Can Aussie cycling live without Gerry Ryan?

Professional cycling teams have always relied on the goodwill of sponsors for their ongoing existence.

That is the nature of a sport that lacks opportunities for teams to raise revenue directly from fans, other than through selling the odd piece of merchandise and the occasional membership.

Football teams also have stadiums to fill, tickets to sell, catering contracts, and local community devotion. Most cycling fans don’t devote themselves to a single team like football fans do, preferring to cheer for individual riders and thrilling performances.

It’s a beautiful part of the sport. I love the fact that I can watch cycling without being dejected when my team loses – there is always something to enjoy.

But for many teams this lack of a geographical and commercial base means eking out a precarious existence, always a season or two from financial ruin, hoping a sponsor doesn’t decide to alter its marketing strategy. It has ever been thus.

So the announcement from Team Blanco management that the team has secured a two-and-a-half-year sponsorship from American consumer electronics company Belkin was welcome news. It’s been a rough few months for the team since long-term sponsor Rabobank left at the end of 2012, fed up with constant bad press.

Australian Blanco riders Mark Renshaw and Jack Bobridge will no doubt be relieved that the distracting uncertainty is over and the team can focus on winning bike races.

But the issue of sponsorship brought to my mind an issue that’s been bubbling away for a little while: how acute is the risk for Australian cycling if Gerry Ryan ever decides to pull his support?

Now, this is not an immediate concern: Ryan has pledged to fund Orica-GreenEdge until 2016, at least. The problem as I see it is that cycling in Australia needs to start seriously diversifying its financial base, or there could be trouble further down the track.

Through his various businesses, Ryan is shouldering a disproportionate share of the financial burden of keeping Australian cycling solvent. Apart from his well known personal support for Orica-GreenEdge, and the women’s Orica-AIS sister team, you’ll see two of Ryan’s companies named in the major partners list of the teams: Jayco and Mitchelton.

You’ll also see Jayco and Mitchelton as the naming-rights sponsors on two of the major racing events held over the Australian summer, the Jayco Herald-Sun Tour, and the Mitchelton Bay Criterium series.

Jayco also co-sponsors the AIS development team (Jayco-AIS World Tour Academy), which is widely seen as the primary development pathway for the next generation of top Aussie road talent, and is the major commercial partner for Cycling Australia. You’ll see Australia’s top track riders wearing Jayco logos in international races.

Now, it’s wonderful that Gerry Ryan feels passionate enough about Australian cycling to pour so much money into the sport. But this comes with risk.

What if Ryan has a falling out with the board of Cycling Australia? What if the wheels fall off the caravan market? What if he decides to put more time and money into his interests in rugby league (Ryan is a former board member of the Melbourne Storm NRL club and has been reported to be interested in buying a stake in the club) or horse racing (Ryan part-owned 2010 Melbourne Cup winner Americain)?

If Ryan eventually walks, it leaves a big hole in Australian cycling’s revenue stream. A hole that big would be difficult to fill at short notice. Fortunately, we have at least three years notice, but now is the time to start diversifying the financial base of cycling in Australia.

Where are the banks, telcos and big retailers? Where are the logistics companies, utilities, insurance giants, mining companies, property developers and other big industries?

Our economy is one of the strongest in the world, cycling is booming here, and the whole thing is being kept afloat by the goodwill of one man, while companies should be lining up to stick their logos on our world-beating pedallers.

The Blanco example illustrates how important this is: by gaining an American sponsor the team may lose some of its famously Dutch character, have to include more American riders, and race more often in America.

How would GreenEdge fans feel if the same happened with “our” national pro team?