How The Maryland Cycling Classic Came To Be

 

The Maryland Cycling Classic came back for a second edition this past Sunday, September 3, 2023.  The inaugural edition, in 2022, was the first pro race in the United States of America since 2019, and it’s success—coming back for a second time, when races outside of traditional Euro’ hotbeds are too often one-and-done–indicates that both the sponsors and stakeholders saw sufficient value to take a second tilt at an international-level bike race.  Bringing Union Cycliste International (UCI) road races back to the United States is a component of growing the sport in the country–pro racers and money bring media attention which bring eyeballs which inspire people to ride and race which bring more eyeballs which inspire more media attention which brings more races.  And repeats.

The road it took wasn’t short, or easy, but it is something that can be pretty much replicated.  And that is why it deserves a close look.

Incubation can take a while.

Unlike a race in a park, or in a downtown area, or a rural township, the MCC is both a point-to-point road race with a rolling road enclosure, finishing with several circuits in a city with complete road closure.  That alone takes the coordination of several municipalities and police forces.

Putting on an international-level bike race is also fairly expensive.  It needs sponsors to underwrite the race for almost everything, as the event takes place on public roads and there is no stadium where tickets can be sold.  Advertising in one form or another is what pro bike racing runs on.

Furthermore, the event needs to abide by the strictures of pro racing as dictated by the Union Cycliste International (UCI) .  And it needs buy-in from pro race teams, who need to not only commit racers, but equipment and staff, which, in most cases, means shipping gear across the Atlantic or farther.

There needs to be lots of approvals.  Lots of buy-in from stakeholders.  And lots and lots of money.

14 years.

14 years is a long time from concept to product.  But that’s what it took to get the Maryland Cycling Classic off the ground.  As the driving force is the Sport & Entertainment Corporation of Maryland, a quasi-governmental non-profit entity, which is an offshoot of the Maryland Sports Commission, they had the means to bide their time.  Their job is to create and support events that can, “enhance(ing) Maryland’s economy, image and quality of life through the attraction, promotion, retention, and development of regional, national, and international sporting events.”  In other words, do what they can to bring in sports events what will be good for Maryland’s people and the state’s economy.

The last component can be seen in many different ways, direct economic benefit as well as visibility which might draw businesses, tourists, and other events to the state.  The Maryland Sports Commission has employees, a budget, and government support to do what they can to grease the wheels of any sports activity that might bring money and/or attention to the state.  They can easily work with the state’s economic development corporation to identify businesses that might have reason to get involved with a cycling event.

California Dreaming.

Back in 2008, when the Maryland Sports Commission was getting off the ground, Executive Director Terry Hasseltine was intrigued by pro cycling as the kind of sporting event to bring to Maryland.  In 2008, the Amgen Tour of California, the Tour of Georgia, and Tour of Missouri were all international stage races that drew attention and economic activity to those states.  He recalls, “I was hired in august 2008.  During my travels around the state, cycling kept coming to the forefront of conversation.  Knowing events like the Tour of California, knowing about the Tour of Missouri and some others, the concept of a Tour of Maryland rang a bell.  So, I engaged in the conversation with medalist sports at the time about creating that aspect.”

Medalist is pretty much the de facto monopoly in US-based UCI road racing; a company that has run most of the biggest UCI road races in the US—Tour de Trump, Tour Dupont, Tour of Utah, USA Pro Cycling Challenge, and the 2015 UCI World Championships in Richmond, VA—for the past 30 plus years.  Medalist CEO Chris Aronholt explains, “Events are three things: Vision, resources in terms of support, and the perfect storm of timing.  Terry had the vision.”

Good ideas can get mugged by events on the ground.  A pro stage race in Maryland was.  The idea of an international stage race in Maryland was blindsided by the Great Recession.  Nothing for 2009, the idea went into hibernation.

Richmond Reignites.

The 2015 UCI World Championships in Richmond, VA might well have revived the idea.  It appeared, by all measures, as a huge success for Richmond and Virginia.  Lots of visitors to the area from around the world and lots of eyeballs thanks to international news and television coverage.  The nearly week-long series of races was logistically much simpler as it was pretty much a single course in a single municipality.  A one-day race would be a reasonable analogue, as it’s a single course that is partially-closed for several hours, and completely closed for a few.  The most important thing bike races need is closed races on which to race.  A several-day stage race means lots of roads, lots of municipalities need to coordinate, as well as close down lots of roads in the starting city and finishing city.

Hasseltine believed the road to an international pro race was starting with a national-level amateur race.  He worked with local promoters to make a bid for Hagerstown, Maryland to hose the 2018 and 2019 USA Cycling Road Nationals.  The Maryland Sports Commission worked with the Hagerstown-Washington County Convention and Visitors Bureau and local bike clubs to make this happen.

Onto the next step.

