The Tour de France Was Invented to Sell a Sports Newspaper

In late 1902, the French sports newspaper L'Auto was being beaten in the marketplace by its rival, Le Vélo. L'Auto's editor, Henri Desgrange, met his staff for a crisis lunch on the rue du Faubourg-Montmartre in Paris. The 26-year-old cycling correspondent, Géo Lefèvre, suggested over the meal that the paper should sponsor a stage race like the six-day track events that were popular at the time, but routed around the entire country. The participants would be on the road for weeks. The newspaper would print exclusive results.

Desgrange, skeptical at first, eventually approved the plan and added one detail: L'Auto would post the daily standings, the route maps, and the riders' commentary, none of which would be available anywhere else. The first Tour de France ran from July 1 to July 19, 1903, covering 2,428 kilometers in six enormous stages. There were 60 starters. The race ran day and night, on dirt roads, with riders sleeping at checkpoints. Only 24 finished. Maurice Garin won at an average speed of 25.68 km/h — riding a single-speed bicycle and depending on his own mechanical work, since outside support was forbidden.

L'Auto's circulation roughly doubled during the race and stayed elevated afterward. Le Vélo never recovered and folded in 1904. The race itself, structured to sell papers, kept growing: 19 stages by the 1930s, mountain ascents added in 1910 with the Pyrenees, the famous yellow jersey introduced in 1919 to make Eugène Christophe visible at the front of the pack. The race is still organized by the corporate descendant of L'Auto — A.S.O., the publisher of L'Équipe. The sport's largest event was, and quietly remains, a marketing exercise.