OPINION
elsewhere. This is unique to cycling given that stadium-based sports such as football have a permanent venue that either removes or reduces many of these barriers. But e-sports looks different. To build a professional-level platform, we do have to make a significant investment in our technical platform, race operations, broadcasts, rider verification and fair play programme - anyone who thinks virtual racing simply involves connecting a few turbo trainers has probably never watched our operations team deal with a live competition involving riders across several continents. But the advantage is that our core infrastructure can support more racing once it is in place. We do not need to build a new physical venue every Sunday. Riders enter from their own homes, while our platform supports different ability categories and competitions throughout the year. This lowers the additional cost of creating each race, and it gives us room to direct a share of the competition budget towards the riders producing the spectacle. Of course, a different cost base does not force an organiser to offer equal prize money, and virtual competitions can (and do) reproduce the same inequalities found elsewhere in sport. But the economics allowed us to make a decision, and we made it. Building parity into the regular racing calendar also gives riders more certainty than a one-off campaign. Champ Bullys can plan around Sunday Race Club because the opportunity returns each week, so rather than waiting for one sponsor to fund an entire season, the riders can contribute to the team’s budget through their own performances. I find our model really exciting because it gives athletes more control. Sponsorship will remain essential to cycling, but it shouldn’t
42 | September 2026
be the only route available to a talented rider or an ambitious team. Virtual racing creates this other source of income and makes it way more available across borders. The Champ Bullys story also shows how artificial the division between virtual and outdoor cycling can be. What we’re seeing more and more is riders moving between the two more often; training indoors for outdoor events, competing virtually during parts of the season and then taking the fitness they build back onto the road. It’s becoming clear how the success in one form of racing directly funds participation in the other. This relationship should interest the wider bike industry because a digital service becomes more valuable when a rider’s time on it creates opportunities elsewhere in their life, especially if it allows them to develop as an athlete or remain in the sport when the cost would otherwise force them out. I’m by no means suggesting that every road organiser can or should copy our model. Physical events will always face costs that we avoid, and long-established races like the Classics and the Grand Tours have commercial arrangements built over many years. But every organiser makes choices about how value is distributed, and new formats give us the chance to reconsider choices that the sport has grown used to accepting. At MyWhoosh, equal prize money is now an established part of how we operate. I am proud of the headline figures, but I care even more about what riders do with them. When the Champ Bullys team arrive at their next race in Asia, part of that journey will have been paid for through their performances on Sunday nights. That is the outcome we had in mind when equal prize money went into the model from day one. ●
www.bikebiz.com
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