€8 million a year - What Tadej Pogacar should be making in new contract with UAE Team Emirates
Cycling
Tadej Pogacar is arguably the best pro cyclist in the current peloton. His achievements of 2024 have turned him from a great to a virtual legend for the history of the sport and this has also reflected in his contract which sees his salary increase even more despite him already previously being the best payed rider in the peloton.
Today's Gazzetta dello Sport reports that Pogacar's new salary is of €8 million per season. This comes as an increase from his previous salary of €6 million. The team, backed by the Emirati nation, has cash to throw at the best riders in the world and also many of the youngest talents, which has allowed the development of a team that comfortable dominates the UCI rankings currently. This would also be followed, according to the report, by a €200 million contract clause which pretty much makes it impossible for anyone to buy out his contract.
Much of that is due to Pogacar who this year won no less than Strade Bianche, Volta a Catalunya, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Giro d'Italia, Tour de France, GP de Montréal, World Championships Road Race, Giro dell'Emilia and Il Lombardia... A total of 25 races added to his palmarès, some historic achievements made; but even others in development as for example a possible future goal of reaching the stage win record at the Tour de France. Pogacar recently signed a new contract all the way into 2030 - joining Spanish super-talent Pablo Torres when it comes to duration.
The creation of a women's development team related to Pogacar and his fiancée Urska Zigart could also have been influenced by this new move in the market. At the time being Pogacar not only has almost double the UCI points of his closes rival Remco Evenepoel, but not almost double the salary as any of his competitors - for good reason though, most would argue. However, it has been recently rumoured that Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe was willing to offer Remco Evenepoel €10 million a year which would actually see the Belgian soar up this statistic.
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As for the Froome contract it`s money laundering at the highest level of Government.
Cycling professionals come cheap compared to most global sports. They should all be paid more.
If equality was the criteria, I’d agree, unfortunately sport is mostly financed by value and not performance, talent or work and this value is partly arbitrary but mostly commercial so cycling will NEVER compare as it will remain a relatively niche sport. How much do you think champion or wr holders in Javelin, triple jump, steeplechase or the like earn? Even in a single sport the differences between winners of popular events and sideshows are embarrassing. In some sports the best don’t even get paid.
Given inflation, it's actually not much more than Froome was paid. Not that I think Pogacar is being underpaid. But what it highlights is how shocking Froome's overpayment looks every day. Would have been better (in hindsight) to give him one year at 8 million. Then Israel could have seen the situation more clearly, dumped him, and saved $17 million. Long-term contracts for injured guys in their 30s are so ridiculous. See it in baseball all the time and it almost never works out.
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- my formative years in racing were in the 80s and 90s. back then the tone of the peloton was HARSH, aggressive, unfriendly and often mean. amateur racers just modeled what they saw from the pros, so many of the guys a raced with and against were outright a$$hole$, by choice. my great hope is that the amateur ranks now model the tone of kindness and support and compassion that we see in the pro peloton NOW. the greatest stars — tadej, wout, mathieu, demi, kasia, and on and on, never say an unkind word about their brothers and sisters in the peloton, and are often the first even in defeat to hug and congratulate the winner. these are better times in my opinion. maybe some fans miss the “get your hate on” tone of the older days. i do not.OCexile04-04-2025
- That was one of the best interviews. Coming from the best guy in the world Pogi has so much class. Of course he wants to beat MVDP And sees him as the biggest rival. I kind of felt it was a set up to ask Pogi about Wout being a rival. If he was truly honest, he might have said Wout isn’t a threat at this point. Instead, he just laid out the facts and added some opinions that didn’t diminish the respect he ultimately has for Wout or any competitor for that matter even if they aren’t a threat. Pogi is a master at showing sportsmanship. When he loses to MVDP It’s not a big deal and he’s laughing and goofing around and all giddy as if he did win. He just truly loves racing more than he loves winning. Truly a delight to see him on the podium No matter what step he’s on.Onepiece04-04-2025
- The cherry-picked headline makes it sound like MvDP is making an arrogant statement, but reading his statement in full reveals that it's more of a cautious optimism.
KerisVroom04-04-2025 - Pride and overconfidence strike again. Come on Wout! What a bonehead. They had a royal flush in spades and folded the hand. He knows he’s not in his best form after recovering from all the injuries. These are not normal circumstances for a sprint. They should have played tactics and put Powless to the sword by individually attacking thus wearing him out to cover all the attacks. If they wore him out wout MAY have won. It’s sad to see a guy go from insane pride to whimpering dog like that. Yes Wout is under immense pressure, so make some wise and shrewd decisions buddy! Standing there on the podium in 2 or 3 spot he always has the look of a sourpuss sore loser. Show some class buddy! Better success next timeOnepiece04-04-2025
- Well said, Pogi!!!!!!Al04-04-2025
- Why do Ineos want him.? He cannot challenge the big four and they already have a ton of strong domestiquesabstractengineer04-04-2025
- As Wout said on Srava today "Things don't always go your way... but a flat white and peanut butter brownie can make up for a lot" Puts it in perspective!VgnRider04-04-2025
- Watch out Urska, I think he’s taken a liking to MVDP ;-)Mistermaumau04-04-2025
- Totally!Mistermaumau04-04-2025
- It will be interesting to see how he goes on the cobbles, so far he's looking very strong.awp04-04-2025