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What are the budgets of the WorldTour cycling teams in 2024?

Mathew Mitchell

• Published on November 29, 2023
• in Men's Cycling

Cycling teams often keep their actual budget figures under wraps, making it challenging to ascertain precise financial details. While Richard Plugge from Jumbo-Visma recently hinted that they might rank around 5th or 6th in terms of budgets this season, such statements are usually shrouded in ambiguity. Determining exact budget figures is a bit like navigating through a maze of smoke and mirrors, and any estimates we provide come with a margin of error. We’ve seen reports that the new Decathlon sponsorship of AG2R La Mondiale has increased their budget by a little bit already for 2024.

The UCI informs teams about their percentile ranking when it comes to disclosing budget information, giving team managers a rough idea of where they stand compared to their counterparts. However, this information remains closely guarded, resembling a well-kept secret within the cycling fraternity.

A cycling team’s budget encompasses various expenditures related to its day-to-day operations. These include:

Salaries for Riders and Staff: A substantial chunk of a team’s budget is typically earmarked for compensating riders and support staff. This not only covers the riders themselves but also extends to coaches, trainers, mechanics, and other essential personnel.

Travel and Accommodations: Professional cycling outfits embark on extensive journeys during the racing season, incurring significant expenses. Teams are responsible for footing the bill for airfare, hotels, and other travel-related costs for both riders and staff.

Equipment and Gear: To stay competitive, cycling teams must invest in top-quality bikes, helmets, apparel, and other equipment for their riders. Acquiring premium gear can be a substantial financial commitment.

Race Fees and Incidental Costs: Participation in races entails covering entry fees and various incidentals such as food and transportation expenses. These costs are an integral part of a team’s budget planning.

Marketing and Advertising: Many cycling teams enjoy sponsorships from companies seeking to promote their products or services through team associations. Consequently, teams may allocate a portion of their budget towards marketing and advertising initiatives to showcase their sponsors effectively.

Miscellaneous Expenses: Beyond the major categories, there are numerous miscellaneous expenses that can accumulate swiftly. These include expenses related to team uniforms, medical needs, and insurance coverage.

It’s important to note that the budgets of WorldTour cycling teams can exhibit significant disparities, influenced by factors such as team size, sponsorship deals, and their performance in the professional cycling arena. The intricacies of these financial aspects remain veiled in secrecy, leaving fans and pundits to make educated guesses about the financial muscle behind their favourite teams.

2024 WorldTour team budgets ranking

• UAE Team Emirates: Estimated budget of €55 million to €60 million.
• Ineos Grenadiers: Estimated budget of €50 million to €55 million.
• Jumbo-Visma: Estimated budget of €50 million to €55 million.
• Lidl-Trek: Estimated budget of €30 million to €35 million.
• Soudal-QuickStep: Estimated budget of €25 million to €30 million.
• Bahrain Victorious: Estimated budget of €25 million to €30 million.
• Bora-Hansgrohe: Estimated budget of €25 million to €30 million.
• AG2R Citroën Team: Estimated budget of €25 million to €30 million.
• Movistar Team: Estimated budget of €20 million to €25 million.
• Groupama-FDJ: Estimated budget of €20 million to €25 million.
• Alpecin-Deceuninck: Estimated budget of €15 million to €25 million.
• Team dsm-firmenich: Estimated budget of €15 million to €25 million.
• Jayco-AlUla: Estimated budget of €15 million to €25 million.
• Astana Qazaqstan Team: Estimated budget of €18 million to €25 million.
• EF Education-EasyPost: Estimated budget of €18 million to €22 million.
• Cofidis: Estimated budget of €15 million to €20 million.
• Arkéa-Samsic: Estimated budget of €12 million to €20 million.
• Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux: Estimated budget of €12 million to €18 million.

It is important to note that these estimates are not official and can vary from year to year. Additionally, some teams may have additional sources of funding or sponsorships that are not reflected in these budgets.

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WorldTour Team Budgets: A Glimpse into the Financial Powerhouses of Procycling

The world of professional cycling is not only about riders conquering challenging terrains and sprinting to victory; it’s also a complex business where budgets play a pivotal role in determining a team’s success. While precise financial figures are often closely guarded, we can provide you with some estimated budgets of the top WorldTour teams in 2023. Let’s take a closer look at these financial powerhouses and their main sponsors. See the overview tables at the bottom of this article!

UAE Team Emirates (Budget: €50 million)

UAE Team Emirates, with a generous budget of €50 million, is one of the heavyweights in the WorldTour. Their main sponsor, the United Arab Emirates, consistently invests in cycling, with a focus on promoting the sport and tourism in the region. The team has been successful in recent years, boasting star riders like Tadej Pogačar.

Jumbo-Visma (Budget: €50 million)

UAE Team Emirates, with a €50 million budget, finds its financial counterpart in Jumbo-Visma. This dynamic team carries the backing of two prominent sponsors, Jumbo, a Dutch supermarket chain, and Visma, a Norwegian software company. Renowned for their prowess in Grand Tours and classics, Jumbo-Visma has been a force to be reckoned with in the world of cycling. However, the imminent departure of Jumbo in 2024 has thrown the team into the spotlight, sparking a whirlwind of speculation. Recent weeks have seen headlines dominated by potential scenarios, including talks of merging with Soudal – Quickstep, the prospect of Amazon entering the scene, and the latest buzz surrounding PON’s increased involvement within the team. The future for Jumbo-Visma promises to be a captivating chapter in the cycling world.

Ineos Grenadiers (Budget: €45 million)

Ineos Grenadiers, formerly Team Sky, has a budget of €45 million. The team’s main sponsor is Ineos, a British multinational chemicals company. Ineos has played a significant role in reshaping the team and supporting star riders like Egan Bernal.

Lidl – Trek (Budget: €35 million)

Lidl, a major German supermarket chain, co-sponsors the Lidl – Trek team with an estimated budget of €35 million. Trek Bicycle Corporation is a well-known American bicycle manufacturer. This partnership reflects the global nature of cycling sponsorship. *Note their budget increased just recently by Lidl stepping in just before the Tour de France.

BORA – hansgrohe (Budget: €28 million)

With a budget of €28 million, BORA – hansgrohe is a competitive force in the WorldTour. BORA, a German manufacturer of cooktops and extractor hoods, and hansgrohe, a sanitary fittings manufacturer, are the team’s main sponsors.

Soudal – Quick-Step (Budget: €26 million)

Belgian company Soudal, specializing in adhesives and sealants, sponsors the Soudal – Quick-Step team. Their budget stands at an estimated €26 million. The team is known for its successes in classic races and sprints.

Bahrain – Victorious (Budget: €25 million)

Bahrain – Victorious operates with a budget of €25 million. Bahrain, the team’s title sponsor, is dedicated to promoting the sport and the country as a cycling destination. The team boasts strong climbers and has made its presence felt in Grand Tours.

AG2R Citroën Team (Budget: €23 million)

AG2R Citroën Team, with an estimated budget of €23 million, is backed by AG2R La Mondiale, a French insurance and pension company, and Citroën, a prominent French automobile manufacturer.

Movistar Team (Budget: €23 million)

Movistar Team, with a budget also estimated at €23 million, is sponsored by Telefónica, a Spanish telecommunications giant. The team has been known for its strong performances in stage races.

Team DSM – Firmenich (Budget: €22 million)

Team DSM – Firmenich, with an estimated budget of €22 million. The team has a focus on developing young talents with a unique approach.

Groupama – FDJ (Budget: €21 million)

Groupama, a French insurance company, co-sponsors the Groupama – FDJ team. Their budget is estimated at €21 million. The team is known for nurturing French talent.

EF Education-Easypost (Budget: €20 million)

EF Education-Easypost operates with a budget of €20 million. EF Education First, an international education company, sponsors the team, reflecting the team’s global vision and commitment to education.

Astana Qazaqstan Team (Budget: €19 million)

Astana Qazaqstan Team, with a budget of €19 million, has consistently represented Kazakhstan in the WorldTour. The team focuses on developing Kazakh talents and is known for its aggressive racing style.

Alpecin-Deceuninck (Budget: €18 million)

Alpecin, a German hair care brand, and Deceuninck, a Belgian manufacturer of PVC windows and doors, co-sponsor the Alpecin-Deceuninck team with an estimated budget of €18 million.

Team Jayco AlUla (Budget: €18 million)

Team Jayco AlUla has an estimated budget of €18 million. Jayco, an Australian recreational vehicle manufacturer, is the primary sponsor, and AlUla, a region in Saudi Arabia, supports the team’s ambitions.

Cofidis (Budget: €17 million)

Cofidis, a French consumer credit company, sponsors the Cofidis team with an estimated budget of €17 million. The team has a strong focus on sprinters and classics.

