The phones have smoked this week in cycling. Incessant transfer of whatsapp with a background theme in the conversational mood: the documentary that Netflix prepares for the next Tour de France about the day-to-day of the teams. In the golden age of series and digital platforms, these days the squad is negotiating its global immersion. A filming group during the Tour touring hotels, cars, buses, towns, ports and all the logistics that accompany the best race on the calendar. The inner world that fans do not know and that was captured in the wonderful parade of ‘The least expected day’, a visual expedition inside the Movistar complex.
of this formation, Eusebio Unzué, has been one of the active characters in the ongoing negotiation and that has not generated unanimity among the cycling formations. The Emirates (UAE) group, in which the winner of the last two Tour de France (Tadej Pogacar), has denied his participation although he leaves a door open to the future. The fact of not being able to control the editorial product would be behind his refusal to cooperate in the audiovisual.
It has been one of the veterans of the peloton, the Belgian leader Patrick Lefevre (Quick Step, 67 years old), who raised the hare in his weekly column in the newspaper ‘Het Nieuwsblad’. Netflix is preparing a series about the Tour de France with the same company, Box to Box Films, that produced and filmed the acclaimed ‘Drive to Survive’. A trip to the center of Formula 1 in which the two main teams, Mercedes and Ferrari, did not want to appear during the first season.
‘Drive to Survive’, product somewhat sweetened with respect to the volume of business and dollars that moves in Formula 1, it was a success with the public worldwide. This impulse of this sport wants to be replicated now by cycling with its best ambassador, the Tour.
Netflix would pay the Tour and the teams eight million to distribute for working and directing the documentary during twelve weeks of filming. It would consist of eight chapters of 35 minutes each. and it would be released in May 2023. As it did with Formula 1, the American multinational aims to attract a target audience that consumes sports, but is not familiar with cycling.
Patrick Lefevre encouraged the project with a significant “it can take us to another level” in terms of new audiences and future revenues. The Telegraph newspaper reported this week that Netflix is negotiating with the Tour and eight top division teams to set the series. Quick Step (Alaphilippe), Jumbo (Roglic), Ineos (Egan Bernal)Alpecin (Van der Poel), Movistar (Valverde), Education First, AG2R y Groupama.
“Financially, what they offer us to the teams are the crumbs. ASO (the company that owns the Tour) first opens the cash register and, as always, there is little left afterwards. I have accepted, but with moderate enthusiasm and with many reservations, ”wrote the director of the Quick Step.
Jumbo-Visma, Primoz Roglic’s team that also includes the phenomenon Wout van Aert and the second-placed Jonas Vingegaard of the last Tour, has confirmed its participation in the series. “We want to give an idea of cycling and the fans. This fits with our strategy and with the documentaries we have made in recent years. It’s not so much about us, but more about the sport and the Tour de France,” the manager of the Dutch team, Richard Plugge, told ‘Velonews’.
Movistar accumulates the series. To the celebrated ‘The least expected day’, which is already sailing towards its third installment, this possibility of action is now joined with the company that filmed Formula 1. Unzué, who accepted the production of the original series At the suggestion of the president of the company sponsoring his squad, he’s not too fond of these immersions in the privacy of his work environment, but he may have to adjust once again to the modern sports industry.