The Tour de France will be broadcast on Netflix, which may raise the profile of professional cycling like never before. However, Jonathan Vaughters, manager of EF Education-EasyPost, is in full agreement.

Vaughters, a former president of the International Association of Professional Cycling Teams, was once one of the sport's most outspoken critics of its business model and the reluctance of Tour de France organizer ASO to share the wealth generated by the broadcasting rights. However, contrary to the views of Patrick Lefebvre, manager of Quick-Step Alphavinil, Vaughters now feels that ASO is offering good terms.

"It pains me to say this, but I think ASO is actually helping the sport in general with this project, and I agree with that," Vaughters told Cycling News.

"Media rights contracts around the world are based on audience numbers. So if cycling becomes more popular as a sport, the Tour de France will become more popular. So of course they will benefit."

Teams also stand to benefit from greater visibility and a share of the fees offered by Netflix; according to Cyclingnews, the eight teams participating in the series could each earn more than €50,000.

Lefebvre wrote in his Het Newsblad column on Friday that the teams agreed to participate in the series with "moderate enthusiasm and reservations," and said the rewards offered to the teams are "peanuts." He wrote that "ASO gets the first pass at checkout and then, as usual, there's little left over," adding that if the entry fee doesn't go up in the future, "it won't be worth it to participate.

Vaughters disagreed, writing, "They are not taking all the cash from the media rights sales, they are distributing it. And in my opinion, they are distributing it fairly. If this becomes a hit, season 2, season 3, season 4, it may need to be renegotiated.

Other teams, such as UAE Team Emirates with two-time Tour winner Tadey Pogachar, did not participate. However, the F1 series Drive to Survive, on which the Tour show is modeled, also started its first season without a big-name team.

The series was hugely profitable for Formula 1, with race ratings rising by more than 50% due to the docu-drama. Cycling has similarly struggled to portray the drama of personalities and relationships, mainly because the sponsorship model inhibits free expression.

Vaughters says the series will be a big boost for teams that "don't have the financial backing of oil-producing countries" or the support of strong regional sponsors like Quick Step.

"It [the Netflix series] is great for those of us who live in the real world where commercial interests matter, where audience size matters, where many people live. It has the potential to raise the overall profile of bike racing."

"I know I've said a lot of anti-ASO stuff in a lot of interviews, but this is a pretty good deal.

Vaughters' only reservation is that only eight teams will be invited to film and the other 14 teams in the Tour de France may suffer.

"I'm genuinely concerned that some of the smaller teams will have their oxygen drained a bit by participating in a project like this," Vaughters said, but added that Lefevere's argument "falls flat" because of the regional nature of his team's partners.

"As long as there are sponsors and commercial interests in Belgium and in that region, he's fine. So he can afford to say, 'Oh, I'm just going to do my series. Then he can get a great audience in Belgium."

"But if you're an educational, language, travel-oriented company, managing a team with a global perspective with interests in 50-plus countries around the world, the perspective that it's a good thing to raise the profile of cycling You need to have that."

EF Education-EasyPost fully embraces this concept with riders like Rigoberto Urán being a natural in front of the camera.

"Rigo is clearly obsessed with the camera. He's a media machine, but it's clear that he's in the last year or two of his career," Vaughters said.

"I believe Mark Padun will do great in the Tour de France. A Ukrainian rider will do great in the Tour de France. ...... That might not be a bad story either."

"I'm sure he'll do very well in the Tour de France.

The personal and sporting story of the F1 driver drew great interest to the sport, but Vaughters qualifies it by the fact that the broadcast began during the lockdown of COVID-19, which had the highest Netflix ratings ever.

"Will we get the same number of viewers? Hopefully it will increase, but the hurdle is high because we are dealing with content that was introduced in the middle of the lockdown," Vaughters said. 'This is something that's introduced when you're trying to get out of a lockdown. So it's a trickier equation [because] cycling is a very nuanced sport, and tactics and strategy, cycling is very nuanced, just like Formula 1 isn't, so it's a very nuanced sport. I think people coming in for the first time from a filmmaking perspective will have a hard time seeing the key moments inside the team.

[15] "But I hope they can pick up on those little details and actually make something great."

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