Intermaché – Circus – Wanty (Budget: €15 million)

Intermarché, a French supermarket chain, Circus, a Belgian e-commerce platform, and Wanty, a Belgian steel construction company, co-sponsor the Intermarché – Circus – Wanty team with an estimated budget of €15 million.

Team Arkéa Samsic (Budget: €13 million)

Team Arkéa Samsic operates with an estimated budget of €13 million. Arkéa, a French banking and insurance company, and Samsic, a French facility management group, are the team’s main sponsors.

Please note that these budget figures are approximations and can vary from year to year based on sponsorships, partnerships, and other financial arrangements. Nonetheless, they provide insights into the financial power of WorldTour teams and their sponsors’ commitment to the sport.

Big shoutout to the r/peloton community, especially Adryy8 and Innor, for helping me come up with fairly accurate estimates for each team!

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Commentary: A budget cap for WorldTour teams isn’t as simple as it sounds

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Stephanie Constand works as a press officer for BORA-hansgrohe, and also provides PR work for other pro cycling teams and race organisers. 

When Geraint Thomas won the Tour de France last month, it not only netted Team Sky its sixth victory in the past seven Tours, it also led to renewed calls for greater financial parity within the sport to quell the dominance of super-teams.

The French daily newspaper Libération recently published the comments of an unnamed French team director who insists that a salary cap has become necessary to make races more interesting and win back fans who have grown weary of predictable race outcomes, particularly in the Grand Tours. “The problem in cycling isn’t doping anymore,” he claimed. “It’s money.”

UCI president David Lappartient seems to agree with this sentiment, having recently re-floated the idea of financial fair play regulations alongside a series of other equally controversial and rehashed suggestions, such as banning power meters and team radios, and reducing team sizes even further.

While denying any attempt to single out Team Sky, Lappartient does acknowledge that the British outfit’s dominance may not necessarily be doing the sport any favours. He contends that “when the viewer sees eight riders of the team dictating the pace and locking down the race, they quickly change channels to watch a soap opera. The ball is in our court, it’s up to the UCI to make sure that its races are attractive.”

So does his plan to win back the soap opera-watching French public have merit? Or is it doomed to be endlessly debated back and forth until it is ultimately relegated to the wastebasket of unworkable ideas put forward by the UCI?

One thing is certain — a budget cap for WorldTour teams isn’t as simple as it sounds.

Budget Cap as an Agent of Competitive Balance

First, it’s important to distinguish between a budget cap and a salary cap. What Lappartient is proposing is the regulation of WorldTour teams’ overall payroll budget, as opposed to a ceiling on individual rider’s salaries. This would mean that teams which are bankrolled by backers with deep pockets could no longer monopolise races by buying up the best talent in the peloton only to consign them to the role of super-domestique.

It’s not difficult, at least in theory, to understand the rationale behind this suggestion. What cycling fans cherish are races that are characterised by unpredictability, excitement and, yes, panache, as opposed to an inexorably monotonous procession of the same team predictably dominating the same types of races. By placing professional cycling on a more egalitarian financial footing, we would be restoring competitive balance to the sport, which would in theory provide fans with the more exciting races that they so vociferously demand.

Indeed, studies in the North American context have shown that sports with relatively high performance parity routinely enjoy greater rates of fan interest and retention. The argument for budget caps is predictably even stronger with regard to sports in which there is a strong correlation between salary and results. Cycling is one of these sports, with bigger team budgets, at least in most cases, equalling bigger results on the road. Pro cycling, it would seem, is a prime candidate for the introduction of a budget cap as an agent of competitive balance.

A budget cap could also have the potential to positively impact the volatile state of cycling sponsorship. Uncapped team salaries run the risk of precipitating a potentially ruinous escalation of payroll costs, which could render the seemingly never-ending search for sponsors an even more difficult endeavour. This was a point raised by Alberto Contador, albeit in somewhat convenient timing, at his final race, the Vuelta a España, last year. The seven-time Grand Tour winner warned that “if budgets start to go through the roof, we’re going to find it difficult to attract sponsors at all.”

In mainstream sports, growing salaries are often partially bankrolled by revenue streams such as profits from merchandise and ticket sales, and all-important television broadcast contracts. Yet cycling is a sport that sells no tickets, fills no stadiums, and operates no turnstiles. Without such reliable and lucrative sources of revenue, the presence of a small number of big-budget teams pushing up the prices of top riders has the potential to inflate the market to an unsustainable degree.

In an era of marginal gains, the cycling talent market is becoming afflicted by the ‘winner-takes-all’ effect identified by the economists Philip Cook and Robert Frank, in which an athlete’s slightest advantage allows him or her to demand incommensurately high remuneration.

In cycling, it is sponsors that are expected to foot the bill of increasing payroll costs by investing more money into the sport. Yet in this instance, they would not necessarily be receiving a comparable return on investment. This type of wage inflation just doesn’t make good business sense, and sponsors may find that they can no longer justify such outlay. In light of potential outcomes such as these, the appeal of a budget cap becomes clearer.

One solution: A Soft Budget Cap

Despite its advantages, a budget cap will always have its opponents. What generally springs to mind when this topic is broached is the concept of a “hard” budget cap. An alternative to this relatively blunt instrument would be the introduction of a “soft” cap. While still an admittedly difficult undertaking, a soft budget cap would function as a type of fiscal control measure that would still enable wealthier teams to spend over the set budget cap, but in return, they would become liable for a luxury tax that is subsequently distributed among teams that have not exceeded the threshold. This would take the form of a progressive taxation structure, whereby the further over the cap a team spends, the higher its tax bracket will be.

A host of complementary measures could also be introduced here, such as a tax apron, with additional restrictions applying to teams that spend above that point. Such a system would have the advantage of deterring excessively lavish spending on a cluster of star riders, while still allowing wealthier teams to bring additional money into the sport, if they choose to do so. It would also simultaneously facilitate a system of financial support for smaller outfits. This setup can essentially be rationalised as a trade-off of sorts, a quid pro quo for wealthier teams signing top-tier riders away from medium- to lower-level teams.

While the freer and less heavy-handed operation of a soft cap would predictably do little to allay criticisms of riders such as Chris Froome, who last year equated the UCI’s potential introduction of budget caps with “becoming communists,” a soft budget cap would nevertheless still reward entrepreneurship within the industry, while at the same time ensuring an element of fairness and sustainability.

//INRNG: The Finances of Team Sky https://t.co/5VkEmaZ9bY — the Inner Ring (@inrng) September 28, 2017

Is a budget cap a Good Fit for Cycling?

In theory, then, the concept of legislating financial fairness into the sport would seem to carry merit. In its current state, the professional cycling business model is hardly being reproduced in economic textbooks as a shining example of a viable revenue-raising sports business prototype.

It’s also hard to deny that there would at times appear to be a sword of Damocles hanging precariously over the future of many teams in the professional peloton, particularly recently with two WorldTour outfits having only narrowly been rescued from the precipitous drop into oblivion, and many more still unable to ween themselves off the purses of their billionaire backers. Something is awry in the state of the financial model of professional cycling, and the introduction of budget caps has potential to ameliorate this issue. The question is, in the process, will this only create further difficulties?

Whether a budget cap is primarily aimed at transforming the sport into a more viable site for sponsorship and investment, or curbing the dominance of super-teams, there is no doubt that a complex interplay of intersecting and at times conflicting interests are at play here. Legislating any changes will not be an easy feat.

For Lappartient, the path towards legislated financial parity may indeed be a treacherous one, beset with difficulties in enforcement, issues of legality, and potential hostility from the more financially-endowed teams. One need only think back to the disastrous 2011 NBA lockout , or the fiasco that was Max Moseley’s attempt to introduce a budget cap into Formula 1 — which may be back on the books in 2021 — to see what kerfuffle could befall us.

While it has admittedly been some time since I last dusted off the sports law textbook at law school, it goes without saying that this is a notoriously complex area. The legality of budget caps under the UCI in international and European sports law, not to mention the mishmash of multi-jurisdictional issues in which this would be entangled, remains to be seen.

Even post-implementation, the system could find itself rife with difficulties regarding policing and enforcement. There would always be the potential for enterprising team managers to take advantage of crafty loopholes by, for instance, allowing separate contracts and income streams between sponsors and individual riders, as was the case with Contador while he was at Astana. (Ahead of the 2010 season, Contador reportedly signed a contract for 700,000 Euros to ride Specialized. This was a contract between the rider and the bike company, as opposed to a contract between the team and the bike sponsor. At the time, it was the first instance in quite some years that a rider had entered into an individual contract with a bike manufacturer before the team had finalised their own negotiations with the company.)

