‘Cycling’s bubble could explode’ - Jayco boss Copeland renews budget cap push as reform talks restart

Speaking on the Domestique Hotseat podcast, the Jayco AlUla general manager argued that cycling's growing financial divide is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain and said support for a budget cap among team owners has grown significantly since he first raised the idea in 2024.

Copeland first began publicly advocating for a budget cap in 2024, when the proposal received little support from fellow teams. Two years later, he believes attitudes have changed.

"When I first mentioned budget cap two years ago I was shot down by the majority of our members. Now I see a lot of our members are actually calling for it and doing public interviews about the budget cap because they understand that it's getting to a situation which is unsustainable."

The average WorldTeam budget is now around €32 million, with the top teams operating at closer to €55-60 million.

"These people are all businessmen. They're all investors. They invest in many different sports. They don't want to just throw money at a sport. They want to have a competitive team for sure, but they also want to have security for the investment that they make. Without a budget cap, you're not giving them any security at all."

"Because maybe next year Qatar comes in and buys a team and they invest 100 million. And the year after, the Saudis come in and invest 150 million. Then suddenly your 20 million that you've promised your first naming-right sponsor is suddenly the real estate space that it's worth is a small logo on the shoulder."

Australia's AFL and NRL have operated under salary-cap systems for years, and Copeland said he has spoken to people involved in introducing those measures.

"I've been fortunate enough to be introduced to people who introduced the budget caps to those two sports, thanks to Gerry Ryan. The way it was done was complicated, for sure. The cap was out of the bag back then. So it's good to listen to those people, to get their point of view on how they had to go through the grandfathering process of eventually getting to the year where they said: right, the budget cap starts this year."

Copeland warned that reform needed to begin “sooner than later before this bubble explodes”, pointing to rising operational costs and increasingly extreme spending patterns among top teams.

Earlier this year, UCI president David Lappartient launched a consultation process examining how teams, organisers and governing bodies can build a more sustainable economic model for professional cycling. Copeland believes that discussion remains central to solving many of the sport's wider problems.

"Finding a new business model, finding new revenue for the teams, finding a format that gives more value to the licences of the teams would resolve 80 to 90 per cent of the issues that cycling finds itself in.

"That is safety. The riders are pushing the limits. They're wanting contracts, they're desperate to resign their contracts and it's fully understandable that they will push the limits in order to resign that contract. The teams are putting pressure on the riders to get points because they need the points to stay within the ranking, and you're just creating this vicious circle of a situation that is not safe."

As part of that process, Copeland said the AIGCP's business-model working group is expected to resume discussions after pausing at the end of 2025. The group, established in 2024, spent around 18 months examining potential reforms before activity slowed.

"Hopefully that happens sooner rather than later because it needs to be discussed. It's easy to say we just want the TV rights of the organisers. It's easy to say we want certain revenues from the organisers.

"I think we've got to also put ourselves in the organisers' shoes and understand that not all the organisers are coming out with a profit."

Beyond cycling's financial structure, Copeland also addressed several ongoing debates surrounding SafeR, the body created during the 2023 Tour de France to bring together teams, riders, organisers and the UCI on safety matters.

He sits on SafeR's Supervisory Board, while former professionals Dan Martin and Rubens Bertogliati represent the AIGCP on the Case Management Committee that reviews race incidents.

"It's unfortunate that a lot of people don't really see what's going on in the background to create a safer environment for cycling. I know it's very easy to criticise from abroad or from behind the TV screen, but if you're on the ground you see the challenges that the organisers have to go through in order to make a safe race environment."

Among the topics discussed by SafeR in recent months has been the introduction of minimum handlebar widths, a measure that has drawn criticism from some riders who argue it does not account for differences in body size.

"The initial discussion around that point was more about the capability of bike handling within the peloton. Cycling has evolved tremendously in the last five years, never mind 10 years, and the speeds are increasing at a rapid pace.

"The quality of the peloton has increased. In the years past you would have 12 to 15 riders at the top of a mountain stage. Now you've got 30 to 40."

"There was a lot of discussion that went on before that decision was made. It wasn't just someone who said, oh, let's make it a narrower bar and go with that.

"I can understand from the public's point of view that often happens. They'll have a look at it and say, just a few people sitting around in an office, the UCI taking that decision. That is not the case."

Another contentious SafeR proposal involved testing restrictions on maximum gear ratios, a measure supporters believe could help limit speeds in certain situations. The planned trial was blocked by the Belgian Competition Authority, leading the UCI to challenge the ruling through legal channels.

The AIGCP was the only SafeR stakeholder group to vote against contributing funding towards that challenge.

"Let's hope it doesn't create a precedent for the future, because I personally think testing is incredibly important. Without testing, you can't really advance the sport."

For Copeland, the debate around cycling's finances and the debate around rider safety are not separate issues. He sees both as symptoms of a sport still searching for a more stable foundation.

"We've got to look at it from a bigger picture. We have a fragile business model, we have a fragile sport as such where we all know the situations and difficulties that many of us face, whether it's safety, the business model of cycling, etc.

"So if we start to point fingers within the sport, it just makes us all weaker."

Listen to the full Hotseat episode with Brent Copeland 👇