While typically the transfer rumour mill is focused on pro riders and their potential new homes, there’s another merry-go-round quietly spinning behind the scenes on the WorldTour: that of the team kit suppliers.
With time ticking down to secure deals ahead of the 2025 season, several teams are scrambling to line up suppliers. Most significantly, a source with direct knowledge of the situation told Escape Collective that Visma-Lease a Bike is currently without a kit partner for next year and even said to be considering manufacturing its own kit.
The late-season uncertainty highlights a changing landscape for apparel sponsorships, with some teams now offering kit manufacturers “part payment” deals which would see the team actually pay for kit. That’s a far cry from the upwards of €500,000 cash plus up to €1.5 million (retail value) worth of free kit some men’s WorldTour teams have become accustomed to getting from partners in recent times.
Kitting out a WorldTour team is big business for both the supplier and the team. While the riders and performance staff want the most comfortable and fastest kit available, the exact deals struck in providing it can bring a solid chunk of money and in-kind equipment – with a total value of roughly 5% of an average WorldTour team’s budget for a given year. The top teams with the best riders and biggest exposure command the best deals, while as usual the WorldTour minnows have to find ways to do more with less.
Escape Collective spoke with multiple sources involved in the business of WorldTour apparel sponsorships for this story, some of whom asked to remain anonymous to discuss sensitive information. What they tell us is the increasing pressures on kit suppliers – and the new opportunities available to them in other disciplines – have cooled the market for WorldTour deals. Even some of the biggest teams are leaving it very late to sign their 2025 partnerships, with fewer partners to choose from. The result is that some teams aren’t just scrambling for clothing for next season, but potentially facing significant holes in their budgets. Both may signal a growing trend.
Spin the wheel
One team with no such concerns is Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe who, according to multiple industry sources, will see team bike supplier Specialized replace Sportful to become clothing supplier to the WorldTour cycling team. This clothing supply deal is thought to be part of a global deal with Red Bull that will see Specialized supply bikes to the Oracle-Red Bull F1 team, its MotoGP team, and even Red Bull football teams. The brand could also potentially benefit from collaborating with the R&D powerhouse that is Red Bull Advanced Technologies, an offshoot of the Red Bull F1 team.
Specialized already supply SD Worx-Protime’s kit on the women’s side, but the Red Bull team will be the brand’s first complete kit deal on the men’s side. Specialized did not respond to a request for comment on any new Red Bull partnership.
Visma-Lease a Bike’s clothing supply looks decidedly less secure, though, as its current supplier AGU is currently in financial difficulty. AGU has applied through the Dutch courts for a WHOA, or “Wet Homologatie Onderhands Akkoord” – a private restructuring plan. The designation exists to help companies at risk of bankruptcy restructure their debts without having to actually declare bankruptcy.
Regardless of the outcome, AGU’s current position raises serious question marks over its future as a supplier and sponsor of the Visma-Lease a Bike squad. While the details of the AGU/Visma deal are unknown, the team might not be in such a hurry as one might expect to replace the Dutch supplier.
Visma declined to comment on its 2025 kit supplier this week, stating only that plans were still “uncertain.” Given the late-season timing of AGU’s potential departure, one source said, the team may consider eschewing any partnership deal for 2025 in favour of manufacturing its own clothing.
As bizarre as that may seem, it wouldn’t actually be a first. As recently as 2016, Katusha manufactured its own clothing, but unlike that scenario when the Russian-backed team attempted to build a retail clothing brand off the back of the team, it’s thought the motivation for any Visma team kit is entirely different.
A senior employee of a longtime WorldTour team supplier suggested any move by Visma to source its own clothing could be merely a bridging solution allowing the team more time to secure a more lucrative deal for 2026 and beyond.
Two sources with knowledge of Visma’s negotiations told Escape that both Sportful and Rapha were in contention to supply Visma’s kit for 2025. A deal with Rapha was “practically done” as recently as two weeks ago, but sources said that deal is now off at the clothing brand’s behest. Both EF Education-EasyPost and Rapha confirmed their longstanding partnership will continue next season and “for at least 2025,” according to the team. Rapha did not comment specifically on questions about negotiations with Visma, merely stating, “Every year we explore possible partnerships to further our impact on the sport. We are unable to comment on the details of those conversations.”
Jayco-AlUla is also on the move this winter. The team is one of three currently racing in ALE clothing alongside Groupama-FDJ and Bahrain Victorious in what must have been one of the largest commitments of an apparel supplier in the WorldTour. However, a source with knowledge of the deal told Escape that Jayco has already secured a new supplier for 2025 on a long-term deal, although we were not able to confirm who that kit partner is.
As for the other ALE teams, Bahrain Victorious were already signed for 2025, and according to ALE, Groupama-FDJ just resigned last week. To underscore how late these deals are coming together, that confirmation came after the team told Escape just days before that it had not yet secured a clothing supplier for 2025.
The opportunity/cost of going solo
All that said, any in-house clothing project for Visma and even the Specialized-Red Bull deal could actually be quite an intentional move and a glimpse into the future. With the vast majority of the aero drag of the bike and rider system coming from the rider, and said rider mostly covered in clothing, performance clothing is now a major focus for teams and riders seeking competitive advantage.
Call it paranoia or just proper due diligence, but with countless dollars in R&D budgets (not to mention time) spent on developing the fastest kit there could be justification in a move away from the current sponsorship model – where clothing manufacturers support several teams – to ensure the fruits of that development labour stay in house.
But competitive edge on aero kit is only one aspect to consider. The senior apparel company employee warned that any solo moves could fall down when it comes to the logistics and cost of supplying all the other garments and accessories a team needs to function. The same source estimated a team “would have to spend €1.5-2 million to replace a top-level clothing sponsor,” most of which is the in-kind contribution of the kit itself.
