Daniel Larson - Cycling Sports Management. Economics, theory, and policy explained.

Lowlands Coaching

In today’s podcast, Geoff and Gerry speak with Daniel Larson.
Daniel works as an assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma, Department of Health and Exercise Science. His primary field of expertise is Economic theory in sport; finance and policy for international professional sports; management of national governing bodies (like USAC); participant sport-event management; public finance for sports/exercise interventions; and sport coaching/instruction.
In addition to his work for the University of Oklahoma, Daniel has a wealth of experience as an elite cyclist both on the track and on the road, sports director for the Jittery Joe’s U23 team, Director of Athletics VMG Racing, Head Cycling Coach University of Florida, and event organizer/promotor.
You might recall one of our previous podcast with Rebeca Larson! Quoting Daniel in this interview: “it's interesting because we ride together, and we work together, and we're in the same department”. If you haven’t listened to Rebeca’s podcast yet, we highly recommend you do! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-n-1-cycling-podcast-by-lowlands-cycling/id1507687751?i=1000484284558
Daniel starts the podcast with how he got started with cycling at the age of 14 and his under graduate and graduate studies, all in the field of business and exercise & sport science.
We talk about Daniels time as a sport director and he shares the good the bad and the ugly looking back at his different tenures in this role.
During a very interesting segment of this podcast we talk about the “12k dreamers”. Young professional cyclist that are paid a $1,000 per month and dream about a contract with a bigger team. Daniel talks about his research in this area and the data he gathered which paint a striking picture. We talk about romanticizing the life of a professional cyclist and the ambition to stay professional. At what cost? Daniel states that normally you can identify how much talent someone has within no more than 2 years of working with young cyclists. An highly talented cyclist usually moves through the ranks showing his/her capabilities and talent and wont deviate much getting older. Cycling talent is comprised of the right DNA and genes. “they're fortunate to have they're gifted this physical gift or genetic gift and they're able to capitalize on it”.
Daniel wrote a book about the economics of professional cycling (the only book to date!) with colleague from Belgium (Kortrijk). We discuss differences between Europe and the US in regards to nurturing talent and the path to becoming a professional cyclist.
With the Tour de France starting in a couple of weeks, we asked Daniels view on teams like Jumbo-Visma and Ineos who will bring multiple potential TdF winners and what this does to the team dynamic from a Director and a Domestique point of view. Based on research, Daniel is able to break it down to facts explaining what will happen to teams in this position.
There are many more topics we discuss related to team and athlete agent economics.
This is an 80 minutes fully loaded podcast with a ton of value in the field of cycling and sports management. Enjoy!!