With what the Maryland Sports Commission thought was a success at the 2018 nationals, they reached out to Medalist Sports for technical support, KOM Sports for marketing support, and started preparing to bid on hosting a Pro Series event in 2020.  The Pro Series are second-tier professional bike races that mix different divisions of teams—WorldTeams (first division), ProTeams (second division), Continental Team (third division), and national teams.

 

They needed to get everything in Maryland lined up, they needed to get USA Cycling on board, and they needed to find a date that the UCI might reasonably consent to.  Being that the race idea came out of the Maryland Sports Commission, they had the governor’s office reaching out to the county and city to make sure the race could logistically happen.  The only UCI road races in North America in 2019 that were expected to continue on in 2020 were the Canadian races,  the Grand Prix Cycliste de Quebec and the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montreal, both part of the WorldTour, so they proposed a date a week before the Quebec event, thinking it would make sense to the UCI.  And it did.

The biggest ask.

Of course, there was still the money component.  John Kelly, the Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer and President of Kelly Benefit Strategies, joined the effort as the head of the host committee.  KBS has been involved with bike racing since supporting a club in 2003 and a pro team since 2007.  KBS joined as a gold-level sponsor and worked to get other sponsors on board.  It wasn’t easy.  Kelly recalls, “The business community has no context for it.  They have no context for a bike race.  We really had to sell hard.”

But he sees businesses wanting to get involved in some way, “A lot of businesses want to give back to the community they serve in.  Not only was it a great play in terms of brand recognition but it gave back to Baltimore.  It put Baltimore in a positive light around the world. It increased views of Baltimore.  You have to keep telling them the story and hoping the sponsors can see it.”

They snagged UnitedHealthcare, a long-time partner of KBS’s pro team sponsorship and of their business, as the presenting sponsor.  UHC has a big presence in Maryland.  But much of the money probably came from government entities.  Maryland Open For Business, Visit Baltimore, and Enjoy Baltimore County were prominent sponsors as well.  All told, the budget for the race was listed at $2.4 million.  A breakdown was not provided, but considering the circumstances and that lots of the costs have to do with closing roads and snagging hotel rooms and advertising, it’s hard not to imagine various government entities as footing much of the bill, and thus a bargain for the private sponsors.  UnitedHealthCare, though, certainly isn’t adverse to spending money on advertising.  They could spend upwards of $100 million on advertising annually.

Four days of events highlighting one race.

With the budget secured, they planned to make the race the capstone of a four-day festival of events.  That included in-school events, press conferences, team introductions, bike giveaways, the Baltimore Bike Jam, the Bridges of Hope fundraising ride, a pre-race press conference, a fancy dinner.

But global events intruded again.  The 2020 race was cancelled due to Covid.  As was the 2021 event.

On to 2022.

2022 was a go.  The date was September 4, the day before Labor Day, often a quiet time on the roads and in cities. The promoters got four WorldTour teams (BikeExchange-Jayco, EF Education-EasyPost, Israel-Premier Tech, Trek-Segafredo), two ProTeams (Human Powered Health, Novo Nordisk), nine Continental teams (Corratec, EvoPro Racing, Hagen Berman Axeon, L39ION of Los Angeles, Medellin-EPM, Panama es Cultura y Halores, ProTouch, Skyline, Toronto Hustle), and one national team (USA).  They didn’t come near the 70% WorldTeam max, with 21%, but they did draw the top American teams, and a wide range of third-tier squads from around the world.  The WorldTour squads focus the cycling media, the ProTeams get a chance to compete on equal footing with the WorldTour, the North America-based Continental teams get exposure for their sponsors, and the international Continental teams make the event seem more international.

It’s about the place.

The race was laid out to showcase both Baltimore county and the city.  Baltimore is more than The Wire.  The 121.4-mile event started at  KBS’s headquarters in Sparks, which gave the race sponsor a chance to have a party on their premises as well as offer ample parking for the race caravan and spectators.  The race then looped around the county, showcasing the region’s beauty before heading to the city for four 7.5mi laps.  Not coincidentally, the race zipped within two blocks of Camden Yards, the Baltimore Orioles stadium, where the O’s were playing a home game that was likely to let out at 5pm, while the race was in its final hour.  And the city circuit traced the northern edge of the Inner Harbor,  a tourist draw. And went by hotels and prime shopping areas.

Seeing it from afar.

There was global television coverage through the Global Cycling Network, there was local television coverage on the CW channel.  There was tape-delay coverage on Maryland Public Television.  In addition, they had Tour Tracker coverage for people who couldn’t get the video or were race-hopping.

