🌍 By continent 2026 (2016)
🔸 Oceania 30 (31) ➖
🔸 North America 20 (26) ➖
🔸 Africa 4 (16) ➖
🔸 South America 14 (17) ➖
🔸 Europe 402 (395) ➕
🔸 Asia 5 (14) ➖

2026 : 29
2016 : 38

Difference : -9 in 2026

Comparing it with 2016

The traditional 3 (🇧🇪🇫🇷🇮🇹) had 12 riders less than they will have in 2026.

Big distant countries like 🇺🇸 (-7 in 2026), 🇦🇺 (-5), 🇨🇴 (-5), 🇷🇺 (-15), 🇰🇿 (-6) declined significantly.

Only one top 10 country is outside the western half of 🇪🇺 (3 in 2016).

De-globalization

There's no doubt that cycling is mostly popular in 🇫🇷🇧🇪🇮🇹🇨🇴 and outside of that quite a lot in 🇳🇱🇪🇸🇩🇰🇬🇧. But like I said even in a more global sport like football,we see symptoms of an ageing audience (of course on a more global scale).

I think it depends a bit on which parameters that you use. We see that the peloton itself is de-globalizing in comparing with the 2000s & 2010s but on the other hand we see that races sell better as a product with GT starts in more distant countries like Albania, Denmark, Bulgaria,...

Many sports are reaching an older audience, even football suffers from this phenomenon. Smaller clubs die because they don't have fans anymore and TV contracts decrease because they do not reach the expected new young subscribers anymore too, same for ticket sales in many stadiums

I'm not challenging your academic knowledge. I talk from the perspective of a consumer.

Can you explain why Bruges would look at a younger age group? From my experiences, cycling usually attracted people from many ages. It's a family friendly sport too. More inclusive than tennis or F1

Even for finish city Wevelgem. It's nice for the locals, but it's not a touristic city that even people from the province would visit after seeing it on TV.

I think that Bruges hosting a TDF finish would give a much higher ROI. (Lower prize, more tourist appeal, more global exposure)

I can understand the value of city marketing. But paying so much more money for reaching a much smaller pool of potential customers is insane too. It's not like the start of Wevelgem is getting so much more attention than a TDF stage start city. People mostly talk about the hills, not the start

The Tour de France does not only target French people too, but a global audience. For that amount of money a city gets attention from potential visitors worldwide. While Middelkerke or Wevelgem pay double for mostly just local Belgian visitors, so there are less potential consumers

Even in Belgium the Tour de France receives a lot of media attention. Previews, full broadcast, an hour long talkshow on the public TV channel in prime time.

You're not going to tell me that you think about Middelkerke multiple times a week too before or afterwards