For the UCI, the entire scheme could transform into a convoluted exercise in forensic accounting just to ensure fair implementation and the closing of legal loopholes.

If Lappartient’s plan is, as some have suggested, little more than an unwholesome vendetta against Team Sky, perhaps first investigating the possibility of pursuing other revenue-generating ventures or income streams would be a more constructive and less radical path forward.

Several suggestions have been mooted in recent years, such as teams launching a reinvigorated attempt to claim a slice of broadcasting rights revenue, the establishment of longer-term licenses with the UCI to bring the stability which is so attractive to potential sponsors (akin to what we see in the NFL), or even the introduction of transfer fees.

It must be remembered that cycling differs, in a multitude of ways, from other mainstream sports. It has a unique, and some would say inherently flawed, financial model. We must be cautious to not push onto our system a model that has proven successful in sports that operate in vastly different context. Cycling is not the revenue-generating machine that the NFL is, for instance, and what has proven to be successful elsewhere may not be applicable or appropriate within the professional cycling environment.

I would wholly welcome further investigation into a nuanced budget cap system and certainly other financial reforms to promote greater stability. Yet any changes must be implemented following judicious consideration and consultation to avoid a stalemate situation and ensure that any proposed amendments are a good fit for the industry.

While the adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” certainly does not apply to the financial model of professional cycling, we must remain cautious to not break the system any further through any overzealous or impetuous attempts to fix it.

About the Author

Stephanie Constand works as a press officer for BORA-hansgrohe, and also provides PR work for other pro cycling teams and race organisers. Having originally worked in academia and as a lawyer, with a special interest in sports law and economics, she has written for a range of online and print magazines and is currently working on a book. She can be found on Twitter at @stephconstand as well as at her web site,  creativecyclingpr.com .

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Which Tour de France team has the largest budget?

Fortuneo-Vital Concept reportedly has the smallest budget at the Tour de France, but which team has the most money to play with?

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French newspaper L'Équipe published a list of each Tour de France team's estimated budget and there's a vast gap between the team at the top and at the bottom.

It's no secret that Team Sky has the largest budget in professional cycling, but Russian outfit Katusha are not far behind them in terms of cash to splash, if these figures are anything to go by.

The newspaper estimates Sky's resources at €35m, three million more than Katusha and seven million more than BMC, funded by Swiss millionaire Andy Rihs.

>>> Which team has won the least prize money at the Tour de France so far?

At the other end of the spectrum, wildcard team Fortuneo-Vital Concept operates on a budget of just €3.5m - a tenth of what Team Sky has to play with - while Lampre-Merida are the WorldTour team with the tightest budget, with €7m a year.

The average for a WorldTour team seems to be around the €12m/€13m mark, with teams like Trek-Segafredo and Orica-BikeExchange.

Tour de France team budgets (estimated)

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Team Sky - €35m

Katusha - €32m

BMC - €28m

Tinkoff - €25m

Astana - €20m

Etixx-Quick Step - €18m

Movistar - €15m

Lotto-Soudal - €14m

LottoNL-Jumbo - €14m

Dimension Data - €13.5m

Orica-BikeExchange - €13m

Giant-Alpecin - €12.5m

Trek-Segafredo - €12m

Ag2r La Mondiale - €12m

Cofidis - €11m

IAM Cycling - €10.5m

FDJ - €10m

Cannondale - €10m

Lampre-Merida - €7m

Direct Energie - €6m

Bora-Argon 18 - €4.5m

Fortuneo-Vital Concept - €3.5m

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Stuart Clarke is a News Associates trained journalist who has worked for the likes of the British Olympic Associate, British Rowing and the England and Wales Cricket Board, and of course Cycling Weekly. His work at Cycling Weekly has focused upon professional racing, following the World Tour races and its characters. 

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Tour de France 2023 Budgets: Ineos Grenadier Leads Top 5 Highest-Spending Cycling Teams

On average, most Tour de France teams receive a large portion of their annual budget from their title sponsor. The budget is typically spent on various expenses that are related to the team’s operation, including salaries, travel, equipment, race fees, marketing, and other miscellaneous expenses.

Riders have a wide range of salaries between $45,000 to $6 million (2x Tour de France winner Tadej Pogačar). And though most teams spend modestly, there are teams making huge investments in professional cycling.

While most lower-end teams have a budget of $10 million, higher-end teams like Ineos Grenadier spend up to $55 million annually.

Are Bigger Budgets Impacting Cycling Performance?

A trend has emerged in the last few years that bigger budgets impact the winning percentage.

Over the last decade, higher-spending teams have had a better chance of winning the Tour de France.

In the last 10 years, nine of the Tour de France titles have gone to teams that rank among the top four spenders. Unlike other sports, there is no salary cap on team budgets and this has resulted in higher-spending teams winning the Tour de France every year dating back to 2013.

Though the exact budget numbers can vary due to sponsorships and team size, the biggest budgeted teams remain the same year over year.

While budgets vary from year to year, Ineos Grenadier is generally the highest-spending team. This year, Quick-Step, Jumbo Visma, UAE Team Emirates, and Bahrain Victorious have the top five highest spending budgets.

Check out the top five highest-spending 2023 Tour de France teams below.

• Ineos Grenadier — $55 million
• Quick-Step — $38 million
• Jumbo-Visma — $29 million
• UAE Team Emirates — $22 million
• Bahrain Victorious — $22 million

Top Five Highest Spending Tour de France Teams

There are many different expenses required to manage a team. Along with paying for the best races, providing the riders with the right trainers, research, support, equipment, and travel accommodations can make a huge difference over the course of three weeks.

Ineos Grenadier leads all teams with a projected budget of $55 million, nearly 31 percent more than the next highest-spending team.

Get a breakdown of the top five biggest Tour de France budgets in 2023 below.

1. Ineos Grenadier — $55 million

Owned by Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Team Ineos has been one of the most successful teams in the last 10 years, capturing 6 titles since 2013.

Ratcliffe has a net worth of $20.6 billion and has always provided his team with a top-2 budget.

The estimated budget in 2023 is said to be around $55 million.

2. Quick-Step — $38 million

The second highest budget is Soudal Quick-Step.

Owned by multi-billionaire Zdenek Bakala, Quick-Step has been one of the most successful teams in the sport, winning multiple national and world championships over the last two decades.

In 2006, the team won their first yellow jersey under Tom Boonen.

3. Jumbo-Visma — $29 million

While the funding from the Koninklijke Jumbo Food Groep will end in 2024, Jumbo-Visma is one of the oldest cycling teams dating back to 1984.

Since the formation of the team, Jumbo-Visma has entered every Tour de France since 1984.

The team won their first yellow jersey in 2022 under Jonas Vingegaard.

4. UAE Team Emirates — $22 million

The UAE Team Emirates is funded by the state-owned aviation company Emirates which made $3 billion in profit on $32.6 billion in revenue last year.

The team is highly invested in, as they won two back-to-back Tour de France titles in 2020 and 2021.

5. Bahrain Victorious — $22 million

Only founded in 2017, Bahrain Victorious has the fifth-highest budget in 2023 at $22 million.

While they have yet to win a Tour de France title, they’ve finished inside the top 45 since being founded.

In the last three years, Bahrain Victorious has finished just outside the podium with a 4th place (2020), 9th place (2021), and 14th place (2022).

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Ineos Team Budget

The accounts for the Ineos Grenadiers team have been published, the chance to look at the budget for a World Tour team. Having rounded up the accounts of several other World Tour teams there’s also a quick but incomplete comparison.

€50.1 million was the budget for the year ending December 2020, as the cropped screengrab from the latest set of accounts from Tour Racing Limited shows. It’s down by €678k on 2019, the first time the team budget has fallen.

Given Covid-19, the shrunken calendar, reduced travel and cancelled training camps you’d expect expenditure to have fallen in this exceptional season; the surprise is it didn’t fall more. Other teams had to slash budgets, some slashed rider wages. They made two big signings in Richard Carapaz and Rohan Dennis; out went Wout Poels.

2020 was still a mixed season for Ineos, the first year since 2014 when they didn’t win the Tour de France, even if apparently Michał Kwiatkowski and Richard Carapaz’s shared stage victory generated a lot of valuable publicity. But they got the Giro with Tao Geoghegan Hart and Filippo Ganna’s world championship win was largely an Ineos project.

This note from the account shows where the budget comes from, sponsorship as in cash received from Ineos, but also from other sponsors like Pinarello, Castelli and others who pay to associate with the team and to supply them. There is also “value in kind” which is accounting jargon for goods give instead of cash. In the Team Sky days the accounts broke down this revenue into more sources. Teams do get income from other sources such as expenses from race organisers, prize money and appearance money payments for any star riders are often handled via the team and presumably this is shoved into the “sponsorship revenue line”.

