Why doesn’t Tadej Pogacar have more blue-chip sponsors?

Tadej Pogačar is the No 1 bike rider in the world — possibly the best ever — and the clear favourite to win this year’s Tour de France, which starts today.

There’s an argument that the 27-year-old Slovenian is the first cyclist since Lance Armstrong to truly transcend the sport. Being one of six nominees for Sportsman of the Year at the past two Laureus World Sports Awards attests to his internationally-recognised greatness.

But unlike Armstrong who, before his admission of doping in 2013, had highly-lucrative agreements with the likes of sportswear giant Nike, Pogačar has no such equivalent ambassadorial role with blue-chip sponsors — despite being the sport’s most marketable figure since the American’s dominance.

Instead, alongside a few cycling brands, he was promoting a Croatian bottled-water company as recently as last year, and at the start of the 2026 season became an ambassador for KuCoin, a cryptocurrency.

With the exception of Richard Mille — the world’s sixth-biggest watch brand by revenue — Pogačar isn’t achieving the sort of private sponsorship deals other leading athletes are.

Carlos Alcaraz, winner of seven tennis Grand Slam tournaments at 23, has Nike, Rolex and Louis Vuitton; 15-time pole-vault world-record setter Mondo Duplantis is sponsored by Puma and Omega Watches; Max Verstappen, who took the Formula 1 drivers’ title every year from 2021 to 2024, represents Heineken and EA Sports; swimmer Léon Marchand, who won four golds at the 2024 Olympics, is on Louis Vuitton and Nike billboards.

So why the difference between them and Pogačar?

Alex Carera, cycling’s biggest agent, has managed Pogačar’s career since the rider was 18.

Pogačar’s first contract, with UAE Team Emirates, when he turned 19, was worth an estimated €70,000 a year. Now, he’s on an annual base salary of €8.4million (£7.2; $9.6m) — or €700,000 ($800,000 USD) a month.

Factor in bonuses, appearance fees and private sponsorships, and his overall earnings surpass €12million a year. Discounting Armstrong, who reportedly earned $20m to 30m a year at his peak, and no one else has ever made as much money on a yearly basis from cycling as Pogačar.

“He is the god of cycling,” Carera says. “And he can earn more, because every year he’s more popular, and every year there are sponsors willing to pay more and more.”

Pogačar has five private sponsors: DMT, a cycling shoe brand; Richard Mille, which sponsors fellow rider Mathieu van der Poel; the ‘I feel Slovenia’ tourism board; KuCoin; and Continental tyres.

Each, according to Carera, pays €500,000 a year. “He’s one of the best athletes in the world, so if it’s not that amount, we don’t sit at the table,” he says. “We only want high-level brands, because if they’re not on top we’re not interested.”

The reason there are no more than five is because each sponsor “wants Tadej for two days a year, and our priority is that Tadej trains, recovers and stays with his family,” Carera says. “Maximum 10 days for sponsors, no more, is the agreement with his team.” That is standard protocol at other WorldTour cycling outfits, too.

Often, those two days are one for recording promotional material and the other for attending a company event. Pogačar’s social media commitments for each associated company typically involves two Instagram posts a year, and three Instagram stories, shared to his 2.7 million followers.

Before it bought a majority stake in German cycling team Bora-Hansgrohe in 2024 and subsequently took first-naming rights, energy drinks giant Red Bull had several private sponsorships with multi-discipline cyclists that still exist.

These include Paris-Roubaix 2026 winner Wout van Aert, two-time Olympic mountain-bike champion Tom Pidcock and two-time cyclocross under-23 world champion Zoe Bäckstedt, who claimed the British road-race and time-trial national titles last weekend. These partnerships involve the sponsored riders wearing Red Bull-branded helmets.

In an alternative universe, Pogačar too could have been donning one of its lids. “The real big companies, like Red Bull, have contacted us three or four times, and we had discussions with Nike in the last three years,” Carera says.

Demi Vollering, winner of the 2023 Tour de France Femmes, is the only cyclist personally sponsored by Nike, although Visma-Lease a Bike has a team-wide casual clothing partnership with the U.S. brand.

“But it wasn’t easy to find an agreement,” Carera says. “People think with a deal it’s only about the duration and amount, but there are many, many smaller things, and these little details make a big difference to athletes like Tadej. We’ve not accepted (offers) not because the brand isn’t good, nor because it’s not luxury or that it doesn’t give a good return on investment, but the problem is the obligations.”

The Athletic understands that Nike are planning a more focused return to the sport in the near future, which could have an impact on Pogačar and others in the coming years.

Carera spoke about an offer he received after Pogačar won the World Championships’ road race in 2024, becoming only the third man in the sport’s history to complete the Triple Crown — the Giro d’Italia, Tour de France and a world title in the same season.

“We received a really crazy proposal — really, really crazy,” he says. “I can’t name the company, but it was an international brand.

“They wanted Tadej to post something on social media every month, and once every three months he needed to give a speech at the company’s HQ. It was a crazy amount of money, but these events took place during the season. If he has an altitude camp, we prefer that he focuses on that.

“When he finishes his career and doesn’t have these obligations to ride anymore, he can go and give a speech for €1million.”

Beyond how many days Pogačar can commit to spending with sponsors, there’s another problem which prevents him from appearing on the billboards of some major brands: exclusivity with the companies that back his UAE team.

