Social media, Sponsorship, and Insights into the 2023 Cycling Season

In just a few weeks the first major cycling event of the season, the Giro d’Italia, will take place. To prepare, we reviewed 2022 and 2023’s cycling content to review the sponsors, teams, riders and the facts and figures you need to know.

The cycling season kicked off on January 22 in Australia with the Santos Tour Down Under, but the best is yet to come. There are still some spring classics like the demanding Paris-Roubaix (April 9) with its cobblestone floor or the Liège-Bastogne-Liège on April 23; and as a highlight the three big ones: Giro, Tour and Vuelta. 

Social Score Cards: UCI WorldTeams 

AG2R Citroen Team: AG2R’s networks follow the usual trend: increase of followers on Instagram (the network that also generates the most engagement) and a slight loss of followers on Facebook. 

Alpecin-Deceuninck: The Belgium-based team grew 72.91% on Twitter last year, ranking first in Twitter growth amongst all cycling teams.

Team Arkéa–Samsic: Throughout 2022, Team Arkea Samsic’s YouTube channel had the largest growth of any of the team’s social channels at 13.44%.

Astana Qazaqstan Team: The Kazakh team achieved the highest engagement per post of all UCI WorldTeams on YouTube last season.

Team Bahrain Victorious: Seventy percent of the total engagement Bahrain Victorious achieved in 2022 was generated on Instagram, which was also the channel with the best engagement per post.

BORA – Hansgrohe: Bora’s good season was reflected in Jai Hindley’s victory in the Giro d’Italia and on social media, where the team reached almost 3 million engagements. 

Team Cofidis: Good data of percentage growth of followers of the French team both on Instagram and Twitter.

Team DSM: Team DSM’s Instagram ranked first in number of new followers, and it was also the network with the most engagements and engagements per post in 2022.

EF Education–EasyPost: With 100,000 new followers, EF Education – Easypost hit 1 million followers across Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. 

Groupama-FDJ Équipe Cycliste: Groupama – FDJ had the fifth highest total engagement on Facebook in 2022 with more than 700,000 engagements.

INEOS Grenadiers: Ineos Grenadiers gained the most followers in 2022 of all cycling teams and saw the most growth on YouTube.

Intermarché-Circus-Wanty: Unlike most teams in cycling, Facebook, not Instagram, is the network with the most followers for Intermarché-Circus-Wanty at over 500,000.

Team Jayco–AlUla: Despite losing followers on Instagram last season, it is still the most relevant and engaging social network for Team Jayco Alula.

Team Jumbo-Visma: With 2022 Tour winner Jonas Vingegaard, Primož Roglič, and Wout Van Aert it’s no surprise that Jumbo Visma’s total engagement in 2022 was the highest of all cycling teams.

Movistar Team: Movistar is one of the most successful teams on social media, and its popularity is partly due to the documentary ‘El Día Menos Pensado’ that Netflix launched in 2019 which shows the behind-the-scenes of the Spanish cycling team.

Soudal Quick-Step Team: Soudal Quick-Step ranked third in total engagement (10.1 million) amongst UCI World Team cycling teams, behind only Jumbo Visma and Ineos.

Trek-Segafredo: Trek Segafredo’s Twitter growth saw an 11% increase in total engagements during the 2022 season. 

UAE Team Emirates: In 2022, UAE Team Emirates was the best team on the circuit with 48 wins, tied with Jumbo Visma. Their strong sporting performance is reflected in their social media with a 27.1% increase in followers and more than 5.7 million total engagements. 

Global Ranking: Cycling Teams

Blinkfire’s Global Ranking Report is one of the most popular tools on our platform. It allows users to compare data from teams in the same league and even custom groups of entities. 

Here are the top 5 UCI World Tour teams that generated the most engagement on Instagram in the first quarter of 2023.

24 Days to Glory

The Grand Tours put cyclists and teams to the test — as the competitions span over more than three weeks.

Giro d’Italia, Tour de France and La Vuelta; three events that every sports lover has marked on their calendar and that have more than 14 million followers on social networks.

During the 24 days that each of the three grand tours lasts, their social networks become the space in which they inform fans, celebrate the great sporting feats of their participants and also showcase their sponsors.

Giro d’Italia 2022

From May 6 to 29, 2022 the 105th edition of the first grand tour of the season took place. In the last edition, in addition to Italy, the race visited Hungary and Slovakia and featured Jai Hindley, the first Australian to win the Giro. 

The Giro’s networks added more than half a million new followers during the 2022 edition, the network that grew the most was TikTok with 326,000 new followers and a 200% growth.

Instagram is the network on which the Italian event generated the most interactions, reaching almost three million total engagement: more than 7,000 interactions per post. It is followed by TikTok which is the platform that sweeps the total views and per publication: more than 71 million, 439,000 video views per post during the Giro.

Tour de France

The 109th edition of the French race will be remembered for the duel between Jonas Vingegaard of Jumbo-Visma and Tadej Pogačar, UAE Emirates. It was finally the Dane who wore the yellow jersey in the streets of Paris against the champion of the two previous editions. 

The Tour has more than 8.7 million followers on social networks; from July 1 to 24, during the 2022 edition, it managed to add 300,000 more followers. Instagram was the social network that gained the most followers (122,000) and also the channel with the best engagement data.

In terms of total video views, Facebook had the best figures with more than 42 million; TikTok was number one based on average video views per post with more than 429,000.

La Vuelta

On August 19, 2022, the 77th edition of the Vuelta Ciclista a España started in Utrecht, Netherlands. The red jersey went to Belgian Remco Evenepoel of Soudal Quick-Step. Evenepoel was joined on the podium by Spaniards Enric Mas and 19-year-old Juan Ayuso. 

The last major of the season has 1.4 million followers on its social networks, with 28.5% of those followers coming from Instagram. During the 24 days of the competition, growth on TikTok was 112%, the network with the best data of video views per post with more than 158,000.

On Instagram, Vuelta obtained the best results in terms of engagement and total video views, followed by Facebook.

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