Otherwise there’s not much else to note from the accounts. The notes show the team had 39 employees and a wage bill of €3.7 million but this is for staff rather than riders, who are instead hired as contractors selling their service, rather than employed in the traditional sense. Cycling teams have few assets, there’s little point owning property or financial assets and so the balance sheet is usually not much interest; the accounts show they took on some new leases for property and vehicles and that’s about as big as it gets. It’s a rare look into the budget of a team but there’s not much beyond the top line number.

For comparison here are the top line budgets from other audited World Tour team accounts from the year ending 2019, plus Cofidis. It’s only a selection but the French and Belgian squads do file accounts, while others are not public; often numbers that do the rounds on other websites are wrong because the numbers for the teams that do publish accounts are wrong which suggests the figures for teams that don’t must be mistaken too. Still the likes of UAE, Jumbo-Visma and Bahrain should be more than €20 million. Also headline comparisons are just that, there’s nuance when comparing international businesses with tax a big one: put simply a Euro spent in France doesn’t go as far .

Ineos has had the biggest budget in the World Tour for many years and by a long way but right now we’re seeing the proof that money can’t buy success. Budget correlates strongly with performance but it doesn’t guarantee it and Ineos may be the strongest team in stage races across the season but they don’t have the best rider for the Tour. UAE have Tadej Pogačar under a long term contract and have signed Spanish teenager Juan Ayuso on a similar deal too. Sky/Ineos tried to sign Remco Evenepoel but he is linked to Quickstep for years to come. 18 year old Marco Brenner has a four deal at DSM. Bora-Hansgrohe are planning something similar with the Belgian junior Cian Uijtdebroeks. Mining the Under-19 ranks can deliver but not all diamond juniors turn out to become flawless pros, some riders can be physically mature for their age and don’t progress; for others the mental side is difficult, the job doesn’t turn out to be what they hoped for. So it can be an expensive option on future talent, spending millions to gradually bring a rider on who may not make it and if they do reach their peak… a team like Ineos can wait for the five year deal to expire and sign them they’re at the ripe old age of 23. Besides Ineos already have Tom Pidcock and also Carlos Rodriguez and both are being given plenty of leeway and time, Pidcock is racing offroad while Rodriguez is combining racing with studying at university.

Pogačar and Egan Bernal are likely to race the Vuelta together but it’s next year’s Tour that looks like the big contest and UAE will want to strengthen their squad for next year, they’ve managed this year but just and had to pull Brandon McNulty from the Giro. It did seem João Almeida was going to Bora-Hansgrohe but maybe it’s UAE now. For all Ineos’s struggles in this Tour, they’ve won the Catalunya, Romandie, Dauphiné, Suisse and of course the Giro but they’ll be looking at their squad, they used to unload older riders, now a third of the team is over 30 and there’s a rebuilding project for the medium term here too.

Lastly budget isn’t just for recruiting talent, retention matters. On other teams a rider might be tempted to play their own cards mid-race in the hope they can raise their market value and get a bigger contract elsewhere. A well-funded squad like Ineos can offer bigger contracts than they’d get elsewhere to start with and this buys loyalty and reliability and helps explains why some riders are happy to be workers here rather than lead another squad.

• Ineos accounts via companieshouse.gov.uk
• Exchange rates at 31 December 2020: €1 EUR = GB£ 0.89 = US$1.22

28 thoughts on “Ineos Team Budget”

Interesting stuff, thanks for posting it. Gotta wonder what the UAE budget is currently? And how much more it’ll be for 2022? Have you data to show (what I think) is the massive increase in spending by Sir Dave’s team since they began? 50 f__king million euros now? For that they got a Giro win in the past two seasons..is that enough? Ganna IMHO is as much or more a product of the Italian national team operation than INEOS, one of their increasingly rare success stories. It will be interesting to see how UAE develops as they add more and more big-name, expensive riders ala SKYNEOS. Will it be King Pogacar with others only in supporting roles or will they let someone else try to win a GT? Meanwhile, how long with the fracking king keep shoveling money into Sir Dave’s coffers if his team doesn’t dominate Le Beeg Shew anymore?

i don’t think comparing ineos to sky c. 2013-2018 is the right comparison, maybe c. 2009-2012 where they built the team that dominated. i get the sense they’re working out how to get bernal and carapaz into the wiggins-froome-thomas style of leadership and refined talent. additionally, cycling in new lieutenant stype talent as the old guard nears retirement is tricky business.

i get the feeling ineos is in the transition and will probably be hitting pretty hard in 2022 or 2023.

“Have you data to show (what I think) is the massive increase in spending by Sir Dave’s team since they began?” – Forgive me if INRNG has updated post your comment, but isn’t that what the first bar chart shows?

Correct, sorry I didn’t look close enough at that graph 🙁 It’s an amazing increase in spending, too bad we can’t know what all the others are spending.

With a budget that size surely they could fund a women’s team?

I think it’s being or been looked at, someone connected once mentioned this but the social media post vanished, it shouldn’t have been leaked. But if it is happening it’ll be announced well ahead, it’ll take time to build up.

But not all teams have to do this, it’s good to have some original women’s teams rather than cloned men’s squads. It also depends on what the sponsor wants, demographics, eg a good choice for Dutch supermarket; but maybe not what a petrochemicals billionaire wants.

I don’t doubt that is was thoroughly planned, but from the outside, it felt like the Jumbo women’s team was set up in about 5 seconds – and that we knew of Vos joining 5 seconds later! It felt like the equivalent of a producer yelling ‘get Spielberg on the phone’ at Sundance.

Depending on how you want to drive up hype, maybe drip-feeding info to keep the story alive could be a good thing PR-wise?

It also feels like big teams get criticized quite a bit for not having a women’s team or giving money to women’s cycling. I don’t know if the objective would be the extra publicity from women’s sport (not many races, even fewer headlines) or rather to appear progressive and generous to (mens) cycling fans and hope people have an easier time forgetting about the fracking chemicals.

I agree Anonymous, they can probably just look under the seat cushions and in the team cars and motorcoaches and find enough pounds and Euros to fund a decent womens WT team!

“Often numbers that do the rounds on other websites are wrong because the numbers for the teams that do publish accounts are wrong”

Are the various rider salary figures making the rounds generally accurate? E.g.: https://cycling.today/who-are-the-highest-paid-cyclists-in-2020-here-is-the-top-20/

“…some riders are happy to be workers here rather than lead another squad.” 2.5M can bring a lot of happiness. C.f. Kwiato, who must be happier with 2.5M than potentially dozens more pro wins elsewhere.

Salary numbers are not published of course, so they’re even more hard to know and this same list seems to float around all sorts of websites, it gets copy-pasted and we can’t work out the source. Then there’s salary and often image rights, bonuses, it’s more complicated than one number. But I’m pretty sure one headline number is wrong so some of the numbers must be ballpark guesses.

I realise its missing all the squads backed by Middle Eastern Oil states but the gap in that bar graph is shocking.

I hereby start the pointless and ill informed speculation that Cav, for all his fulsome praise of Quick Step this year, will be off back to INEOS for one last big payday next year, and INEOS/Rawlings will willingly pay it for the kudos of setting a British record for TDF wins. Because lets face it not even a fit Bernal will be a match for Pog in next years TDF, and all the Dauphines, P-Ns and Romandies in the world do not float the boat for a billionaire sugar daddy.

The budget gap is odd, what exactly is expected in return for such generosity I wonder? Maybe Froome’s dominance led the new owner to think that Grand Tour wins were directly correlated with cash. I would say it’s good that at the end of day they have the money to invest in the wellbeing of their staff, but if much of the outlay is to consultancies/agencies it’s difficult to conclude that they are doing that.

The team sponsorship is, in effect, marketing expenditure from the parent company. Ineos is apparently made of “around 20 separate business holdings “, I wonder if each contributes a portion to the cycling team? The UAE team reported in December 2019 that its cycling team generated over $400m worth of marketing value for less than a 20th of the cost. Since then, they’ve had the Tour win in 2020 and are on the cusp of a second victory. Whilst the success of the riders obviously affects the marketing return that the team generates, the entire venture is a very cost-effective means of marketing expenditure for Ineos. “Sports washing” as some may say in Ineos’ case.

Cavendish could also decide to retire on a career-high, in green on the podium of the Champs-Elysees after his 35th+ stage win after a comeback nobody expected…

On the financial subject, just saw that Cycling Tips sold out to the ravenous OUTSIDE conglomerate, make sure you get a good price out of these plutocrats when they come for INNER RING ! I have a cycle tour company they could buy, but I really don’t need the money badly enough to see it gobbled up along with Velonews, Peloton and the rest. It’s gonna be like Coke, Fanta or Dasani…if you’re into cycling they’re gonna get your money (or whatever) any way you look at it.