“There’s one very important rule in cycling — you cannot be sponsored by a company that is in competition with the team,” Carera says. “If some car company wants to sponsor Tadej, they can’t, because UAE has an official car sponsor. Many banks have contacted us, but First Abu Dhabi Bank is a bank in the UAE and sponsors the team, so we can’t accept banks either.”

To date, everything Pogačar has earned from additional sponsors has not found its way to his bank account: five to 10 percent is given to Carera’s agency in commission, and the rest is sent to the Tadej Pogačar Foundation and the eponymous junior Pogi Team in Slovenia, as well as the Pika Team that focuses on the development of young female riders.

“Tadej has one rule: every penny he gets from brands and sponsors he gives back to the Pogi Team and his foundation,” Carera says. “He gives money to the Pogi Team to allow kids to follow their dreams. How many athletes before Tadej gave money like he does? Zero. Pogi Team now has 300 kids, and it employs staff, coaches and sports directors. He covers all the costs, including bikes. The rest of the money he gives to his charity.

“Tadej has a big heart. People on Instagram say, ‘F**k this crypto money’, but there are parents of kids with cancer who are saying thank you to Tadej. How many young people has he helped with this money? A lot.”

Pogačar’s charitable work is to be commended. But the question remains: could one of the greatest cyclists to have lived be representing bigger brands than he is?

Sponsorships are from endemic or non-endemic companies: the former relates to businesses directly involved in the particular sport, such as DMT and Continental in Pogačar’s case; and the latter involves sponsors who aren’t inherently linked to that sport, such as insurance brokers, banks and telecommunication companies.

Giles Morgan negotiated bank HSBC’s eight-year agreement with British Cycling in 2016 (which was brought to an end four years early in 2020), has been working in sport since 1993.

Non-endemic companies invest in sports and sportspeople, Morgan says, because “they’re trying to differentiate themselves from their competitors and humanise their company. There’s nothing very exciting about a law firm, but there’s something very exciting about being associated with the greatest cyclist of all time”.

Endemic brands, meanwhile, are preaching to the converted — and particularly in cycling, they are reaching a captivated, engaged audience.

“The tribe of cycling is very passionate and really values its sport and its athletes: they watch all the races, and follow all the riders on social media,” Morgan says. “Everyone who loves cycling is evangelical about it. With that loyalty comes tribalism.

“I’d be playing on that depth of passion rather than running away from it, but non-endemic brands might say, ‘That’s too niche for us — we want a wider, bigger exposure’.”

In other words, cycling could be perceived as too small compared to other sports to really cut through to a larger audience, so huge multinational companies might be reluctant to part with millions per year if, outside the three to four weeks of the Tour de France, there aren’t a great number of eyeballs on the sport.

“Televisually, it’s a very fragmented sport, and it’s harder for casual viewers to turn on the television and see cycling,” Morgan says. “It’s indisputable how great an athlete Pogačar is, but it could be harder for cyclists because for the broader consumer brands there’s just not enough media exposure.

“Now, if Pogačar was able to do a bit more digital-media outreach and commit to more days (for sponsors), he would be more valuable. But if that is a limitation, it might explain why he’s not as attractive as he could be.”

The role of his management team is important.

“These sports agents are brilliant at what they do but when they’re running several athletes, trying to cut the pie in different ways, an agent’s ability to sell sponsorship can be limited,” Morgan says. “They’re great at selling within their sport, but do they know the value of an athlete more broadly?

“Sponsorship has changed. It used to be slapping a logo on something, hospitality days out and appearances, but in this social-media age, there is extraordinary value in individuals endorsing brands. And the time spent with those brands is significant, because they want to build content to sell a product.

“If you can’t give me enough access to the person, and all you’re doing is allowing me to put a logo on their Lycra, with all the other factors thrown in, it’s a harder struggle.”

The Athletic spoke with several other agents about the sponsorship landscape in cycling, and the overwhelming consensus was that riders are hamstrung by the demands of their training and racing schedules. One, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect relationships, explained how a national bank wanted to sponsor one of their star performers, but upon hearing that the rider would only be available to it for two days a year, the offer was rescinded.

“If you don’t package everything together properly and take the athlete to market in the right way and aren’t addressing these concerns, it’s much easier for a sponsor to say no rather than yes,” Morgan says.

Pogačar’s passport counts against him, Morgan suggests.

“It’s no one’s fault, but you could make an argument that being from Slovenia, a small country that is less culturally known, is a factor. Alcaraz is from Spain. He’s very talented, a good-looking boy, and lots of people go to Spain. People know Spain. They resonate with people from there. Same for the French, Americans and the British. Pogačar is fluent in English, but he’s still Slovenian.”

Despite the restrictions and complications that appear to be stopping Pogačar from becoming a true international icon, someone recognised the world over for their sporting endeavours as much as their sponsorship agreements, Morgan still sees a future in which he can command the sorts of partnerships Alcaraz and company do — should he want that.

“He’s not done badly with sponsors, and he’s got some good money coming in, but there’s an argument to say that the Pogačar brand needs to be looked at as a prism of pitching him as the greatest of all time,” Morgan says. “In the same way Michael Jordan was. Muhammad Ali and Roger Federer, too.

“Pogačar is a poster child of excellence. His personality is good. His English is good. I don’t know how much sponsorship is important to him, but he’s got the key traits that sponsors want.

“The guy is superhuman and in the pantheon of greats — he is a glorious property to sell.”

But his boyish face might never be plastered across TV adverts or the billboards of Times Square in the way his sporting peers are.

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