Professional athletes negotiate their wages, so it's difficult to make an argument that they are under or overpaid. If cycling generated the sort of annual revenue that the NFL does I'm pretty sure we'd see the same type of salaries.

if somehow france could charge people to stand next to the road to watch live cycling.

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>In what other sport (of comparable size) has their top athletes on such a pittance. I can't think of any.

First of all top cyclists earn a lot more than the minimum wage.
So, we can take the last qualifier to the Summer Olympics 100m dash, and check his earnings.

Or take the less watched sports. Like wrestling, weightlifting.
Also, I don't think Hungarian multiple olympic kayak champions earn more than the minimum proteam cyclist wage.

Aside from the contradiction in your post, my point centred around the minimum World Tour wage. Which is hardly negotiable.


See above. There are plenty on close to, if not on, the minimum.

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Does anyone have the data to say what the average or median WT PRO is making. The screenshots i posted were just 'minimum' , Who knows, team sky or whatever super team (with more money) could be paying all their athletes above the minimum (basement) set by the UCI (?) ... i doubt it, but this 'minimum' wording is weird.

the minimum* base salary for an MLS soccer rookie is 34k, and usually is capped for their initial 1-2 seasons, although players like Freddy adu somehow got around this their first year (?). I think the MLS even published online every single player's salary. Is there something that exists for cycling WT? or is that all confidential. Heck even at my old college, every year the newspaper published every professor and sports coach's salary. (i think it was mandatory)

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athletics is where you'll find really poor people.. for real just like in case if winter disciplines, only the very best earn good money, the rest has to do crazy stuff (like work few shifts or strip for a magazine) in order to finance their career.

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Oh boy

https://twitter.com/inCycleTV/status/46 ... 52/photo/1

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Tuft in Pink! well deserved.

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I never took drugs to improve my performance at any time. I will be willing to stick my finger into a polygraph test if anyone with big media pull wants to take issue. If you buy a signed poster now it will not be tarnished later. --Graeme Obree

OT: If your old college was a NPO which most education institutions are in the US, it is part of their regulations to disclose to any member of the public the salaries of their employees - not necessarily by name (unless they choose to), but by title. If you went to an FPO - such as DeVry Tech, University of Pheonix or similar - they are not regulated in anyway. Your college newspaper just executed it's right to public information and chose to publish said information, it wasn't mandatory.

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the no minimum wage seems a lot like a legalization of "under the table" payments and/or guys selling used stuff to have an income (I guess I read this second "option" on Gaimon's blog).
The minimum is tricky too, wasn't last year or few years ago that they found some teams using "double" contracts? Also this was written in Millar's book.
Minimum wage with a (substantial) part that goes to taxes, retirement fund, etc etc...and a "separate" under the table contract just with net (no taxes).

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Giro 2014 leader list?

Straight out of 2005/2006?: Basso, Evans, Scarponi, Pellizotti, Cunego

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I never took drugs to improve my performance at any time. I will be willing to stick my finger into a polygraph test if anyone with big media pull wants to take issue. If you buy a signed poster now it will not be tarnished later. --Graeme Obree

The economics of (most) salary negotiations have been pretty well studied, and essentially a large part of the reason why in MANY sports the base level is very low is an application of the "bread today, Jam tomorrow" principle, the idea is that NeoPros are willing to accept very low levels as the payout of eventual "success" is very high - in the case of sports this has a magnified effect due to sponsorships, endorsements and, increasingly, payments for turning up at Sportives.

US Pro sports are not a good comparison as, given the franchise model which is designed to keep owners in the money, coupled with collective negotiations and salary caps, you've essentially got an oligopoly, not a free market.

A more realistic comparison for Pro Cyclists may be found in the salary pyramid of drug dealers, like here http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_levitt_ ... _economics

Boonen's new custom bike.



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And then there is women's professional cycling where there is essentially no minimum salary at all either

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+ 1000 !!!

Louis