I don’t know if this qualifies as selling out Larry – not sure exactly, but I doubt anyone made enough on this purchase to sail away into the sunset on a 90-foot yacht being served caviar from a band of adoring groupies.

As Inrng can undoubtedly relate, the market for online cycling news outlets is hardly a booming trade. Let’s be happy for Wade and the group over there – although I think Wade sold his stake previously.

Lol – sorry, I also just saw your comment about Coke/Fanta/Dasani – not exactly an apples-apples comparison. These are billion dollar brands… CyclingTips’ purchase is a tiny fraction of that.

I actually sent congratulations to Wade on this, but IMHO Pinarello sold-out to some petro-sheiks, same for Colnago and most recently Columbus/Cinelli while OUTSIDE gobbles up the cycling enthusiast press at a rapid rate. As to “sell-out” I find it interesting that CT and VN have recently had “tin-cups” out there begging readers to fund their operations with promises of how great it all will be if the readers pony up the loot…now they’ve cashed in it seems. I can’t see it as anything but a loss for the readers as it’s hard not to see consolidation on the horizon OR you get the Coke, Fanta, Dasani equivalent – the label might be different but the same people get the money no matter which one you choose. I wouldn’t hold it against Mr Inner Ring if he cashed-in/sold-out since I suggested it 🙂

Whoa! Steady there. We need to see the small print about the UGC buy-out terms before we get all keen on this. Who knows, we could all be expert commentators about some other subject entirely if the right offer was made.

I thought Pinarello was sold to LVMH, or was it the Walmart Hire? Well, not that these are any better.

CT merged with BikeExchange in December 2015, and was then sold to Pinkbike in March 2019. Not really certain if Wade had any part in the sale to Outside.

Geez, it’s worse than I thought! Whoever they are I hope the guys who put the work/equity in them in the beginning at least get a nice paycheck from the sell-out/cash-in because I don’t see the plutocrat/oligarchs at OUTSIDE doing anything but “consolidation” which IMHO means taking a big swing of the axe at a lot of jobs. Wonder what the guys who fled VN to CT when it was gobbled up feel like now that the monster’s come for their new jobs too? Is CyclingNews next or does OUTSIDE already own that too?

Cyclingnews belongs to a UK company called Future. It’s interesting as Future used to be magazines and then websites and it still does this but it’s increasingly moving into a consumer direction, it bought a price comparison company recently. It’s why the CN pieces often have affiliated links and articles about “Amazon Prime Day” and “Black Friday Deals” etc and if there’s an article about a rider or team there are links to buy the bike, kit or something related.

As for Outside buying Velonews and Cycling Tips it’s interesting to note that Specialized, via its investment arm, now owns a slice of these sites, it has invested in Zwift too.

In addition to Specialized, Lance Armstrong’s Venture Fund is also part owner.

Given how punishing it is in France to have highly paid staff with high tax rate plus effective payroll tax i wonder how french teams can compete. Do they register the teams in another country or somehow have the riders register in another country to escape it. If they do pay full tax rates then i solute them for the success they manage because it must be difficult to afford many high paid riders. It must make it difficult to have a good back office setup with the budget so stretched.

It’s pretty much the full rate for the French teams, there’s none of the foreign registration. Teams do shop around jurisdictions, for example Astana is mean to be Kazakh but run out of Luxembourg which is no advert for trying to run a business in Kazakhstan. Quickstep is a Belgian team and I’ve got their Belgian accounts for the numbers above, but run through a Luxembourg office because they can, while rivas Lotto-Soudal can’t because they’re sponsored by their national lottery and so have to be 100% Belgian.

With the French effective payroll tax, do they only apply to riders based in France riding for a French team? Say Pinot riding for FDJ?

Or do they apply to not France domicile riders riding for a French team as well? Say GVA riding for AG2R?

If the latter does not apply, would that explain French team’s enthusiasm for foreign riders?

Normally it applies to all, so same for Cosnefroy or GVA, Gaudu or Küng.

It is expensive but it is stable. French could rely on the money paid into the system to keep paying riders last year and the top teams today have been going for a quarter of a century.

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Away from the big boys, cycling teams are struggling to survive

P icturesque Adelaide, the annual host to the UCI World Tour’s season opener, provides few clues as to the financial challenges facing cycling. Almost a million fans will line the roads over the coming week to watch all 18 World Tour teams contest the Tour Down Under, with the world champion, Peter Sagan, the star attraction. Sponsors are wined and dined by teams under the warm South Australian sun, existing deals consolidated and new partnerships discussed. It may lack the grandeur of its European counterparts, but the Tour Down Under – which begins on Tuesday – presents a positive image of international cycling’s top tier.

Yet not all is rosy within this multimillion-dollar sport. Cannondale-Drapac were midway through the 2017 Vuelta a España when the team announced it would fold within weeks unless £5m in sponsorship was secured. Cannondale are no minnows – Rigoberto Urán finished second at the 2017 Tour de France – but the unexpected withdrawal of a prospective partner left the team almost insolvent. While they ultimately survived, signing a new sponsor and crowdfunding over £400,000, the incident highlighted the precarious financial situation of some World Tour teams.

Elsewhere, the highly-successful Australian team Mitchelton-Scott have not secured a co-naming sponsor for 2018 following the exit of chemicals manufacturer Orica (a company linked to the owner is temporarily filling the void). The much-celebrated 2017 Road World Championships nearly bankrupted its organisers and a string of other races have been cancelled due to financial difficulties.

“Cycling is a sport that generates its income via sponsorship,” says Jim Ochowicz, the general manager of the World Tour team BMC. “None of us has a stadium we own or other means of income. Even television rights – race organisers own the rights and we do not have a revenue sharing model – so our only source of income is sponsorship. The reality of sponsors is that they do not stay forever.”

Professional road cycling has long had money troubles. In the 1990s a revolving door of teams animated the sport before dying a quick death. The commercially-oriented launch of the World Tour’s predecessor in 2005 and the slow recovery from a dark era of doping were supposed to better position the sport. But the plan to create a financially sustainable model for professional cycling remains unfinished.

While Ochowicz is upbeat, pointing to Cannondale’s survival as evidence, Mitchelton-Scott’s general manager, Shayne Bannan, admits the marketplace has become more demanding. “It is not like the old days when companies would just write a cheque and away you go,” he says.

According to Bannan the average annual World Tour team budget is £15m. Rider and staff wages constitute 80% of Mitchelton-Scott’s expenditure, with travel costs an additional £750,000 per year. 90% of the team’s income derives from partners, ranging from major sponsors to minor suppliers. The remainder comes from race fees, although these are often measly.

One consequence of straitened financial times has been an increase in the number of World Tour teams privately owned by wealthy individuals. Mitchelton-Scott is bankrolled by Gerry Ryan, who founded the team after noticing the absence of an Australian flag at the 2011 Tour de France . The businessman estimates he has put £20m into the team but says it is cash well spent. While Ryan is steadfastly committed to Mitchelton-Scott, reliance on wealthy benefactors has its own risks – as Tinkoff discovered in 2016 when their owner, the Russian billionaire Oleg Tinkov, disbanded the team.

Money is also flowing in from the Middle East and Asia. Bahrain has been accused of using its World Tour team to “launder” the country’s international reputation , tarnished by allegations of human rights abuse. In recent years Mitchelton-Scott have been at the forefront of cycling’s expansion into China; the organisation currently has a China-registered development team. Bannan is buoyant about his team’s efforts in China. “Our sport is Eurocentric,” he suggests. “We need to keep globalising the sport to create new fans.”

Another impact of the financial reality has been a widening gap between wealthy World Tour teams and the rest. Team Sky spent £31m in 2016 and French newspaper L’Equipe estimated that Katusha and BMC had comparable budgets. Some teams, though, are thought to have annual budgets below £5m. Bannan denies this disparity has made the World Tour less competitive. “Money plays a part but it is not the major part,” he says. “The most important factor is your ability to create a really good environment for your athletes.”

The spectre of doping continues to loom large. “When was the last time we had a doping ‘scandal’?” asks Bannan. “Unfortunately, that’s the perception. Last year in the World Tour a handful of riders tested positive from a peloton of almost 500. We probably have the cleanest sport in the world right now but we are not being recognised for it.” The Quick-Step Floors team manager, Patrick Lefevere, recently told CyclingNews that the Chris Froome controversy was an obstacle in his meetings with potential sponsors.

World Tour finances are not just a macro-level issue. Cannondale’s Brendan Canty was midway through contesting the Vuelta last year when the news broke. “It was a pretty stressful time,” says the 25-year-old. “I was racing my first Grand Tour and had just finished a hard stage. I got on the team bus, checked my phone and saw that I might not have a job for the following year.” Canty’s parents contributed to the crowd-funding campaign.

