German 2-Time World Champion Leaves WorldTour Team to Pursue Cycling Esports, Raking in $21,000 in Just Two Days as Esports Athletes Report $100,000 Yearly Earnings
As originally reported in Cycling News!
The stoic German stood on the live final stage with a $15,000 check hoisted above his head, resplendent in the freshly unfurled Rainbow Stripes. His grim countenance failed to convey the celebratory magnitude of the moment. He barely cracked a smile.
It might have been old hat for the accomplished endurance athlete who won a silver medal in the lightweight Men’s double skulls at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Rowing Regatta before winning the first of his Cycling Esports World Championships later that year in the discipline’s inaugural event.
Osborne has competed in every event edition, finishing on the podium in 2022 and 2023.
“Today, it showed me that it was absolutely the right decision,” Osborne sternly stated in the post-race presser. “I don’t want to say I hated my time on the WorldTour. It was a great experience, but it was time to move on to what I enjoyed most. And that is ecycling. Despite all the suffering, I still enjoy the competition.”
His esports world title win in 2020 landed him a contract with the UCI WorldTeam Alpecin–Deceuninck in 2021. And despite some promising results, he never could crack the strict hierarchal structure of the team.
“I had some good races. I also had some success here and there, but in the end, I didn’t find the joy.”
Osborne announced the decision to step away on September 16th openly on Instagram, citing that his love for road racing wasn’t what it used to be, and revealed his plans to pursue a career in cycling esports.
“We at Alpecin-Deceuninck wish Jason every success in his future life, whatever that may bring. The respect is mutual,” confirmed the team, though it’s uncertain if Osborne’s true feelings ever factored into the respectful parting of ways.
In a candid moment on a recent episode of the Virtual Velo Podcast a few days before his world championship win, Osborne shared the deep introspection that led to the life-changing move with cycling broadcaster Emma Martin, exposing a side of himself rarely seen by fans or fellow riders in the pro peloton.
“I wanted to gain control over my life again. I was just in that spiral of not enjoying it anymore and wanted to get out. Since I made the decision, I’ve been a way more happier person. I feel I regained my life. It was definitely the right decision.”
Osborne expanded on the loss of life balance that stole the joy of riding and control of his happiness.
“You have to jump whenever they want you to. It always felt like, I wouldn’t say slavery, but like they were in too much control.”
Elite-level cycling esports is traditionally viewed as a viable pathway to the professional ranks. The Zwift Academy has produced top-tier pros, such as Jay Vine, and Paige Onweller’s introduction to cycling on Zwift propelled her to the 2022 Big Sugar Gravel Pro Women’s title and a pro gravel career.
UAE Team Emirates offered Kiwi Michael Vink a contract in 2022 after a string of wins in MyWhoosh’s Sunday Race Club while posting impressive power numbers.
Founded in 2019, MyWhoosh has become known for hosting big-money events and attracting the sport’s top talent, such as the weekly Sunday Race Club series, with a monthly prize purse of over $284,000 spread across four categories. The $1 Million MyWhoosh Championship series in April 2023 saw the largest payout in cycling esports’ history, lighting the path to professional cycling esports.
This might explain Osborne’s intense, all-business focus following the world title win. His mind was already set on the Sunday Race Club the following day, where he again outclassed the competition, claiming victory from his Abu Dhabi hotel room.
The win pocketed him over 6,000 dollars to add to the $15,000 world title haul.
Tadej Pogačar, who was in the audience to witness Osborne’s lucrative campaign, and Lotte Kopecky received around $8,500 for their world title wins, over $6,000 less despite racing hundreds of kilometers more.
The silver and bronze medalists were also rewarded far more generously than their road race counterparts. Gabriela Guerra (Brazil) and Lionel Vujasin (Belgium) each took home $10,000 for their second-place finishes, while Katrin Fuhrer (Switzerland) and Kasper Borremans (Finland) earned $5,000 each for third place.
In comparison, the silver and bronze medalists at the road race in Zurich received just $4,320 and $2,160, less than half of what was awarded in esports.
