Procycling is in talks with eight WorldTour teams, including Tour de France organizer ASO and Britain's Ineos Grenadiers, for an F1-like docu-drama series, streaming giant Netflix said Thursday. Telegraph Sport (opens in new tab) reported that they are considering producing a docu-drama series set in this year's Tour, similar to Drive to Survive, which is likely to attract attention. Box to Box Films, which produced this popular series, has reportedly been tapped to produce the cycling program.

"Drive to Survive" will focus less on racing and more on the personalities, politics, and relationship drama in Formula One, giving viewers a behind-the-scenes look at the sport.

Netflix has already ventured into pro cycling with The Least Expected Day, a 12-part series about the Movistar team's 2019 season. Other broadcasters have also produced behind-the-scenes documentaries in recent years, including Flanders Classics' "Ronde treasures," about the Tour of Flanders.

Dutch broadcaster NOS provided Jumbo-Visma with a program called "Code Yellow," which followed the team through Primoš Roglic's devastating loss to Tadej Pogaczar in the 2020 Tour de France, according to the Telegraph. subject of another documentary, "All or Nothing," which may be streamed on Amazon Video.

The Netflix series would bring welcome visibility for the teams, sponsors, and riders, and would also increase the value of the Tour de France, but according to the report, "one sticking point" is the payment to the teams for the program.

Teams such as Ineos, Jumbo-Visma, Movistar, and QuickStep-AlphaVinyl will receive "a small amount" from Netflix and will likely expect a share of the proceeds.

Like Formula One, which saw a whopping 53% increase in viewership after the first season of Driving to Survive, the increased interest in professional cycling will greatly benefit the sport. However, the increase in broadcast revenues will benefit ASO more than the teams.

In the past, broadcast revenues have been a major point of contention for teams whose riders make the show. Over the past decade, as teams fought to reform and make pro cycling's sponsor-driven business model more stable, they threatened to form a "breakaway league" to share TV revenue; the UCI also tried to generate TV revenue from the ProTour series, and the Velon group has been trying to monetize on-board video and attempts to monetize rider data were unsuccessful; in 2019, Quick Step manager Patrick Lefebvre said, "ASO doesn't want to share the cake, they want to eat it all."