The USA Pro Challenge will not happen this year.
Organizers of the race, which would have counted 2016 as its sixth year hosting the world’s top cyclists pedaling across the state, need more time to establish a new ownership structure and secure long-term investors. Pushing the race to 2017 gives organizers more time to enlist national sponsors and potentially add new Pro Challenge races across the country.
“What we don’t want to do it put a Band-Aid on this. We are going to take a pause and focus,” said Shawn Hunter, the longtime chief of the race. “Unless we can pull this off in a manner like we have for the last five years, we think the prudent thing is to hold off and launch in 2017.”
Since October, Hunter has led a volunteer team in a search for community and national sponsors for the high-profile race.
The USA Pro Challenge’s founders, restaurant chain owners Rick and Richard Schaden, relinquished control of the race in late September, freeing Hunter to develop a new ownership model.
The Schadens, former owners of the Quiznos franchise chain who now control the Smashburger franchise, spent about $20 million of their own money to float the race through its first five years. After a first-year loss of about $10 million in 2011, the father-son duo — along with Hunter — had landed big-name sponsors like Lexus, UnitedHealthcare and Pepsi that helped whittle that annual loss to about $2 million.
But to keep it from losing money, the race needed a title sponsor — like the 10-year-old Tour of California’s Amgen.
Hunter said last fall that his pursuit of long-term investors would be easier without ownership anchored in a single family. He said he wanted a “homegrown ownership group” of local and national investors who share an interest in cycling and have the patience to make the race sustainable for the long haul.
He’s got some investors waiting in the wings. He will announce them soon, he said. But for now, the new ownership structure is not ready for public exposure.
“The people we hope to introduce as part of the team are strategic and long-term investors and that’s absolutely what it takes,” Hunter said.
As Hunter shopped for new partners, he heard potential sponsors say they wished the race was more than a week. They pined for a series of contests — a season of racing.
“One of the important pieces is to allow for continued growth of the Pro Challenge, but also expansion and the introduction of new races over the next three to five years,” he said. “Here is an opportunity to create a platform that has a handful of events in key locations that are attractive to both national sponsors and broadcasters. A one-off cycling event is exciting, but if it’s part of a bigger organization or a bigger vision, that’s what we think is key to long-term success.”
Colorado will anchor the new series of Pro Challenge races, Hunter said, adding that the East Coast is “the next logical step” for expansion of the Pro Challenge race brand.
Business consultant and cycling advocate Steve Maxwell, who explores the financial aspects of professional cycling in his theouterline.com website, said Pro Challenge organizers’ inability to quickly land national sponsors is “not totally unexpected.”
It’s easy to identify the demands of staging an international bike race in the U.S., Maxwell said, but no one has really proven how to achieve those goals.
“Title sponsorship in the world of cycling is a very tough sell,” said Jonathan Vaughters, CEO of Team Cannondale-Garmin, the lone American-based squad on the World Tour. “When people go to a bike race, there’s excitement and buzz and the sponsors are getting incredible exposure. The demographics and metrics are solid, but it’s off the beaten path. It’s not a traditional American sport.”
Organizing a pro cycling race in the United States is far different from doing so in Europe, where local and federal governments often foot the bill for road closures and police. Other niche sports — marathon road racing and triathlon among them — have found success opening their championship events to the general public, a crucial third revenue stream beyond investor money and sponsorship. Vaughters suggested that adding a mass participation element to the Pro Challenge could make it permanently viable.
“Cycling fans in America are cyclists themselves — just like runners, just like triathletes,” Vaughters said. “Cycling has divested itself from that approach. It’s the pro race and no one else is allowed in. In running, there’s the pro race and 20,000 other people following behind.”
Turns out the biggest draw of professional cycling — being free for spectators — is its greatest challenge. Sponsors carry the full financial burden of the show. And no one in cycling has found that perfect national sponsor or coalition of partners that can keep a U.S. race in the black.
Successful races often are supported by benevolent millionaires and billionaires. The publicly owned Tour of Georgia and the Tour of Missouri foundered with shifting politics and tightening budgets despite spurring spending in rural communities across both states.
“There are just a lot of things that have to happen simultaneously in order for something like this to come together,” Maxwell said. “A national series would be great and would definitely support the existence of an individual race like this, but unfortunately that is a long ways from reality.”
Studies commissioned by race organizers show the week-long Pro Challenge draws as many as 1 million spectators as cyclists pedal more than 600 miles through a dozen high country communities. Those studies estimate the economic impact of the race at more than $130 million.
Existing sponsors support the delay, Hunter said. Lexus, which marked its first entry into cycling sponsorship with the Pro Challenge when it inked a three-year sponsorship deal in 2014, agrees with pushing the race to 2017.
“Everyone agrees this was a prudent decision,” Hunter said. “As much as we would like to be racing in August, I think everyone appreciates that we have to be about legacy infrastructure that has predictability and confidence built into it. We have made great progress but we have a lot of work to be done both on finishing ownership and the never-ending pursuit of sponsorship.”
Three times in the last five years, a group of local cycling fans has bid to have Grand Junction host the race.
Hunter last fall indicated he wanted to route the 2016 race through the high desert around city, passing through orchards, canyons and, perhaps, Colorado National Monument. But Grand Junction leaders balked at the $300,000 price tag.
Within weeks of the town council expressing its reluctance to pay to host the race, local businesses and cycling fans rallied to raise more than $100,000. The sudden swell of support swayed Grand Junction’s town council to throw in.
“We saw it as a way to really market the valley and help tourism. We saw the race as a catalyst for what we’ve got going on out here,” said Scott Mercier, a former professional cyclist from Telluride who co-chaired the local committee that galvanized grassroots support for the race. “I don’t know if we can maintain that for 2017, but I’m optimistic.”
Breckenridge already was lined up for its sixth round of hosting. The event has become one of Breckenridge’s top summer events, with concerts, mountain bike races and days of partying surrounding the pro cycling circus.
According to city sales tax records, Breckenridge has seen spending climb from $20.1 million in August 2010, the year before the race, to $36.2 million last August, when Summit County’s Arapahoe Basin, Copper Mountain and Breckenridge all played host to the race.
This year, there was worry that the hordes that typically flock to Summit County for the Pro Challenge might be drawn instead to the television to watch the Summer Olympics, which would have overlapped with the race.
“This really is a nice little pause,” town spokeswoman Kim Dykstra-DiLallo said. “We completely understand and appreciate they are taking the time to do it properly. We are excited to have it back better than ever in 2017.”
Jason Blevins: 303-954-1374, jblevins@denverpost.com or @jasonblevins
Daniel Petty contributed to this report.