The team’s general manager for Europe, Jonathan Breekveldt, was with Canty at the Vuelta. “Cycling is a fickle business,” he says. “One of the easiest analogies is that we are a one-legged table – that leg is the sponsors. As soon as they go the whole business falls over.”

Ben Hill is another rider intimately familiar with such financial uncertainty, which is particularly rife at the tiers of racing below the World Tour. The New South Wales rider was set to join newly-formed Dynamo Cover Pro Cycling in 2016 when – just weeks before the new season – the team collapsed without having completed a single race.

“I had worked so hard to achieve that goal,” says Hill. “I went from being super happy – I was training, I was learning French – and then it sunk in. I felt defeated.” Hill had a contract with Dynamo worth around £35,000, a reasonable income at Continental level. After searching frenetically for a new team, he became a late roster addition elsewhere earning just £4,000 plus expenses for the season.

Can cycling move towards a more sustainable financial footing? At the Tour Down Under, no one is quite sure. BMC’s Ochowicz says positively: “I have been doing this a long time and I am still here.” World Tour teams are seeking structural reform – in 2014 a majority of the teams formed an organisation called Velon to help “make cycling better”. Velon has experimented with new technologies and different race formats in an effort to increase team revenue. Bannan is enthusiastic, although Breekveldt cautions that for now these remain an “investment in the future”.

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The Florida Gators won the 2024 SEC softball conference tournament on May 11 at Jane B. Moore Field in Auburn, Alabama. The Gators defeated No. 5 Missouri to claim their sixth SEC tournament championship and tie Alabama for most conference tournament wins in program history.

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How To Budget for a Retirement Filled With World Travel

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Retiring doesn’t mean slowing down–especially for those who dream of exploring the globe. If your retirement plans include traversing different countries and soaking in various cultures, effective budgeting is key to turning those dreams into reality. Here’s how you can prepare financially for a retirement filled with world travel:

Estimate Travel Costs

• Research Destinations : Begin by listing your must-visit destinations and research the average cost for each, including flights, accommodations, food, and activities.
• Travel Style : Determine whether you prefer luxury travel or are comfortable with budget options like hostels and street food. Your travel style will significantly impact your budget.

Create a Travel Fund

• Dedicated Savings : Start a dedicated travel savings account and contribute to it regularly. Consider automating transfers to this account immediately after receiving any income.
• Investment Income : If possible, invest part of your savings in low-risk investments that can provide additional income to fund your travels.

Utilize Travel Rewards

• Credit Cards : Use travel rewards credit cards to earn points on everyday purchases, which can be redeemed for flights, hotels, and other travel expenses.
• Loyalty Programs : Enroll in airline and hotel loyalty programs to earn miles and perks like free upgrades and late checkouts.

Manage Healthcare and Insurance

• Travel Insurance : Invest in comprehensive travel insurance that covers medical expenses, trip cancellations, and emergencies abroad.
• Healthcare Planning : Understand how your health insurance works overseas and consider additional coverage if necessary. Factor in costs for medications and potential treatments.

Plan for Currency Fluctuations

• Exchange Rates : Monitor exchange rates and consider exchanging money when rates are favorable. Use currency exchange apps to stay informed.
• Local Costs : Understand the cost of living in your planned destinations. Some countries may be cheaper to live in, allowing your dollar to stretch further.

Minimize Home Expenses

• Downsize or Rent Out : Consider downsizing your home or renting it out while you travel to reduce home-related expenses and generate additional income.
• Digital Services : Evaluate ongoing subscriptions and memberships; pause or cancel services you won’t use while traveling.

Set Up Emergency Funds

Unexpected Costs : Have a separate fund for unexpected expenses. Travel can come with unforeseen costs like last-minute flights or medical emergencies.

Stay Flexible

Flexible Travel : Remaining flexible with your travel dates and destinations can lead to significant savings. Off-peak travel often offers cheaper fares and less crowded experiences.

Regularly Review Your Budget

Adjust as Needed : Regularly review your travel expenses and overall budget. As you travel, you’ll gain a better understanding of your spending habits, allowing you to adjust your budget and plans accordingly.

Consider Part-Time Work or Volunteering

• Work Remotely : If you’re not fully retired, consider part-time remote work that can be done from anywhere.
• Volunteering : Look for opportunities to volunteer in exchange for free room and board.

Easy, Affordable Countries To Visit as an American Tourist

• South Africa

Editor's note: This article was produced via automated technology and then fine-tuned and verified for accuracy by a member of GOBankingRates' editorial team.

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Money blog: Loud budgeting - the taboo-busting money hack you can do without giving up daily coffee

Created accidentally by a comedian, "loud budgeting" is breaking down the taboo of speaking about money. Read this and the rest of our Weekend Money features, and leave a comment, and we'll be back with rolling personal finance and consumer news on Monday.

Saturday 11 May 2024 20:15, UK

Weekend Money

• 'Loud budgeting': The money-saving trend that has nothing to do with giving up your daily coffee
• What is most in-demand period property?
• £12m tea advert, downsizing, £320 tasting menus and job interview mistakes: What readers have said this week
• Free childcare applications about to open for new age band
• Where has huge week for UK economy left us?

Best of the week

• How to avoid a holiday data roaming charge (while still using the internet)
• Mortgage rates up again this week - here are the best deals on the market
• My daughter discovered undeclared £600 management fee after buying her flat - can we complain?
• Best of the Money blog - an archive

Ask a question or make a comment

By Jess Sharp , Money team 

Money saving trends are constantly popping up on social media - but one in particular has been gaining huge amounts of attention.

Created accidentally by a comedian, loud budgeting is breaking down the taboo of speaking about money.

The idea is based on being firmer/more vocal about your financial boundaries in social situations and setting out what you are happy to spend your money on, instead of "Keeping up with the Joneses". 

On TikTok alone, videos published under the hashtag #loudbudgeting have garnered more than 30 million views - and that figure is continuing to climb. 

We spoke to Lukas Battle - the 26-year-old who unintentionally created the trend as part of a comedy sketch. 

Based in New York, he came up with the term in a skit about the "quiet luxury" hype, which had spread online in 2023 inspired by shows like Succession. 

The term was used for humble bragging about your wealth with expensive items that were subtle in their design - for example, Gwyneth Paltrow's  £3,900 moss green wool coat from The Row, which she wore during her ski resort trial...

"I was never a big fan of the quiet luxury trend, so I just kind of switched the words and wrote 'loud budgeting is in'. I'm tired of spending money and I don't want to pretend to be rich," Lukas said. 

"That's how it started and then the TikTok comments were just obsessed with that original idea." 

This was the first time he mentioned it...

Lukas explained that it wasn't about "being poor" but about not being afraid of sharing your financial limits and "what's profitable for you personally". 

"It's not 'skip a coffee a day and you'll become a millionaire'."

While talking money has been seen as rude or taboo, he said it's something his generation is more comfortable doing. 

"I've seen more debate around the topic and I think people are really intrigued and attracted by the idea," he said. 

"It's just focusing your spending and time on things you enjoy and cutting out the things you might feel pressured to spend your money on."  

He has incorporated loud budgeting into his own life, telling his friends "it's free to go outside" and opting for cheaper dinner alternatives.

"Having the terminology and knowing it's a trend helps people understand it and there's no awkward conversation around it," he said. 

The trend has been a big hit with so-called American "finfluencers", or "financial influencers", but people in the UK have started practising it as well. 

Mia Westrap has taken up loud budgeting by embarking on a no-buy year and sharing her finances with her 11.3k TikTok followers. 

Earning roughly £2,100 a month, she spends around £1,200 on essentials, like rent, petrol and car insurance, but limits what else she can purchase. 

Clothes, fizzy drinks, beauty treatments, makeup, dinners out and train tickets are just some things on her "red list". 

The 26-year-old PHD student first came across the idea back in 2017, but decided to take up the challenge this year after realising she was living "pay check to pay check". 

She said her "biggest fear" in the beginning was that her friends wouldn't understand what she was doing, but she found loud budgeting helped. 

"I'm still trying my best to just go along with what everyone wants to do but I just won't spend money while we do it and my friends don't mind that, we don't make a big deal out of it," she said. 

So far, she has been able to save £1,700, and she said talking openly about her money has been "really helpful". 

"There's no way I could have got this far if I wasn't baring my soul to the internet about the money I have spent. It has been a really motivating factor."

Financial expert John Webb said loud budgeting has the ability to help many "feel empowered" and create a "more realistic" relationship with money.

"This is helping to normalise having open and honest conversations about finances," the consumer affair manager at Experien said. 

"It can also reduce the anxiety some might have by keeping their financial worries to themselves." 

