Depending on who you speak to, the €1m annual salary benchmark has already been breached in women’s cycling. Demi Vollering, recently re-signed with FDJ United-Suez, certainly lays a valid claim to earning seven figures. Ditto Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, the winner of last year’s Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. But that hasn’t stopped super agent Alex Carera – the one who manages the career of Tadej Pogačar no less – in claiming that his next goal is to make sure Spanish sensation Paula Blasi, the winner of the Vuelta a España Femenina in May, becomes the first female rider to earn one million Euros each year.
“I can confirm that there is more than one possibility on the table to make this happen, an amount greater than one million,” Carera told Rouleur in mid-June. Blasi, aged 23, only began racing bikes two years ago, but is now the sport’s most sought-after property. “We have signed NDAs and we’ve not decided now where she will go, but I promise you that I want her to sign the best contract in the world.”
Which is all well and good for Blasi and Carera – and assuming her career goes as is being predicted, for her future employers, which may or not be her current team, UAE Team ADQ. But is offering yearly salaries north of €1m a healthy and sustainable way to continue to grow women’s cycling? Many team managers, as well as riders themselves, have privately voiced their displeasure.
UCI figures, seen by Rouleur, state that the median and average budget of the 14 Women’s WorldTour teams in 2026 sits at €5.7m, with the median salary for riders who are employees of their team (i.e. the team pays their social security) being €80,000, and self-employed riders picking up €120,000. Having a rider on over €1m would therefore likely account for almost 20% of a team’s entire budget.
Carera, who runs the A&J Sports Agency with his brother Johnny, defended the move towards such salaries, though. “People who say these things [about it not being sustainable] don’t understand that the price is not decided by myself, Paula or from a team – it’s the market that decides the price,” the Italian said. “We have received a proposal of this value, and that means the value is right. It is sustainable because the teams and managers who propose this amount are serious people and they have the budget. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a proposal.
Giro d'Italia's most recent winner, Demi Vollering, has just signed a new contract with FDJ-United Suez.
“The second point is women’s cycling has grown really fast in the last five years. Why? Because important sponsors have come into women’s cycling. They believe in it. Every day more fans also believe in it. More women and girls are on bikes. What causes them to go on bikes? Idols like Demi, Pauline and now Paula. Compare it to women’s tennis 30 years ago. It didn’t have many fans. Then Serena and Venus Williams came along and changed women’s tennis. The same is happening now in cycling.”
Dries Smets, of The Team agency, made a similar point to Carera. “At its core, this evolution of female riders making more money is a positive thing,” the Belgian said. “It means there’s more money in the sport and more sponsors interested in investing in women’s cycling. The expectations are higher now – riders know they are giving value back to a team. A couple of years ago, without the Femmes and women’s Paris-Roubaix, that value was less.”
But there is a but. Smets understands the opposing viewpoint. Is it necessary to hand out mega contracts when the sport’s financial model is so unstable? “The risk is, and it’s what others have referred to, is that by doing so [giving out €1m contracts], we lose some teams at the bottom of the rankings who do not have those kinds of funds,” Smets continued. “The financial pressure keeps rising, budgets keep going up in women’s cycling, and not everyone can follow and so they risk dropping out. If you look at how budgets have grown in the past few years, post-Covid times, a top-three women’s team budget was €3-4m, and in five years it’s doubled. That’s a good sign, for reasons I just explained, but on the other hand it makes it difficult for teams at the bottom of the rankings and the gap is growing.
Does the do-it-all PFP deserve a €1m euro contract? Her agent things so.
“You want to avoid a situation where you see three or four teams down at the bottom just because the financial requirement [to be competitive] is too high. It’s about finding that balance. Every rider has a right to maximise their financial revenue, and it’s not up to an individual rider to take less money or to try and save some teams – that’s not how it works – but everyone involved in the world of women’s cycling should be aware of what’s going on.”
Eelco Berkhout, who runs the SEG Agency with his brother Martijn and who manages Ferrand-Prévot, also understands that point, but he defended the apparent race to create women’s cycling’s first millionaires. “For a really long time, until the UCI introduced minimum salaries [in 2020], women’s cycling was really almost an amateur sport,” he said. “But from that moment on, women and young girls needed guidance and good management to take the next step and to make sure they got what they deserved to earn.
“We’ve always said that women – and same for men – should be paid fairly, and in our opinion we believe that €1m-plus is the correct amount for a winner of the Tour de France Femmes. I also agree with those team managers who say that sometimes we’re going too fast on the women’s side, but for the really top riders with a really big image, those who are in the news all the time, it’s normal that they get a good contract.”
