The weird and wonderful world of cycling team sponsors

Amid the feverish action that floods this part of the cycling calendar, as the pro peloton pedals through Flanders and contests the spring classics, this snippet of news probably passed you by, but last week, Belgian team Soudal Quick-Step announced a new partnership with… Costa Coffee.

A press release from the team stated: "Costa Coffee will supply pod-based machines that will be installed across the Soudal Quick-Step fleet, ensuring riders and staff always have access to barista-quality coffee from the start of a race day to the finish."

Obviously, what happens on tour stays on tour, and Ethan Hayter, Gianmarco Garofoli, Tim Merlier and co can get their morning marching juice wherever Quick-Step boss Jurgen Foré tells them to, but back in Belgium, a country that takes its coffee almost as seriously as its cycling, the logo of Coca-Cola-owned big-cup caffeine pusher Costa is quite conspicuous by its absence.

In fact, after the British-born coffee chain’s first bricks-and-mortar outlet in Belgium opened in February 2024, in Liège Guillemins rail station, it barely lasted two years before closing due to lack of custom, and the franchise group's grand plan to open many more in the market were quickly and quietly shelved.

Sponsoring a Belgian bike team might be the only way Coca-Cola can get Costa Coffee into the country (meaning Hayter’s nutrition problems might not be quite as far behind him as he’d like and Remco Evenepoel may have bailed just in time to swap corporate-quality coffee for a sugar-loaded energy drink), but what will the more discerning fans of Flanders make of it?

But then again – given the fact that Quick Step’s main and titular sponsor are a Belgian flooring company and the riders' tops bear the logo of Safety Jogger, a footwear brand that makes shoes for pretty much everything – this isn't even the oddest commercial partnership for this one team.

And it's certainly far from the strangest sponsorship deal to be done in a sport where professional bike racing teams are routinely reliant on deals that require them to adopt the names of entities and companies that are completely incongruous with cycling and the culture that surrounds it. Here we take a look at some of the weirder results of this bizarre state of affairs.

From Flanders Fields to farmers' fields

Hands up who remembers Agritubel Pro Cycling Team. Named after a company that makes metal gates for farmers to contain cattle (including cow headlocks, something high on every cycling fan’s wishlist), this French outfit raced as a wildcard entry in four consecutive editions of the Tour de France between 2006 and 2009.

Agritubel rider Juan Miguel Mercado won Stage 9 of the 2006 Tour, and in the same period, the team competed in Paris–Nice, Paris–Roubaix, La Flèche Wallonne, Liège–Bastogne–Liège, and Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré (now the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes). And it wasn’t the only farmer-friendly outfit either: team Jayco AlUla first sprouted as GreenEdge Cycling, sponsored by an Aussie brand of fertiliser.

And who could forget Tonton Tapis-GB? Named for a family run French carpet company, Tonton Tapis, which roughly translates as 'Your Uncle’s Rug', this team enjoyed a short but surprisingly bright existence in 1991, participating in that year's Tour de France and having successes in Paris-Roubaix (where team rider Jean-Claude Colotti was runner-up) and victories at the Setmana Catalana and Critérium International (both won by Irish rider Stephen Roche).

Equally glamorous, Fassa Bortolo, founded in 2000, was sponsored by an Italian firm that made construction products like plaster and paint. They knew how to build a squad, though, and Giancarlo Ferretti led the ‘Silver Team’ to victory in some 200 races, including stages in all three Grand Tours. It was also one of 20 teams that formed the inaugural UCI ProTour system in 2005, before disbanding amid chaos a year later.

Dangerous liaisons

But at least paints, plaster, carpets and livestock pens don’t harm your health, which is more than you can say for some sponsors of cycling teams over the years.

Even back in the heady and hedonistic days of the late 70s and early 80s, when professional snooker and darts players were virtually obliged to booze and smoke their way through televised tournaments, tobacco advertising was banned in sporting events in France.

