Golden opportunity for 'One Cycling' project to take a leap forward with Saudi investment fund set to take over as new financial backer of Giro d'Italia

For Saudi Arabia, which has been increasingly expanding its influence in more and more sports, a golden opportunity has arised in cycling. According to Tuttobiciweb, the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund – better known as the PIF – will most likely become the new main sponsor of the Giro d'Italia.

For years, the Giro d'Italia organization could count on the support of ENEL, a major producer of electricity and distributor of power and natural gas. The agreement with this company expired at the end of last year and ENEL does not intend to continue the collaboration. And so organizer RCS Sport must look for a new main sponsor for the three-week race.

Race director Mauro Vegni is said to have ended up at the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world with an estimated total capital of over 925 billion dollars. PIF has been busy for some time increasing its influence within the sports world and so to enter as financial backer of one of the world's biggest races might be too good deal to simply pass on.

However the real goal of Saudi investments fund lies beyond the Italian Grand Tour. Those who recall the One Cycling project might've connected the dots by now, but for those who didn't keep themselves in the picture WielerFlits sums up the key aspects of the project, which would be run under the supervision of SURJ Sports Investment, a subsidiary of PIF;

"OneCycling is set to become the new 'Champions League' of cycling. The new competition format is set to bring about an evolution in the economics of professional cycling and increase the attractiveness of the sport to the general public. In the meantime, the cycling world has been working on this project behind the scenes for about three years."

"The aim is to improve the economics of cycling and to have the best riders race against each other more often. The teams that are part of OneCycling will receive a fixed fee of 1 million dollars per year for the next three years for their participation in the races on this top platform. For the teams, this is a new income stream outside of individual sponsorships, which currently accounts for around 90% of the teams' income."