Professional cycling’s team finances, race calendar and commercial rights are under review, with the UCI appointing Deloitte and a stakeholder committee to develop reforms that could begin in 2029.
The governing body announced the appointments on October 8, two days after the committee’s first meeting in Geneva. Two more meetings are planned before the broad outlines of the reform are presented at the UCI Women’s WorldTour and UCI WorldTour Seminar in Benidorm, Spain, on December 9 and 10.
The UCI’s process follows other attempts to reshape cycling’s calendar and commercial model, often led by outside actors or the teams themselves. In June 2025, it rejected the inclusion of One Cycling, a project developed by teams and organisers with an investment fund, in the men’s and women’s WorldTour calendars.
Earlier this year, a separate team-owner-led initiative, reported as Team Co, emerged with Ivan Glasenberg and Soudal Quick-Step owner Zdeněk Bakala among its leading figures. Glasenberg owns Pinarello and recently became a significant minority shareholder in Campagnolo through his holding company, SPAC SA.
Those efforts put the committee’s task in perspective: agreement that cycling needs reform is not the same as agreement on who controls its commercial rights and how revenue should be shared. The UCI is now bringing organisers, teams and riders into its own process, but its consultation still recorded divisions over rights pooling and financial controls – tensions that have persisted for decades in the sport.
Deloitte’s global sports practice will help the UCI develop its vision and roadmap. The UCI said the firm’s experts attended the Geneva meeting in an advisory capacity and will support the committee over the coming weeks.
Deloitte previously produced a UCI-commissioned report in 2013 following the Lance Armstrong scandal. Its central concern was restoring the governing body’s credibility and public trust, rather than today’s focus on the calendar and economic model.
The committee includes UCI officials and representatives of organisers, teams and riders from both men’s and women’s cycling.
“It is now up to us to turn this consensus into concrete proposals,” UCI president David Lappartient said.
Calendar, team finances and safety
The committee’s work builds on the UCI’s “Future of Road Cycling” consultation, launched in February. Its 55 submissions from across cycling set out views on the calendar, funding, fan engagement, safety and the integrity of results, giving the committee a starting point for developing proposals.
The UCI’s summary identifies calendar and participation as the most-discussed theme.
The responses supported grouping races by geography, coordinating commercial and broadcast rights to generate and share new revenue, and measures to make team finances fairer, such as a budget cap. But they differed over how much control of those rights should be pooled and how financial limits should work.
The summary also surfaced support for a stronger second division and an open, protected sporting pyramid, alongside modernised broadcasting and fan engagement. Contributors unanimously supported continued development of women’s cycling, with calls for a controlled pace of growth, stronger team economics and greater visibility.
Safety work through SafeR will continue on a separate timetable from the wider reform. When the consultation summary was published in September, Lappartient said: “It is not negotiable, and it will move forward at an even faster pace than the other parts of the reform.”
While governance and funding is likely at the heart of the discussed reforms, for fans and many across the sport, safety will continue to be the most critical issue to address, following Finlay Tarling’s death at the Volta a Portugal and repeated instances of safety issues at races – most recently Tom Pidcock’s account of a police motorbike hitting two of his teammates at Tre Valli Varesine.
