Nivea Fuchs – Sponsorship first

The Italian team Nivea-Fuchs (1954-56) was the first cycling team to be sponsored by an entity not belonging to the world of cycling. Thanks to its leader Fiorenzo Magni and the German cream manufacturer Nivea paved the way for this new type of sponsorship.

Magni was known as the “Lion of Flanders”, winner of the Giro d’ltalia three times and the ‘third man’ in Italian bike racing in the late 1940s and early 50s alongside Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali. He was content to seek success outside his native Italy, venturing to Flanders to compete in the one-day spring classics. He revelled on the cobblestones, rewarded with a hat-trick of victories (1949-51) in the tough Tour of Flanders, at a time when few champions travelled outside their homelands. 

Magni was responsible for an important development, the birth of outside sponsorship in cycling. In 1954, close to the end of his professional career, cycle makers were the principal team backers, were feeling monetary pressure due to the rise of the car and moped. When the Ganna bike company was unable to give him a deal. Magni approached the Nivea skincare company, was given 20m Italian lire, and had his team. This new idea had race organisers worried that team sponsorship would detract from their income, but this transformation was here to stay. 

Magni rides into the future