$20,000 is not bad for a weekend of racing indoors on a turbo for Osborne, but how does it compare to his WorldTour salary?
“It’s at a point where it’s not worth it. It’s not worth the risk of crashing. I didn’t like it when you got a call, “Can you please do this race now?” And you just planned to go somewhere on a trip or whatever, and they call and say, “We need you here.”
The financial potential in this new era of esports, coupled with a better cycling-life balance, has made Osborne’s unconventional choice to leave the WorldTour and swim against the usual esports-to-road current a viable path.
He has joined the growing list of top-tier elite cycling esports racers who have left a career in road cycling or another profession to put all of their chips to the center of the cycling esports table.
New Zealander Ollie Jones, who competed alongside Osborne on the live event World Championship stage on October 26th, was an early adopter of cycling esports after competing on the International level in in-line skating. He had success on the road after winning the Zwift Academy in 2018, but he never forgot his roots in esports.
Lionel Vujasin stood alongside Osborne on the World Championship podium, securing the silver for Belgium.
Jones transitioned from road racing when sponsorship for his Bolton Equities Black Spoke team dried up. Vujasin left his job as operations manager at NIKE to pursue cycling esports full-time.
Top MyWhoosh performers such as Jones, Vujasin, and their teammate Michal Kaminski, who represented Poland in the Worlds, are estimated to pull in around $7,500 a month and close to $100,000 a year racing virtually on multiple platforms—predominantly MyWhoosh.
Many women racing on the platform reap similar financial benefits, including the Women’s World Championship bronze medalist, Switzerland’s Kathrin Fuhrer.
The Zwift Games, an elite-level competition featuring Sprint, Epic, and Climb stages, offered $110,000 in a prize purse equally distributed between the men’s and women’s fields. With $7,000 for first place, $5,000 for second place, and $3,000 for third place in each championship, racers stood to win more than their real-world counterparts do in many major events.
The salary of a professional road cyclist varies significantly depending on their performance and competitive category. For ProTeam racers, the sport’s second division, the base minimum salary is approximately 34,000 euros annually for men and 29,000 for women. A WorldTour racer’s base minimum is 42,000 euros for men and 35,000 for women, but top riders have significant upside potential in addition to prize purses and other financial incentives.
Polish cycling esports racer Kaminski won a Sunday Race Club event and the 2024 Zwift Games Sprint Championship, earning nearly $12,000 in one week. The stories of cycling esports’ financial success are spreading.
Is it paving the way for the professionalization of cycling esports? Much depends on how you define a professional athlete and sport. Or whether large cash payouts are enough to attract top-tier talent, drive innovation, facilitate a compelling and entertaining viewership product, and provide the host of other factors required to sustain the sport’s evolution. Money doesn’t answer these questions.
However, Osborne, Vujasin, and Jones are making a living racing virtually and almost exclusively on MyWhoosh. The full-time dedication to cycling esports raises the bar for racers at the top end of the sport, and, with the financial infusion, has moved the sport closer to professionalism than ever before.
And for some, it’s a way to rediscover the joy of racing.
Semi-retired after more than 20 years as the owner and director of a private Orthopedic Physical Therapy practice, Chris now enjoys the freedom to dedicate himself to his passions—virtual cycling and writing.
Driven to give back to the sport that has enriched his life with countless experiences and relationships, he founded a non-profit organization, TheDIRTDadFund. In the summer of 2022, he rode 3,900 miles from San Francisco to his “Gain Cave” on Long Island, New York, raising support for his charity.
His passion for cycling shines through in his writing, which has been featured in prominent publications like Cycling Weekly, Cycling News, road.cc, Zwift Insider, Endurance.biz, and Bicycling. In 2024, he was on-site in Abu Dhabi, covering the first live, in-person UCI Cycling Esports World Championship.
His contributions to cycling esports have not gone unnoticed, with his work cited in multiple research papers exploring this evolving discipline. He sits alongside esteemed esports scientists as a member of the Virtual Sports Research Network and contributes to groundbreaking research exploring the new frontier of virtual physical sport. Chris co-hosts The Virtual Velo Podcast, too.