The race might have looked easy on paper.  With fast first-division sprinters like Dylan Groenewegen (BikeExchange) and Giacomo Nizzolo (Israel), and a classics rider like Michael Matthews (Bike Exchange), there was reason to believe that the pro teams saw a bunch sprint finish as a real possibility.  But once the race got rolling, that prediction quickly evaporated.  The continental teams were losing riders off the back in the opening kilometers and a 25-rider break escaped early, never to be caught.  A five-man group, remnants of the early break, contested the finish, with Sep Vanmarcke of Israel-Premier Tech outsprinting Nickolas Zukowsky of Human Powered Health and Neilson Powless of EF.

The race’s impact.

Initial reports were 40,000 spectators on the road—there were on-the-road parties, particularly on the hills, and lots of people on the finishing circuits where there were events before the race came through to goose turnout early—and $8-12 million in economic impact for the area.  Race sponsors also paid for parties along the course, both at the start and the finish, which made it easy for the backers to have an afternoon of partying while watching pro bike racing up close.

Immediately after the race the promoters were talking about 2023 as well as adding a women’s race.  In January of 2023, Hasseltine was claiming 90% of the 2022 sponsors had already signed on for the 2023 race, but no announcement.  They did, however, release a 36-page recap of the event, which was no doubt used to pimp the race to potential sponsors.

Spectators for 2022 MCC

The document details the metrics of the event.  They’re now estimating spectator turnout at 90,000, with 50% from the city and county, another 32% from other parts of the state, 16% from the other 49 states and 2% from out of the country.

The global audience was pegged at 15.2 million.  That’s 62 countries getting the live stream, another 342,000 views of various videos posted to streaming services, 37,000 local TV viewers, 21,000 viewers for the recap on public television, and 11,000 visiting the Tour Tracker.

Social media seems to boast bigger numbers still.  843,000 Twitter impressions, 606,000 instagram impressions, 202,000 Facebook impressions, and 102,000 TikTok  impressions.

The media impact was put at 2.3 billion impressions and 111 million households reached worldwide.  All these numbers seem impressive.  Whether or not they are is up to the potential sponsors to determine.

Broadcast for 2022 MCC

A Good pilot, but has the series been greenlit?

It took until March for the 2023 race to be announced.

Without a women’s race, though, to be fair, scheduling is trickier when it comes to professional women’s racing.  Fewer racers, smaller teams, and a much smaller schedule means that the UCI doesn’t want overlapping races as it dilutes the quality of the field too much and spreads teams too thin.  The Women’s World Tour has a race on September 2 in France, the Classic Lorient Agglomération, the Tour of Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway) is August 23-27 and the Simac Ladies Tour in The Netherlands September 5-10.  Even without the French race, it would be hard to get top women’s squads to fly over and back between the two tours.  In addition, the Gateway Cup in St. Louis is a well-established race series, running September 1-4 and already drawing many of the best women racers in the US.

The lack of a women’s race aside, there were upgrades for the 2023 race.  A big one is the addition of a helicopter for covering the race from above.  This might seem like a small thing, but for television coverage, which is basically worldwide, seasoned TV people see this as significant.  There will also be official watch parties along the course to encourage turnout and lingering.  The Orioles, however, played in Phoenix, so no spillover crowd from the game.

Upgraded competition.

In addition, the competition improved.  There are now five WorldTour teams, up from four: Astana Qazaqstan, Cofidis, EF Education-Easy Post, Jayco-AlUla, and Lidl-Trek.  Israel-Premier Tech, is also at that skill level, though registered as a ProTeam.  There are three more ProTeams: Corratec-Selle Italia, Human Powered Health, Novo Nordisk.  Then the Continental teams are largely the same: Hagens Berman Axeon, L39ion of Los Angeles, Medellin-EPM, Project Echelon, Skyline, Toronto Hustle, and the US national team.  Hidden in the rosters are an upgraded L39ion with proven road racers Kyle Murphy and Robin Carpenter, both of whom were on ProTeams in 2022 and finished in the top 20 in the inaugural race.  Another upgrade is legit WorldTour rider Matteo Jorgenson taking leave of his WorldTour team to headline the US National Team.

2023 just finished.

The 2023 event was won by Matthias Skjelmose of the American Lidl-Trek team.  American Neilson Powless of the American EF Education-Easypost team was second.  Canada’s Hugo Houle of Israel-Premier Tech, an Israel-Canadian team, rounded out the podium.  WorldTeams dominated, with the first domestic team rider, L39ion of Los Angeles’ Eder Frayre coming in 10^th.

It will take months for the metrics to come in.  But race organizers have had an application in to the UCI since June and are working to lock down sponsors for 2024.

Turning it into a long running show.

The hope of the Maryland Sports Commission is that they’ll be able to grow the race over the years, doing things like adding a women’s field, and make it a regular stop for UCI road racing.  While the sponsorship market is always fluid, they seem to be making all the right moves to have this become a perennial stop.  But this being bike racing in the United States, there’s no telling if this will be more closer to the Baltimore USPRO Cycling Championships, which only ran in 1982-3, or to the Philadelphia International Cycling Classic, which ran from 1985 to 2016.