Hot on the heels of Matt Goss’s win in Milan-Sanremo on Saturday, Australian cycling has received another big boost with the news that the Santos Tour Down Under has set new records and also landed itself a new three-year deal with vehicle supplier Skoda.
The World Tour event featured its biggest ever crowd figures this past January, with 782,393 people being estimated to have attended the race. This represents a considerable increase over the 2008 figure of 548,000, and there are also big gains in terms of event-specific visitors (37,056 vs 15,100), economic impact ($43.4 millon vs $17.3 million) and value of media coverage ($154.3 million vs $43 million).
The race was also named best major event and festival in the Qantas Australia Tourism Awards earlier this month, collecting those awards for the second year in succession.
“The Santos Tour Down Under continues to go from strength to strength and is firmly entrenched
now as the State’s biggest sporting event,” said Premier Mike Mr Rann. “It is a fantastic event for South Australia, attracting cycling fans and visitors from interstate and overseas to our State and injecting millions of dollars into the economy.”
He pointed out that the race is broadcast worldwide, thus showcasing the country. Rann said that 284 hours of television broadcast was achieved in 2011.
Part of the event’s growth has been due to its UCI ProTour/WorldTour debut in 2008, which has guaranteed that the world’s top teams take part. He said that this increase in standard was an important factor. “This year’s event was the biggest in its history as we welcomed the world’s fastest sprinters, up and coming Australian talent, including eventual winner Cameron Meyer and farewelled the career of seven time Tour de France winner, Lance Armstrong.”
Sponsors Santos and Skoda both said that they were very happy to be associated with the race, which is in its 13th year.
Independent research company McGregor Tan gathered the stats released today. They also concluded that each event-specific visitor spent an average of $1,169, an increase of $122 over last year’s figures.
An Australian team is currently being set up and this could further boost interest next season. It is titled GreenEdge, has links to Cycling Australia, and is chasing a ProTeam licence.