'Let's privatise Alpe d'Huez' - Ex team boss with radical plan for cycling's financial model

The sport’s financial model is a perennial favourite when it comes to winter talk in pro cycling, and the topic was dusted down again on RMC Sport’s 'Grand Plateau'podcast this week, with some radical proposals.

Most notably, the former B&B Hotels manager Jérôme Pineau suggested that spectators should be charged to stand at the roadside on the upper reaches of Alpe d’Huez on the 2026 Tour de France, with the money distributed to the competing teams.

"I'm going to shock some people, but they’ve created a stage that will go up Alpe d’Huez twice. So let’s privatise the last five kilometres of Alpe d’Huez. Let’s charge admission, let’s have VIPs, let’s create something to make money! 

“Historically, cycling is a popular sport, a free sport. But a free sport where there are no more riders on the road because there are only two teams, Bahrain and UAE, is less fun, isn’t it?”

Pineau noted that VIP sections already exist at the Tour and other races owned by ASO, but he pointed out that the race organiser keeps all the revenue. Indeed, he recalled that his team had to pay ASO in order to have VIP guests at their races.

“There’s a VIP area at the end of the Arenberg at Paris-Roubaix. Who collects the money from the people who paid? ASO,” Pineau said. “Spectators come to watch the race to see your riders, but your riders have zero on the revenue sheet. That’s what’s not right. Hospitality areas are organised at the Tour and other major races, but it’s the organiser who takes the money, not the people who put on the show.”

Pineau ran Pro Continental team B&B Hotels (originally Vital Concept) from 2018 until 2022, but the project collapsed that winter when he failed to secure a new sponsor for the squad. Mark Cavendish was among many riders left stranded after Pineau had repeatedly dismissed reports that the team had not attracted the requisite financial backing.

Groupama-FDJ manager Marc Madiot was also a guest on the RMC podcast, and he disagreed firmly with Pineau’s call to charge an admission fee for roadside spectators. “I’m in favour of free access; we’re the last major sport that’s free. It’s one of our strengths,” Madiot said. “And we have to be realistic; we won’t solve our problems by offering more hospitality.”

On the eve of his 30th season at the helm of Groupama-FDJ, Madiot highlighted that French-registered teams face a different financial reality to many of their counterparts elsewhere due to the employment and taxation system in the country. While many riders in the WorldTour are self-employed contractors, riders on French teams have full-time employee status, with their teams paying social welfare and pension contributions.

“Why not consider having all teams legally based in Switzerland to ensure a uniform social cost?” Madiot said. 

“Apart from the emirs and state sponsors, it’s difficult to exist in the peloton these days,” Madiot said. “The problem with cycling is that it used to be a popular sport, for workers and farmers, and now it’s becoming a sport for the rich.”