If €1.5 million worth of kit seems a lot, the breakdown of the actual amount of gear a WorldTour team requires is staggering. The senior apparel company employee told Escape one of its contracts would see the manufacturer provide more than 10,000 individual garments to one WorldTour team alone. The breakdown includes 700+ race suits, 700+ jerseys, 700+ pairs of gloves, some 700 bib shorts, and 1,700 pairs of socks; that’s a lot of 700s, and all that expense does not even consider the cost of ongoing R&D that goes into new kit every year and could total as much as another €250,000. (For what it’s worth, even the sock total is vastly outnumbered by some 2,500 musettes and 3,000 caps!)
Making the business case for WorldTour sponsorship
If one thing is clear, it’s that these deals and negotiations are happening very late in the season and likely are not as lucrative as in the past. Visma’s willingness to wait for a better, long-term deal is perhaps indicative of where the market is right now. In stark contrast to those cash deals approaching €500,000 from just a year or two ago, the senior apparel company employee said at least one WorldTour team is now approaching clothing manufacturers offering part payment (and thus zero cash) deals just to secure kit for next season.
AGU isn’t the only apparel brand facing financial headwinds, especially in context of the broader bike industry’s difficulties the past two years. The senior apparel company employee described several other recent WorldTour kit suppliers as being “on life support” and unlikely to make that financial commitment again. But teams left without a partner right now won’t yet be turning to the emperor’s two swindlers; there is still demand to get into the WorldTour even if the current state of play arguably makes it a supplier’s market.
The cash and retail-value kit elements are just two parts of the cost of entry of WorldTour sponsorship. There’s also the aforementioned investment in R&D, the opportunity cost of having your manufacturing facility tied up producing free kit for a team, and foregoing the emerging marketing opportunities elsewhere. Given all that, one might wonder why clothing manufacturers still bother with the WorldTour – are the marketing value and technical insight of being associated with a top-tier road team worth it? The answer is: it depends.
Much depends on the clothing brand’s positioning. For performance-focused brands and those with a road racing heritage, keeping a presence in the WorldTour makes much more sense. For those newer to the space or with other stories to tell in emerging disciplines, entry into the WorldTour is no guarantee of success, and potentially even the opposite.
Shortcut to trouble
One clothing industry insider at a leading manufacturer told Escape Collective many brands see the WorldTour as a ticket to relevance and success, but warned if brand positioning doesn’t match the elite performance narrative, or if the manufacturer doesn’t already have the race suits, rain gear, aero kit and other essential items in its offering, they may find that ticket is in fact a death sentence. The development of these items alone, not to mention freeing up production capacity in a manufacturing facility each season to produce the some 10,000 garments listed above, plus the ongoing R&D required by the top teams, our source said, is enough to “sink a company going to the WorldTour before they are ready.”
All those costs – financial and otherwise – mean the barrier to entry to the WorldTour, and the ongoing cost of staying there, is incredibly high. But with the potential upsurge in recognition and relevancy, it’s a barrier brands are still tempted to scale. Not all those brands do so successfully, though, with a short stint in the WorldTour sometimes followed shortly afterwards by struggles, even bankruptcy.
Descente Cycling effectively disappeared following a stint as supplier to CSC in the mid-2000s. Pearl Izumi kitted the Garmin team for several seasons but ended up suing the team over ownership of prototype time trial suits it had developed for the riders.
Others like Endura, La Passione, and Le Col have dabbled with WorldTour teams more recently, but currently no longer play in that space. Endura poured huge amounts of R&D into the Movistar kit and even developed a skinsuit the UCI later banned – the closest thing to an achievement award for WorldTour equipment partners – but have since stepped back from the high-performance landscape and refocused on their roots in mountain biking.
Endura are not the only brand diverting its attention elsewhere. Several sources Escape spoke to indicated that while it’s not essential to be in the WorldTour in 2024, brands who are not need to find unique ways to differentiate themselves and be relevant, highlighting the importance of matching a brand’s overall positioning to its marketing endeavours.
Charlie Stewart, co-founder of British brand Albion, was clear the brand has no ambitions of entering the WorldTour in the short or medium-term future, focusing instead on developing the best clothing for gravel and ultra-endurance disciplines. Having already kitted out winners at some of the longest, most grueling bike-packing ultras, Albion’s view is that a race like Unbound is the ultimate commercial opportunity right now, although Stewart indicated the brand’s focus remains on longer-distance self-supported adventures like the Tour Divide and the Silk Road Mountain Race.
While we can no longer describe gravel or ultra as emerging disciplines, it is clear their emergence is diluting the attention WorldTour racing enjoys, just as riders themselves have left road careers and taken to these new disciplines. Riders can now be professional cyclists without being on a professional road cycling team and the commercial and marketing opportunities these so-called “privateers” offer is a strong proposition to a brand looking to promote its products with a more manageable financial and logistical commitment.
While the WorldTour clothing supplier challenges some teams are experiencing isn’t because of these new disciplines, these trends do mean clothing brands are not as reliant on the WorldTour and thus it’s much less of a cutthroat market, especially given the growing list of suppliers burned trying to service a WorldTour contract.
The WorldTour – or more specifically, the Tour de France – is still the ultimate marketing opportunity for many, but supporting privateers offers brands unique and new marketing opportunities at a fraction of the cost of supporting a WorldTour team and a storytelling twist on the old “Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday” adage that was exclusive to professional racing-related marketing endeavours until recently.
It’s too early to say what the WorldTour kit landscape will look like in the coming years, but the forces driving these changes are neither small nor temporary. Scarcer supply, leaner contracts, and Visma’s possible DIY approach and Specialized’s exclusive deal with Red Bull may all be elements in a larger shift, with effects yet to be known.
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