The UCI has revealed the successful viewing figures of the inaugural multi-discipline UCI Cycling World Championships in Scotland, suggesting there was a significant increases in TV and digital audiences thanks to the 13 different cycling disciplines being combined into one ‘super worlds’.
Glasgow was the epicentre of the events which ran from August 3-13, with more than 200 million hours of competition viewed globally throughout the 11 days. When compared to the average across the editions from 2017-2022, this figure increased 75% from a typical year when the different disciplines are organised into separate events.
The UCI said there was a total of of 18.2 million viewers in France (Glance/Mediamat - médiamétrie), 15.5 million in Italy (Auditel) and 11.9 million in the UK (BBC).
The UCI did not specify how their numbers were calculated.
The UCI Cycling World Championships was the inaugural edition of the multi-discipline worlds, which will take place every four years. The 2027 edition will be held in Haute-Savoie in France.
It will grow even further with the edition of Gravel and Junior Track events, taking the total to 19 disciplines.
UCI President David Lappartient was delighted with the success of the event after building what was billed as the biggest-ever cycling event.
“The first edition of the UCI Cycling World Championships was an unprecedented success,” said Lappartient in a press release. “The event saw around 8,000 athletes (elite and amateur) from 132 countries take part in the various disciplines on the programme.
“The TV figures show that the public massively followed the UCI Cycling World Championships competitions and that events and disciplines that do not normally benefit from such a high level of TV and media coverage benefited greatly from the increased exposure that will boost their popularity and development at international level.”
It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows at Worlds, however, with The Scotsman reporting two weeks ago that the World Championships went £8 million over budget with MSP Angus Robertson citing inflation as a reason for the overextension.
The UCI collects a significant fee and expects other benefits from the local event organiser, who is left to cover any extra costs.
The news came just days after a £6.6 million cut for Creative Scotland, the development body for the arts was revealed, but Robertson stressed there were reserves available to make up the shortfalls and the country's arts organizations will not suffer "any disadvantage" from the costs of the World Championship.
An opinion piece written the day after the news article was posted lambasted the event’s organisation, questioning the reasons for it taking up such a huge budget despite the sector’s struggles.
“The message that the Scottish Government appears to be sending is that it believes a one-off cycling event is more important than the health of our ailing arts and culture sector,” said The Scotsman Comment.
They labelled it as a ‘vanity project’, which only ‘put Scotland on the global stage for a brief time’, going against what it means to be Scottish.
“In good times, spending millions on a cycling event might have been acceptable,” said the Scotsman Comment.
“But amid a sustained period of economic problems that have been hitting the arts world hard – from the 2008 financial crash and the years of austerity that followed to the Covid pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis – it was a ridiculous decision.”
