After the rapid recovery from the losses caused by Covid, the 78th edition of La Vuelta a España begins with the highest economic expectations in recent years. The race will feature the north and center of the country, it will have 21 stages and the cyclists will cover more than 3,000 km in total. According to the company that owns the race, Amaury Sport Organization (ASO), managed by Unipublic, the competition will generate an economic impact in the different areas where it takes place in excess of 7.5 million euros.
At the end of La Vuelta 2022, some economic data from the race was made public and showed that the total economic impact reached 6.7 million euros. Therefore, this year an increase of close to 11% is expected, provided that the forecasts are met. ”Only counting the group of approximately 2,500 people directly managed by Unipublic, the daily spending per stage in hospitality would be 325,000 euros, an amount to which all the spending of each of them in each of the cities would have to be added. This direct return remains, completely, in the venues.” Unipublic declared to La Información.
In 2020, La Vuelta experienced a severe economic setback. The restrictions imposed by the pandemic and the lack of capacity of the sponsors caused losses close to six million euros. In 2019 they obtained 23 million income, while the following year they stayed at 17.35 million. However, they managed to quickly reverse the situation, reaching 28.7 million in 2021. In the 2022 edition, the income generated reflected an increase of 20.2% with respect to the volume of operations compared to the year 2019.
About 80% of these monetary inputs come from different sponsorships. Last December Carrefour was renewed for two seasons with Unipublic as the main sponsor of LaVuelta. The French brand remains the sponsor of the race leader’s red jersey. Other main sponsors are: Cofidis, Correos, Skoda, State Lottery and Betting, El Pozo and Plenitude. On a second step are companies such as Caser, Alpecin, Fertiberia…
Although, without a doubt, the big surprise in terms of sponsors has been given by Iryo. La Vuelta has maintained the railway route this year as the preferred method of transport. However, after six years as the main provider and one of the major sponsors, Unipublic has broken its alliance with Renfe. This year the operator Iryo will be in charge of transport and, in addition, it will sponsor the arc of the last kilometer of each stage.
Television rights, behind sponsorships, are the second most important source of income for the competition. However, last year the audiences at the national level fell. La Vuelta 2022 obtained an average of one million viewers, while in 2021 it was 1.3. This represented a 23% drop in share. However, internationally the audience increased by 60%, registering close to 27 million users.
As in the rest of sports, there are big budgetary differences for the 22 teams that participate in the Spanish round. At the beginning of the year, the expense plans of the different formations were made public. The Ineos group is the leader of the table, with a budget of 43 million euros. Following the British team is the UAE Team Emirates led by Tadej Pogacar, with a value of 35 million euros, while in third position is the Jumbo Visma team led by Jonas Vingegaard and Primoz Roglic, with a budget of 25 million euros. euro. The Movistar team has 20 million, being the sixth with the most resources.
How much money does the winner get?
The third most relevant race in the cycling world distributed more than one million euros in prizes last year. Although not everything was for the winner. This amount is also distributed to the winners of each stage and to the mountain prizes, the regularity and the classification of the best youngsters.
The winner of the competition receives 150,000 euros, the second classified 58,000 and the third classified 30,000. The winner of each stage gets a prize of 11,000 euros. At the end of each phase, the leader who is in first place in the general classification will get a reward of 500 euros.
