the rock getting pushed up the hill for cycling, it's about time that the guys are getting the respect that they deserve." Van Garderen said after co-host Brent Bookwalter had argued that Pogačar's latest contract ushered in a new era of boosted financial deals.
"But I'd still say that Tadej Pogacar, for all the star power he brings to the sport, is massively underpaid."
"Just in comparison if you look at [top US basketball league] the NBA, 8.3 million euros would get you a solid '3 and D' player" - one can take shots from a wide variety of positions. "Probably somebody coming off the bench," Van Garderen added, warming his explanation, "maybe a little bit of a journeyman, gets traded to some other teams here. [But] The highest paid player, Stephen Curry, gets 45 million a year."
Van Garderen admitted that comparisons between cycling and major US sports were difficult. But he nonetheless harked back to when he was riding between 2008 and 2021 and argued that over time, proportionally the increase was not as big as it seemed.
Van Garden claimed that former multiple Tour winner like Chris Froome and or three-times World Champion Peter Sagan were paid around €4 to €5 million a year and recognised that when it came to Pogačar's new deal, "That's a big step up."
However, he added, "But if you think about it that was all the way back in 2012 or 2013 and if you look at the highest paid basketball player at the time, Kobe Bryant - he was on €25 million and now it's €45 million for the highest paid guy."
"I don't know what cycling needs to do to kind of catch up because you can't tell me that the viewership is not there. In July [for the Tour de France] the decks are clear, the NBA is no longer going, they finish up in June, football hasn't started yet. Cycling is a global thing that everyone's watching."
Van Garderen admitted that he did not know how higher wages would be funded. But he suggested that rather than start money, maybe Pogačar could ask for a small percentage of a race's TV coverage rights.
"Maybe the team could leverage that, saying if you want Tadej there, you're going to have pay us this. And that could be a way of pulling in some of that revenue the teams don't see any of, and that's where you could see us just inching closer to some of those ball sports."
Further on in the same podcast, Van Garderen admitted that for some purely financially driven riders, it was possible a major hike in wages might cause them to lose motivation, suffer from added pressure, and cease to race so well.
But he emphasised that no matter how much or little Pogačar was paid, he was "cut from a different cloth" and would ride hard no matter his wages. "He's driven," Van Garderen added.
Regardless of Pogacar's financial situation, Van Garderen's suggestion about rider wages could well clash with the UCI will implement some form of budget cap in the years to come. IN April, after a Professional Cycling Council meeting, the UCI announced that "the principle" of establishing an upper spending limit for teams had been approved.
Last year, after the four top World Tour teams won 73% of races in the opening months of the season, Groupama-FDJ team manager Marc Madiot argued strongly in favour of such a cap, saying "If we don’t cap the budgets, we will remain in a situation where the giant teams can control everything."
Madiot also pointed to one of the French teams' particular financial challenges, given riders and staff wages are much higher in that country because of tougher financial regulations on companies when compared to abroad.
Van Garderen himself said he was not in favour of "the salary cap idea", admitting that he had thought differently on other occasions this year, but this time argued "all you're going to do is artificially deflate the riders' value, because you won't pay them what they're worth. Cycling needs to pay riders what they deserve."