However, he warned it's important to be cautious and to take the reality of life into consideration. 

"It could cause troubles within friendship groups if they're not on the same page as you or have different financial goals," he said.

"This challenge isn't meant to stop you from having fun, but it is designed to help people become more conscious and intentional when it comes to money, and reduce the stigma around talking about it." 

Rightmove's keyword tool shows Victorian-era houses are the most commonly searched period properties, with people drawn to their ornate designs and features.

Georgian and Edwardian-style are second and third respectively, followed by Tudor properties. Regency ranked in fifth place.

Rightmove property expert Tim Bannister said: "Home hunters continue to be captivated by the character and charm of properties that we see in period dramas.

"Victorian homes remain particularly popular, characterised by their historic charm, solid construction, and spacious interiors. You'll often find Victorian houses in some of the most desirable locations which include convenient access to schools and transport links."

Throughout the week Money blog readers have shared their thoughts on the stories we've been covering, with the most correspondence coming in on...

• A hotly contested debate on the best brand of tea
• Downsizing homes
• The cost of Michelin-starred food

Job interview mistakes

On Wednesday we reported on a new £12m ad from PG Tips in response to it falling behind rivals such as Twinings, Yorkshire Tea and Tetley....

We had lots of comments like this...

How on earth was the PG Tips advert so expensive? I prefer Tetley tea, PG Tips is never strong enough flavour for me. Shellyleppard

The reason for the sales drop with PG Tips could be because they increased the price and reduced the quantity of bags from 240 to 180 - it's obvious. Royston

And then this question which we've tried to answer below...

Why have PG Tips changed from Pyramid shape tea bags, to a square? Sam

Last year PG Tips said it was changing to a square bag that left more room for leaves to infuse, as the bags wouldn't fold over themselves.

We reported on data showing how downsizing could save you money for retirement - more than £400,000, in some regions, by swapping four beds for two.

Some of our readers shared their experiences...

We are downsizing and moving South so it's costing us £100k extra for a smaller place, all money from retirement fund. AlanNorth

Interesting read about downsizing for retirement. We recently did this to have the means to retire early at 52. However, we bought a house in the south of France for the price of a flat in our town in West Sussex. Now living the dream! OliSarah

How much should we pay for food?

Executive chef at London's two-Michelin-starred Ikoyi, Jeremy Chan, raised eyebrows when he suggested to the Money blog that Britons don't pay enough for restaurant food.

Ikoyi, the 35th best restaurant in the world, charges £320 for its tasting menu. 

"I don't think people pay enough money for food, I think we charge too little, [but] we want to always be accessible to as many people as possible, we're always trying our best to do that," he said, in a piece about his restaurant's tie up with Uber Eats... 

We had this in... 

Are they serious? That is two weeks' worth of food shopping for me, if the rich can afford this "tasting menu" then they need to be taxed even more by the government, it's just crazy! Steve T

If the rate of pay is proportionate to the vastly overpriced costs of the double Michelin star menu, I would gladly peel quail eggs for four-hour stints over continuing to be abused as a UK supply teacher. AndrewWard

Does this two-star Michelin star chef live in the real world? Who gives a toss if he stands and peels his quails eggs for four hours, and he can get the best turbot from the fishmonger fresh on a daily basis? It doesn't justify the outrageous price he is charging for his tasting menu. Topaztraveller

Chefs do make me laugh, a steak is just a steak, they don't make the meat! They just cook it like the rest of us, but we eat out because we can't be bothered cooking! StevieGrah

Finally, many of you reacted to this feature on common mistakes in job interviews...

Those 10 biggest mistakes people make in interviews is the dumbest thing I've ever read. They expect all that and they'll be offering a £25k a year job. Why wouldn't I want to know about benefits and basic sick pay? And also a limp handshake? How's that relevant to how you work? Jre90

Others brought their own tips...

Whenever I go for an interview I stick to three points: 1. Be yourself 2. Own the interview 3. Wear the clothes that match the job you are applying Kevin James Blakey

From Sunday, eligible working parents of children from nine-months-old in England will be able to register for access to up to 15 free hours of government-funded childcare per week.

This will then be granted from September. 

Check if you're eligible  here  - or read on for our explainer on free childcare across the UK.

Three and four year olds

In England, all parents of children aged three and four in England can claim 15 hours of free childcare per week, for 1,140 hours (38 weeks) a year, at an approved provider.

This is a universal offer open to all.

It can be extended to 30 hours where both parents (or the sole parent) are in work, earn the weekly minimum equivalent of 16 hours at the national minimum or living wage, and have an income of less than £100,000 per year.

Two year olds

Previously, only parents in receipt of certain benefits were eligible for 15 hours of free childcare.

But, as of last month, this was extended to working parents.

This is not a universal offer, however.

A working parent must earn more than £8,670 but less than £100,000 per year. For couples, the rule applies to both parents.

Nine months old

In September, this same 15-hour offer will be extended to working parents of children aged from nine months. From 12 May, those whose children will be at least nine months old on 31 August can apply to received the 15 hours of care from September.

From September 2025

The final change to the childcare offer in England will be rolled out in September 2025, when eligible working parents of all children under the age of five will be able to claim 30 hours of free childcare a week.

In some areas of Wales, the Flying Start early years programme offers 12.5 hours of free childcare for 39 weeks, for eligible children aged two to three. The scheme is based on your postcode area, though it is currently being expanded.

All three and four-year-olds are entitled to free early education of 10 hours per week in approved settings during term time under the Welsh government's childcare offer.

Some children of this age are entitled to up to 30 hours per week of free early education and childcare over 48 weeks of the year. The hours can be split - but at least 10 need to be used on early education.

To qualify for this, each parent must earn less than £100,000 per year, be employed and earn at least the equivalent of working 16 hours a week at the national minimum wage, or be enrolled on an undergraduate, postgraduate or further education course that is at least 10 weeks in length.

All three and four-year-olds living in Scotland are entitled to at least 1,140 hours per year of free childcare, with no work or earnings requirements for parents. 

This is usually taken as 30 hours per week over term time (38 weeks), though each provider will have their own approach.

Some households can claim free childcare for two-year-olds. To be eligible you have to be claiming certain benefits such as Income Support, Jobseeker's Allowance or Universal Credit, or have a child that is in the care of their local council or living with you under a guardianship order or kinship care order.

Northern Ireland

There is no scheme for free childcare in Northern Ireland. Some other limited support is available.

Working parents can access support from UK-wide schemes such as tax credits, Universal Credit, childcare vouchers and tax-free childcare.

Aside from this, all parents of children aged three or four can apply for at least 12.5 hours a week of funded pre-school education during term time. But over 90% of three-year-olds have a funded pre-school place - and of course this is different to childcare.

What other help could I be eligible for?

Tax-free childcare  - Working parents in the UK can claim up to £500 every three months (up to £2,000 a year) for each of their children to help with childcare costs. 

If the child is disabled, the amount goes up to £1,000 every three months (up to £4,000 a year).

To claim the benefit, parents will need to open a tax-free childcare account online. For every 80p paid into the account, the government will top it up by 20p.

The scheme is available until the September after the child turns 11.

Universal credit  - Working families on universal credit can claim back up to 85% of their monthly childcare costs, as long as the care is paid for upfront. The most you can claim per month is £951 for one child or £1,630 for two or more children.

Tax credits -  People claiming working tax credit can get up to 70% of what they pay for childcare if their costs are no more than £175 per week for one child or £300 per work for multiple children.

Two big economic moments dominated the news agenda in Money this week - interest rates and GDP.

As expected, the Bank of England held the base rate at 5.25% on Wednesday - but a shift in language was instructive about what may happen next.

Bank governor Andrew Bailey opened the door to a summer cut to 5%, telling reporters that an easing of rates at the next Monetary Policy Committee meeting on 20 June was neither ruled out nor a fait accompli.

More surprisingly, he suggested that rate cuts, when they start, could go deeper "than currently priced into market rates".

He refused to be drawn on what that path might look like - but markets had thought rates could bottom out at 4.5% or 4.75% this year, and potentially 3.5% or 4% next.

"To make sure that inflation stays around the 2% target - that inflation will neither be too high nor too low - it's likely that we will need to cut Bank rate over the coming quarters and make monetary policy somewhat less restrictive over the forecast period," Mr Bailey said.

You can read economics editor Ed Conway's analysis of the Bank's decision here ...

On Friday we discovered the UK is no longer in recession.

Gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 0.6% between January and March, the Office for National Statistics said.

This followed two consecutive quarters of the economy shrinking.

The data was more positive than anticipated.

"Britain is not just out of recession," wrote Conway. "It is out of recession with a bang."

The UK has seen its fastest growth since the tailend of the pandemic - and Conway picked out three other reasons for optimism.

