What is the ASO in Cycling?
The ASO stands for the Amaury Sports Organization, and is best known in cycling for organizing the Tour de France and La Vuelta grand tours. Founded in 1992, it a French based private company that is part of the larger Amaury family media company Éditions Philippe Amaury (EPA).
L'Équipe the newspaper that ran the Tour de France from WWII onwards was acquired by the Amaury family media company in 1965 and is when the ASO began to make inroads into cycling and other sporting events.
A.S.O. is involved in 5 major sports including cycling with the Tour de France, motor sports with the Dakar, mass events with the Schneider Electric Marathon de Paris, golf with the Lacoste Ladies Open de France and sailing with production and distribution of images for prestigious races.
So while it's not just cycling they organize and run, it's what you're here for. So what other cycling races does the ASO run and how it portrayed to cyclists and media? Other than the Tour de France and La Vuelta the ASO also run other well known races:
- Tro Bro Leon
- La Vuelta Femenina
- La Flèche Wallonnie
- Liege Bastogne Liege
- Paris Nice
- Paris Roubaix
- Critérium du Dauhpiné
- Artic Race of Norway
- Paris Tours
- Eschborn Frankfurt
- Deutschland Tour
- Certizit Challenge
- Singapore Criterium
- Volta a Catalunya
- Tour de l'Avenir
- Tour of Oman
They also previously ran races like the Tour of California.
Generally, the ASO is well respected and runs a tight ship compared to their Italian counterparts over at RCS Sport. Their races are well organized, the media presence strong, and their TV rights liberal enough to broaden the support and viewership of cycling. It's convienent that streamers such as GCN+ can purchase rights once from ASO for all the cycling races during the year.
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