“What happens when you take on Shell as a sponsor”: Cyclists blame “nauseating greenwashing” deal as British Cycling membership drops by 15,000 in under two years

I was on the edge of switching to Cycling UK. Shell deal made it a very easy choice.

I am sure there will be people who cancelled their membership purely because of the Shell sponsorship. There will be many others that saw the Shell deal as the final straw that pushed them over the edge; that made them question the return they were getting and realised membership wasn't presenting a great deal for them.

The vast majority of leaving members however, will simply be leaving because they are no longer competing. BC has always been the body for comeptitive cyclists, and so it remains. 

As competitor numbers collapse, so will membership levels. Personally speaking I think BC have performed ridiculously well (membership wise), when factoring in the size of competitor drop-off. 

I predict much larger membership drops in the next couple of years unless there is a major turnaround in the fortunes of domestic competition. As a bit of a spoiler, there won't be one. 

Grass roots sport is dead. Not just in cycling, but many other sports too... there is too much money to be made making people stay home and watch content on a screen to allow people to play sport. How can any paltry natioanl sporting body compete with the marketing clout of Google, Meta, Netflix etc? 

 British Cycling is run by non-cyclists who move from one role to another and have no genuine interest in competitive cycling - other of course than the track team winning medals to secure further funding and a measure of kudos for BC. Thankfully the high performance teams have little to with the BC Executive.
 

They should have left Cycling UK to focus on utility cycling and focussed BC on competition aspects especially on the grassroots. The domestic racing scene has collapsed under their watch. Are they bothered?  Nope. Do you see them at races?  Nope. Ask race organisers what support they get. Nowt. 
 

What hs happened with the implementation of their much publicised strategic review - nothing. In a year or so the latest Chairman  and CEO will move on, patting themselves on the back and leaving devastation in their wake. Who will fund the large financial shortfall of the 2024 Tours of Britain?  The Tour of Britain Men was reduced to just six days ("to bring equality") after they effectively broke SweetSpot financially with the annual £400,000 race licence fee and for 2025 The Tour of Britain Women is listed at four days on the UCI calendar -presumably the Tour of Britain Men will then be reduced to four days to achieve "equality"?  While Rome burns they are the only NGB to start organising their own events - a disastrous policy from the past  Brilliant  

What are they doing to rejuvenate the pool of domestic race organisers?  I mean doing - not hypothesising?  Nothing

Hang your heads in shame BC executives (or perhaps nominate each other for MBEs for services to the sport)  

Quote:

The lack of communication and clarity from national BC makes it incredibly hard to plan

https://thebritishcontinental.co.uk/2024/12/14/cold-dark-north-refocuses...

BC not even bothering to support regional racing, no wonder the racing scene in the UK is in dire straits when the so-called national body doesn't give a damm.

I'm one who let my membership of BC lapse late last year and it was nowt to do with Shell.

I'd been a member of the CTC since the early 90s but when they did their rebrand a few years ago and forgot what the T bit of CTC was I left them and joined BC (primarily so I still had insurance), but as a leisure not a racing cyclist I never felt like I got anything back. I swallowed my pride and went back to CUK as at least they have a local group that I can go out on rides with and an magazine, (albeit, a not very good one).

It emphasises that British Cycling concentrates on pure sport cycling, not leisure cycling.

Those who seek leisure in decent environment simply need to give their support elsewhere.

Having been a BCF member back in the day, even though I stopped competing in 1974, I continued my membership all through the bad days in the early 90's up to and including the advent of Sky sponsorship. While I was no supporter of the Murdoch empire, I bit my tongue and kept the membership going. Right up until the tie in with HSBC, which I did see as blatant sportwashing; I mean, British sporting governance body getting into bed with a Chinese bank? So I jumped ship to Cycling UK which offered the same sort of insurance coverage (my main reason for staying) plus they seemed more diversified across the cycling spectrum and not so monofocussed on racing to the exclusion of all else.
The tie-in with Shell just made me laugh, and promise myself to have nothing to do with BC ever again. I mean, Shell - cycling! What on Earth were they thinking, or were they even thinking beyond how much they could individually trouser with that sort of cash sloshing around.
In summary: poor show BC, could've (should've) done better. No wonder you are still heamorrhaging members like a shot stag in the heather.

it feels a conveniant donkey to put the tail on imo, and Im not saying some members didnt quit BC because of the Shell thing, but Im not entirely sure HSBC are known as an ethical bank and no one claimed BC membership numbers dropping in their era were because of their sponsorship.

so the question is exactly how many are caused by Shell ?

because its the wider context, go back to 2012, or 2008, how many members did BC have back then before the "golden era of cycling" boom, are we not just in the bust phase now as most of cycling in the UK has been reported to be in recently ? and we are just returning to the base level weve always been at.

and dont overlook, Im fairly sure BC membership costs have almost doubled in the past 10 years, race licenses are eye wateringly expensive even though UK races are getting rarer,  and the membership benefits have shrunk almost as much as the text on the membership cards.

if I dont renew my subs next year, it wont be because of the Shell sponsorship

I did my first BC intro to coaching course last year and really enjoyed it.  But I am not a member of a cycling club and ride with groups of like minded people who don't want to race so don't see any benefit in being a member of BC.   

Sounds like the perfect deal for senior management: lots of corporate cash flowing in, fewer pesky members to deal with. Win-win. Until Shell's marketing department decides they've got all the greenwashing benefit they're going to get, and pull out. But such short-termism is the norm these days. And having sold their soul to the petrochemical industry once, there'll probably be a Middle-East-owned multinational they can go begging to next. The DP World P&O Ferries Tour of Britain anyone? The Track World Championships held at the Aramco Velodrome?

This is the main reason I binned them off. I was with them for the best part of 10 years as a ride leader, but I just couldn't justify staying around after this.

I was both a BC and CUK member for years, wanting to support UK cycling as much as possible. I was an amateur racer too but even back at the beginning, when CUK was CTC, BC only provided me with a racing licence. I didn't experience any other benefit. I suppose they were desperate for sponsorship but they have made so many bad decisions without considering the membership. I baulked at continuing handing money to them, and quite frankly CUK were doing good work in comparison.
BC isn't being run/managed by anyone who understands the breadth of cycling and probably has too close a relationship with the government to make a decent impact that is needed. Really a sorry state tbh.
I doubt I will ever rejoin tbh.

I joined BC years back to get the insurance, and because at the time they had the like of Chris Boardman strongly advocating for road safety and active travel. CTC by comparison seemed pretty ineffective.
Over the years BC lost their lobbying voice, and Cycling UK became more vocal, so I switched.