Trademark tussles, scoring systems and pricing Pogačar: How one man built a 30,000 player fantasy cycling game

Fantasy sports and cycling enthusiast George Chapman, 46, created Velogames.comFel back in the Nineties. It now has around 30,000 players and offers a range of fantasy competitions covering the Classics, Grand Tours and week-long stage races. Players build a virtual team of real-world riders within a fixed budget, scoring points based on how those riders perform in the race.

The most popular format - where players use 100 credits to pick a nine-rider Tour team comprising two all-rounders, two climbers, one sprinter, three domestiques and a wildcard - is still going strong despite having been shut down for two years amid a trademark infringement dispute with Tour de France owners ASO. Chapman tells Cycling Weekly about Velogames's origins, nipping out from weddings to update scores, and how high he can realistically mark Tadej Pogačar's price.

How did you get into cycling?
My dad used to watch the Channel 4 Tour of France highlights with Richard Keys and Phil Liggett, so I've been following it since I was a little boy. I used to ride around my garden in a yellow T-shirt pretending to be Sean Kelly. I'm not much of a cyclist myself - more of a couch potato and nerdy fan. I've never even had a proper road bike.

How did Velogames come about?
It started in 1997 off the back of playing newspaper-based fantasy football games. I had an idea to do the same thing for the Tour. I posted on an internet forum to gauge interest, then took entries by email from around 150 people. The game really kickstarted in the Lance Armstrong era because lots of Americans came in. When that ended, there was a big spike in British users with the Team Sky era and London Olympics.

How different was the game back then?
I posted a list of riders, and players selected nine riders with 100 credits - so it was very similar [but] it was all pen and paper - I worked out a way of entering the teams into a spreadsheet, filtering the scores per rider and publishing the results on the forum.

How has the game developed over the years?
Initially, I hosted it on my dad's website. Then, at the start of 2002, I created Velogames.com. In 2004 I started the Fantasy Giro d'Italia, then in 2005 the Vuelta. Around this time, I got hooked up to a database so people could enter with a web form, which made things a lot easier. Then, in 2014, I added my first Classics game.

How did you find the time to run everything?
I was a student, so I still had all my summers free. Once I started working, I took time off to watch the Tour. Now it's a bit trickier with family commitments and two young boys. Having a patient wife helps. It's much easier with laptops and hotel WiFi. Before that, I had to be at a desktop computer each day. Now I can do it much more on the fly.

What's your day job when you're not putting together rider lists and scoring races?
I trained as an accountant and then became an auditor. Off the back of Velogames, I moved into working for Fantasy League, the original providers of the fantasy football game in the UK. Now I'm a product manager at Haymarket.

What were the early challenges at Velogames?
The second year coincided with the Festina scandal and the sit-down protests. The system for what happens when a stage is cancelled or neutralised, or a rider gets disqualified, was set back then and has been refined ever since. The cut-off point when the scores are set remains midnight after the stage.

You had a run-in with ASO. What was that all about?
I was just merrily doing my own thing when ASO set up its own sponsored game for the Tour. They weren't happy that I had 'Tour de France' in the website title and was using a picture of the yellow jersey. They contacted me just two days before the 2018 edition and I was already taking entries. As a precaution, I stopped running the Tour game for two years.

Have you put that behind you now?
Yes. ASO even invited me to the final stage in Paris, as a sort of apology and recognition of everything I'd done. From a personal point of view, I'm not worried about having competitors.

Is simplicity the key to the success of Velogames?
I think so. Little has changed since 1997. I could have introduced transfers but that opens a can of worms. As it is, it's more living the life of a sporting director-taking the rough with the smooth. Having said that, there is a side game now where I let people make changes - but it's not as popular. Part of the charm is that you're stuck with the same nine riders.

How many entries do you get?
Around 30,000 for the Tour, a bit less for other races. For a couple of years [during the ASO dispute], I focused more on women's cycling and the Sixes game. I now focus my games on the entire calendar rather than just a few big set pieces. I want Velogames to be a brand in its own right, not limited to a fantasy Tour de France game.

What are your fail-safe tips when it comes to team selection?
It's not really an exact science. For Grand Tours, you need two of the top three on GC, plus the best sprinter, then value for money elsewhere. But it's not easy: if you chose Pogačar, Jonas Vingegaard and Mads Pedersen at the Tour, you wouldn't have had enough credits for your remaining six riders.

Can a player win Velogames without Pogačar?
You can, but you'd need the second and third-placed riders, a lot of luck, plus a huge spattering of stage wins. I can't set Pogačar's price too high because no one would want him. He was 34 credits last year, which was well worth it because he broke the 4,000-points barrier. He was picked by 74% of players so I might put him on 36 [for 2026].

The price system is obviously very subjective. Exactly. That's why I never do well [as a player] - because my preconceived ideas are already fully baked into the prices. My main aim is to encourage people to pick different teams. I've made some huge mistakes in the past. The biggest was Puck Pieterse, who I only valued at four credits a couple of years ago because she came from cyclo-cross and had no road results.

Have you ever had a dead heat at the top?
The Tour game was once won by a handful of points. It was when I was still scoring with pen and paper - not my current spreadsheets - and I had to recount everything to make sure. There have been ties in some of the smaller games.

Is the winner rewarded with a prize, or do people play just for fun?
Just for fun. It's tricky because any sporting contest with a prize is covered by gambling regulations in many territories and requires a licence. It's why I cannot charge an entry fee. Donations keep me afloat. I receive £5 to £20 from around 700 people, although some people pay just a penny to get access to the extra subscribers' competition, which is a bit stingy.

Where are your players from?
It's about 30% Britain, 30% US and 40% everywhere else - primarily Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It's popular in Portugal and France. There's even a podcast about it in Brazil. You often get smaller cycling nations getting excited when they have a rider they can pick-like Mauritius and Kim Le Court.

Are you making money from it?
I pay for the website, for various modules I need to modernise things, for hosting, and for the email user systems. It adds up. I'm not out of pocket. I might make a little bit for a holiday at the end of the year but it's not a year-round job. The ad revenue just about covers my costs.

What's next for Velogames?
Well, no one's offered to buy me out, but I've not put it up for sale either. I wouldn't sell anyway - it's become part of my identity. The idea of someone else running Velogames is a bit grating. Obviously, I've got to stop sometime, but not now my eldest son's just started playing. I'm just happy doing it and trying to improve it. There's no need to massively change the way I'm doing things even if it's never going to be a year-round income.

Quick-fire round

Best bike you've ever owned? My beloved Halfords Carrera Krakatoa.

Fondest cycling memory? Being on Alpe d'Huez for the 2004 time trial. I've booked to stay in Bourg d'Oisans next summer, to introduce my boys to the craziness of the Tour.

Favourite place to ride? I'm a Londoner born and bred, so Richmond Park.

Fantasy ride buddy? Sean Kelly.

Song or podcast while on the turbo? No turbo, so no song, but the original Channel 4 Tour theme is a classic.

Cycling pet peeve? That there currently seems no fair way to distribute revenues fairly between the teams, riders and smaller, traditional races.

Best Monument? Tour of Flanders - the version with the Muur/Bosberg finish.

Yellow, pink or red? Pink.

Mountaintop finish, bunch sprint or breakaway? A chase down in the mountains.

Will Pogačar beat Cav's Tour stage record? Yes.

Will he win all five Monuments? He'll get one of Milan San Remo or Paris-Roubaix, but not both.

Rob Hatch or Carlton Kirby? Hatch, although I enjoy Kirby for the long, boring stages.