1/ An economic growth rate of 0.6% is near enough to what economists used to call "trend growth". It's the kind of number that signifies the economy growing at more or less "normal" rates.

2/ 0.6% means the UK is, alongside Canada, the fastest-growing economy in the G7 (we've yet to hear from Japan, but economists expect its economy to contract in the first quarter).

3/ Third, it's not just gross domestic product that's up. So too is gross domestic product per head - the number you get when you divide our national income by every person in the country. After seven years without any growth, GDP per head rose by 0.4% in the first quarter.

GDP per head is a more accurate yardstick for the "feelgood factor", said Conway - perhaps meaning people will finally start to feel better off.

For more on where Friday's figures leaves us, listen to an Ian King Business Podcast special...

The Money blog is your place for consumer news, economic analysis and everything you need to know about the cost of living - bookmark news.sky.com/money .

It runs with live updates every weekday - while on Saturdays we scale back and offer you a selection of weekend reads.

Check them out this morning and we'll be back on Monday with rolling news and features.

The Money team is Emily Mee, Bhvishya Patel, Jess Sharp, Katie Williams, Brad Young and Ollie Cooper, with sub-editing by Isobel Souster. The blog is edited by Jimmy Rice.

If you've missed any of the features we've been running in Money this year, or want to check back on something you've previously seen in the blog, this archive of our most popular articles may help...

Loaves of bread have been recalled from shelves in Japan after they were found to contain the remains of a rat.

Production of the bread in Tokyo has been halted after parts of a "small animal" were found by at least two people.

Pasco Shikishima Corp, which produces the bread, said 104,000 packages have been recalled as it apologised and promised compensation.

A company representative told Sky News's US partner network, NBC News, that a "small black rat" was found in the bread. No customers were reported to have fallen ill as a result of ingesting the contaminated bread.

"We deeply apologise for the serious inconvenience and trouble this has caused to our customers, suppliers, and other concerned parties," the spokesman said.

Pasco added in a separate statement that "we will do our utmost to strengthen our quality controls so that this will never happen again. We ask for your understanding and your co-operation."

Japanese media reports said at least two people who bought the bread in the Gunma prefecture, north-west of Tokyo, complained to the company about finding a rodent in the bread.

Record levels of shoplifting appear to be declining as fewer shopkeepers reported thefts last year, new figures show. 

A survey by the Office for National Statistics shows 26% of retailers experienced customer theft in 2023, down from a record high of 28% in 2022.

This comes despite a number of reports suggesting shoplifting is becoming more frequent. 

A  separate ONS finding , which used police crime data, showed reports of shoplifting were at their highest level in 20 years in 2023, with law enforcements logging 430,000 instances of the crime.

Let's get you up to speed on the biggest business news of the past 24 hours. 

A privately owned used-car platform is circling Cazoo Group, its stricken US-listed rival, which is on the brink of administration.

Sky News has learnt that Motors.co.uk is a leading contender to acquire Cazoo's marketplace operation, which would include its brand and intellectual property assets.

The process to auction the used-car platform's constituent parts comes after it spent tens of millions of pounds on sponsorship deals in football, snooker and darts in a rapid attempt to gain market share.

The owner of British Airways has reported a sharp rise in profits amid soaring demand for trips and a fall in the cost of fuel.

International Airlines Group said its operating profit for the first three months of the year was €68m (£58.5m) - above expectations and up from €9m (£7.7m) during the same period in 2023.

The company, which also owns Aer Lingus, Iberia and Vueling, said earnings had soared thanks to strong demand, particularly over the Easter holidays.

The prospect of a strike across Tata Steel's UK operations has gained further traction after a key union secured support for industrial action.

Community, which has more than 3,000 members, said 85% voted in favour of fighting the India-owned company's plans for up to 2,800 job losses, the majority of them at the country's biggest steelworks in Port Talbot, South Wales.

Tata confirmed last month it was to press ahead with the closure of the blast furnaces at the plant, replacing them with electric arc furnaces to reduce emissions and costs.

In doing so, the company rejected an alternative plan put forward by the Community, GMB and Unite unions that, they said, would raise productivity and protect jobs across the supply chain.

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• Giro d'Italia stage 8 Live - A summit battle for the maglia rosa

UCI survey indicates dominance by big-budget teams curbs the enjoyment of cycling fans

Governing body publishes research into the appeal of road cycling

A survey commissioned by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) has given a snapshot of fans' opinions on professional cycling, with 50 per cent of those who completed the online survey agreeing that “the outcome of road cycling events is predictable nowadays.” Aspects selected during the survey that were said to reduce the appeal of road races were rider radios/earpieces (48 per cent), the use of power meters (40 per cent) and the variations in budgets between teams (39 per cent).

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UCI launches public survey on road cycling issues

The UCI created the survey as part of a consultation procedure involving cycling’s stakeholders with the aim to better understand and so improve the appeal of road racing.

The survey was completed during the Tour de France by 22,364 fans from 134 countries, with many deciding to complete the survey after it was reported on Cyclingnews . 92 per cent were male, with 71 percent of them responding from Europe and 23 per cent from America. 53 per cent of those who responded fell into the 35-64 age category, indicating cycling's wider demographic and the difficulty of reaching young fans.

The results revealed that a large number of the participants are active cyclists: 62 per cent of them ride a bike for recreational purposes, with 27 per cent saying that they race and 21 per cent stating that they ride bicycles to get to work. It was no surprise that the vast majority of participants said they are “very interested in road races” and that 84% of them say they are “exciting to watch”, with 70% of fans believe that road cycling is “easy to understand” and two-thirds feel that the rules are “not too complicated”.

The overall picture of fans’ perception of the sport was generally good, with respondents associating cycling with positive words like “excitement”, “bravery”, “heroes” and “respect.” The top six rated riders – Peter Sagan, Julian Alaphilippe, Vincenzo Nibali , Philippe Gilbert, Alejandro Valverde and Mathieu van der Poel – were all male.

However 50 per cent agreed that the outcome of races is “predictable”. Fans believe that the enjoyment of road cycling lies first and foremost in the combativity of the riders and the characteristics and prestige of the race. The three aspects selected during the survey that reduce the appeal of road races were rider radios/earpieces (48 per cent), the use of power meters (40 per cent) and the variations in budgets between teams (39 per cent).

The UCI said that 71 per cent believe that the concentration of the best riders in a limited number of teams affects the spectators’ enjoyment. 76 per cent think the difference in team budgets has an impact on the appeal of road cycling.

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The official budgets of the teams are not made public but Team Ineos is widely considered to have the largest budget, possibly close to 40 million Euro in 2020, while other teams only manage to secure half of that figure and so spend less on rider salaries, team personal and performance.

Team Ineos/Team Sky have won seven of the last eight editions of the Tour de France but faced a tougher battle this July before Egan Bernal emerged as the overall winner.

UCI president David Lappartient has always denied any bias against the British team but believes it may be too successful for the wider good of the sport.

"They win, and they'd be wrong to do otherwise, but the public sees things differently, they want a show. Sky are like a football team that plays very well but without exciting its fans," he said in 2018.

"Team Sky has Geraint Thomas, Chris Froome and Egan Bernal, three riders who could finish first, second and third at the Tour de France. However, in the interest of cycling it is better if the best riders are in different teams."

Lappartient and the UCI have yet to explain how a salary cap would be structured and managed. 

Television coverage

Another point raised by the consultation, particularly outside Europe, was the difficulty of finding a media outlet offering coverage of their favourite races.

The questionnaire reveals that the vast majority of spectators follow races on TV (68%), most often on free-to-air channels, less via the internet (21%), mobile (6%) or tablet (4%). 65% of fans now use social media to share and follow cycling-related content.

Fans seemingly would like to be offered more varied content during race broadcasts, with more extensive information on the riders (67%), sequences shot in team cars (63%) and reports on their pre-race preparations (60%). In terms of data, 75% of fans say they would get more enjoyment out of watching races if they had data on the performances of riders.

“The consultation shows us that road cycling enjoys a positive image with the fans, regardless of which continent they are from, and that, generally speaking, they are satisfied with the sport and the coverage on offer,” Lappartient said when commenting on the survey results.

“They also told us, however, that there is room for improvement, such as making more information and data available during broadcasts and that serious thought should be given to aspects seen as potentially damaging to the appeal of road cycling (domination by a small number of teams or the use of radio communications for instance).

“We are continuing with our consultation work and process of reflection with a view to making road cycling even more attractive: the working group looking into this has already met once, and its members will meet again in the near future; in parallel, interviews with different stakeholders continue. A series of proposals will be drawn up on this basis and put before the Professional Cycling Council and the UCI Management Committee for their approval in 2020.”  

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