Women’s sport saw another new highlight this past weekend, as more than 63,000 people poured into Denver’s Empower Field to watch the inaugural home game of the new NWSL Denver Summit FC team. This was the largest crowd ever assembled for a women’s pro soccer game in the United States, and broke the old NWSL record, set last year, by more than fifty percent. Fans saw the new team fight to a scoreless draw against the Washington Spirit. The women’s FIFA World Cup final in 1999, played in the Rose Bowl and – featuring legendary stars like Mia Hamm, Brandi Chastain and Julie Foudy – attracted over 90,000 fans; the largest women’s sporting event of any type ever held in the country was the Nebraska vs. Omaha women’s volleyball match held in August of 2023 in the University of Nebraska football stadium, drawing over 92,000 fans. Last weekend’s event only underscored the vast and growing potential of well-organized women’s sports leagues, and with anticipation growing for the upcoming WNBA season now that the CBA has been resolved and two new expansion teams joining that league soon, the trajectory is heading into new and record territory. One hopes that the sentiment bolsters interest in the UCI’s Women’s WorldTour, too.
Sports economies continue to diversify in multiple directions, none more polarizing than the established online wagering platforms and the emerging prediction markets. Professional cycling has had a long love-hate history with betting, particularly when such firms sponsor teams or events, and the possibility of betting on race outcomes undoubtedly has the potential to attract new fans from outside cycling’s typical demographics. However, regulatory and legal battles are already being fought to curtail what many analysts believe are predatory and addiction-encouraging patterns that are built into wagering apps. Gambling addiction is a pervasive social scourge that has been spiking in recent years due to the accessibility, popularity, and sophisticated psychological “gamification” of betting apps.
The so-called “prediction markets” present a more complex problem that regulatory bodies and legislation may play a hand in shaping in the coming year. These platforms allow participants to create “contracts” that relate to the hypothetical or mathematical outcome of an event, paying out only if the event happens. Other platform users can wager on that same contract, essentially creating a type of bet on the outcome’s probability. However, prediction markets are no less vulnerable to manipulation than traditional betting. Indeed, they may be more susceptible to the ability of wagering partners to rig the outcome, or be party to insider information that the event will happen – which happens to be central to the U.S. regulatory fight underway. U.S. sports leagues are taking a proactive – if not schizophrenic approach – to the prediction market discourse by signing partnerships with key players like Kalshi and Polymarket, while also asking these firms to take action to prevent or cancel easily manipulated contracts from being wagered in the first place. With wider discussion taking place on how to shape the future of professional cycling, traditional and prediction market wagering may come back into focus and stakeholders look for ways to bolster flagging viewership, aging demographics, and an outdated consumer entertainment experience.
On that note of change and opportunity, ex-road racer and current gravel racing privateer Joe Laverick released a detailed analysis about the business of pro cycling, entitled “The Peloton Economy.” The young racer has gradually carved out a name for himself for his frank and unfiltered analysis of the current status of the sport, written from the inside perspective. In his 15,000-word assessment of where pro cycling stands today, Laverick tries to draw attention to the central criticality of building the sport’s fanbase, as a prerequisite to all the other changes and modernization that the sport desperately needs. Given the UCI’s recent call for new ideas and strategies to guide the future growth of cycling, this is a timely analysis. Laverick draws heavily upon the original Rapha Roadmap, published in 2019, which proposed a number of changes to improve the economics and growth potential of the sport. (Note: Authors of The Outer Line were two of the Rapha Report’s four original authors, and will shortly be collaborating with Laverick to publish a revised analysis and concise set of updated recommendations in response to the UCI’s recent outreach.)