This could have caused dramas for Boule d'Or, a pro-cycling team sponsored by a brand of cigarettes who were based in Belgium (where it was absolutely fine for athletes to promote smoking). In the end, however, the team, which was active from 1979 to 1983 and raced the Tour de France in 1981 (when team rider Freddy Maertens staged a stunning comeback to bag the green jersey) and 1982, dodged the problem by finding a brand of chocolate with the same name.

Several teams have been bankrolled by booze companies in the past too, perhaps most successfully in the case of Pelforth–Sauvage–Lejeune, a French outfit backed by a Lille-based brewery in the 1960s, with whom Jan Janssen won the 1968 Tour de France. The perfect accompaniment to beer, Smith's Potato Crisps got in on the action too, as named sponsor of a Belgian cycling team in the 1960s that featured Guido Reybrouck and took part in the Tour de France.

In the same era, Carpano – a team sponsored by the Turin-based wine company – had wins in the Dwars door Vlaanderen, Tour of Flanders, Paris–Roubaix and stage victories in Paris–Nice, Giro d'Italia and Tour de France. And Rapha has roots that lead back to a French apéritif, Saint-Raphaël, which sponsored a French professional cycling team of the same name, active from 1954 to 1964.

For well over a decade, however, the UCI rulebook has specified that, "no brand of tobacco, spirits, pornographic products or any other products that might damage the image of the UCI or the sport of cycling in general shall be associated directly or indirectly with a licence-holder, a UCI team or a national or international cycling competition".

But for now it’s still fine for crypto companies and (with some limitations) betting organisations to promote their activities on the backs of riders – we’ll see how that ages.

People and politics

Besides being backed by manufacturers of beer, building products, fags and farming equipment, pro cycling teams have received funding from all sorts of sources, including obscure holiday resorts and HR companies.

RMO was a French team backed by 'a supplier of temporary workers', Relation Main d'Oeuvre, which launched in 1986 and had successes in the mountains classification of the 1990 Tour de France with Thierry Claveyrolat, and the 1991 Paris–Roubaix with Marc Madiot, before collapsing in a heap in 1992.

And Club 88, a beach resort in Montenegro, co-sponsored Italian squad Jolly Componibili in the early 1990s, a team that took a stage wins in the Giro d'Italia thanks to Stefano Giuliani and Dmitry Konyshev.

It's also not unusual to see teams financially tied to nation states – with the Tadej Pogačar-led UAE Team Emirates-XRG and Bahrain Victorious being obvious examples, and the recent fate of Israel-Premier Tech providing a cautionary tale about such associations can become political hot potatoes – but some connections are much more oblique. Launched in 2007, team XDS Astana is named after the capital of Kazakhstan, and it is partly bankrolled by a coalition of state-owned companies from the Central Asian Republic.

Perhaps the most bizarre example of controversial quasi-national/political relationship between a cycling team and its backers is seen in the outfit founded by the Italian Lorenzo Fanini in 1948, which turned pro in 1984, under the name Fanini–Wührer, and claims to be the world's oldest professional cycling team. In 1989, the squad scored an audience at the Vatican with Pope John Paul II, during which Fanini, a devout Catholic, made his riders wear jerseys sporting the slogan 'No to Abortion'.

The team was subsequently rebranded Amore & Vita (Love and Life), a name apparently put forward by the Polish pontiff himself, which led to protests by pro-choice and feminist groups at several events. The team continued racing until 2021, for a period using bikes with a crucifix on the handlebars, and enjoyed some successes at the Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a España. Fanini even offered David Millar a road to redemption with the team after the Scot was sacked by Cofidis for doping in 2004.

So maybe Soudal Quick-Step’s Costa deal is not so weird. After all, Eddy Merckx won his first four grand tours with Faemino–Faema, a cycling team backed by an Italian espresso coffee brand. That said, even The Cannibal might have struggled to perform in saddle after quaffing a pint-sized Chocolate Fudge Brownie Frappe in the team bus.