It was a successful Tour de France for AG2R La Mondiale, with their team leader Romain Bardet winning stage 12 to Peyragudes before going on to finish in third place overall. In addition, they finished in second place in the team classification behind Team Sky and Pierre Latour finished in third place in the youth classification.

The general manager of the title sponsor AG2R, André Renaudin, has since outlined how satisfied the French social protection company are with the return on investment from the sponsorship with the success from the Tour de France resulting in increased exposure for the brand.

Renaudin spoke to BFM Business on Monday, about the investment in the team which he said is in the order of €15 million per year. He confirmed that independent agencies have conducted research into the value of the media exposure.

“The lesser years see a return of about €70 million, the very good years – and I think 2017 is a very big year – €100 million, probably €110 or €120 million,” said Renaudin.

He also explained that the investment in the team is a long-term strategy for AG2R.

“For 17 years we are the main sponsor of the cycling team. Without being able to compete financially with heavyweights like Team Sky of Christopher Froome, we are steadily increasing the budget but in a reasonable way. Over 10 years we have had to increase from €10 million to €15 million.”

The French WorldTour team have been in existence since 1992 having been previously sponsored by Chazal and Casino. AG2R came on board as a co-sponsor for the 1999 season, before becoming title sponsor the following year.

In 2015, a study by French consultancy and research firm Occurence, showed that the sponsorship by AG2R of its cycling team gained the company €130 million in media exposure for ​​the 2015 season (from January to September). This compared favourably to the €13m budget of the team for the season.

2 COMMENTS

  1. Well this only confirms even further that the pro-cycling world has a deficient economic model, as most of the riders themselves get very little compared to the work they put in (except for a very few) if compared to other sports like football, the NBA, American football, Baseball, the NHL Hockey etc…

  2. Have to admire the teams performance at this year’s TdF. They definitely went in with a go for the win attitude which was a breathe of fresh air from riders defending podium positions rather than attempting to get on the top step, even if that meant losing GC position. Chapeau.

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