The business of sport is a crowded field, with competition for space on TV screens heightened by COVID-19 forcing stadiums to close their doors. 

While it's harder for cycling race organizers to ban the public from coming to the side of a road, one team has proved the theory that change attracts fans – and their cash. 

This fall it was the turn of U.S.-based cycling team EF Pro Cycling to shake up the sector. 

As the team's marketing director Matt Beaudin told CGTN Europe, its usual pink kit clashes with the traditional leader's jersey in the Giro D'Italia (the tour of Italy), so race organizers asked EF to change it for the three-week test. 

The team was approached by its existing kit sponsor, London-based cycling fashion company Rapha, which had worked with the skateboarding fashion house Palace (also a London-based company) to produce what can only be described as an eye catching kit.

"It was a great opportunity for us just to ... further illustrate the character of the team – because our team is a little bit more free-spirited, I think, than most, from our management to our riders. And it was just an opportunity to shake things up," Beaudin said. 

And Rapha's global marketing director Tom McMullan told us the aim of "shaking things up" was key to the partner the clothing brand chose. 

"It's a collaboration with a brand that has a completely different audience, completely different customers [who] don't even care about cycling," he explained. 

But how do these partnerships come about? 

According to sports marketing expert Andy Sutherden, "collaborations in sportswear have a rich history."

He noted: "Collaborations with sports teams can start from any number of places, in truth, it can sometimes start with the team itself.

"I remember when Clive Woodward was thinking about how can he improve the performance of the England [ruby union] team. He started looking at the kits … the more you can get hold of an England rugby shirt, the more you're going to be held back by the opposition. So he worked with Nike to develop the first skin-tight rugby shirts." 

But as McMullan explained, this collaboration actually came from the brands involved, once it was confirmed the team needed to change its clothing for the three-week race. 

"I think with these two brands, we've sort of been friends and respected each other as both London-based brands. So we've been in informal conversation for a while."

Skating brand Palace is known for being somewhat secretive, and its seasonal sales cause reams of fans to line up outside its Soho store for hours to buy a hat, shirt or even a pair of branded socks. 

It brought the same ethos to the Rapha/EF kit, with an extremely limited supply which sold out in minutes. 

"The idea of limited edition also drives premium. And it's a truth in life, isn't it? If you know that there are only going to be so many items of something, it drives value. So it may well be that this is a glorious one-off – and for the next big race, there is a completely new design," explained Sutherden.

Beaudin was insistent that EF is not a team focused just on selling kits. Their riders cycle to win – and in the Giro this September (moved from its usual May slot due to the pandemic) the team proved it was serious in that intent. 

"We aren't in the jerseys-selling business ... We are still a bike racing team. And those guys went out and they raced their hearts out in a kit with a big duck on it. And I think performing in that kit has actually been the coolest part."

EF's Jonathan Caicedo won Stage Three to Mount Etna, while young rider Ruben Guerreiro won Stage Nine. The race is slated to finish in Milan on October 25, although the pandemic and fall weather could well put a stick in the spokes of the best laid plans of organizer RCS.