Personally, I have really enjoyed competing in Velogames since I found it in 2013, and I usually make a real effort to do well. However, I'm not so financially well-off that I'm willing to pay for this, especially not with all the free entertainment that exists today. Furthermore, Velogames in itself isn't really all that technically complex to put together, especially for a smaller group of participants. So it's not like it's an amazing privilege that can't be replaced by something else.
I will be part of the large majority (probably) that will not be paying, and therefore I will be barred from a large number of this year's competitions. An alarmingly large number, seeing as it's just the first year of premium. If it gets to the point where I feel that I cannot be a consistent part of the community, or where the competitions available for me are so few or insignificant that it's more like a free taste than the full experience, then I will lose interest and stop spending my time on it.

Quite frankly, while I'm not completely opposed to some premium-privileges, I feel like George may be getting ahead of himself. He says that the premium fees are to make Velogames more professional, fair enough. But he has been unable to give us a glimpse of what that is. For anyone hoping for more than what is there now, this is like buyng a pig in a bag.

In fact, for this season, I thought that the biggest step Velogames could take was not even adding many more competitions, but actually communicating better with the fans/users. Both status updates when there are complications and postponements, as well as giving us a provisional calendar, so we can check when we can expect to see a Velogames-competition pop up (this is especially important if he continues neglecting the communication part). Also, it would be nice if he could do a proper effort to technically finish the competitions with a little more margin, so we could get more than 1-2 days to hear about it, tell our friends, research the race and riders and make a team selection before the deadline passes. But so far that hasn't been the case either, even though the calendar finally came up (but is only accesibale on the P-N-page, I believe...) and the communication has improved somewhat lately.

TDU came from nowhere, ending a silence that stretched from the 2014 ToB. We were promised an extended classics competition as well as a calendar shortly afterwards, it came much later. Instead we got more silence up until and past the point where many started wondering what was up with the classics competition. Still no communication. Finally a P-N competition popped up from nowhere (with little to no margin), a calendar was finally shared, followed immediately by a T-A competition that nobody expected (again, little margin to prepare, but better communication), the extended spring classics were scrapped for a redo of the old format, and that competition - the one that most requires time and planning - was postponed over and over throughout the week until it went live 2 days before the deadline. This is what people are asked to buy, as well as some vague goal of a more professional Velogames.

I would think that there would be a huge market and fanbase for a cycling prediction game like Velogames, that only takes the time you want it to take. A large part of that market is still probably untapped by Velogames. I consider myself a big cycling fan, but I left it at actually watching races on TV and streams and only found out about it fairly recently. The most natural way to create a revenue stream, for something like Velogames, would be to attract as many as possible and get some ad revenue going, as well as maybe some well-balanced premium-privileges. Because, let's not forget, Velogames and it's underlying complexity is in no way high maintenance, and barely scales with the number of players. On George's side, automating as much as possible would be important, to make it lighter on him, as well as make participation in the game simple and predicable.
Instead, the many premium-only competitions will probably thin out the userbase, make a large part of that userbase feel unwelcome half of the season, create hurdles for new players who find Velogames in the midst of a premium-only competition and lower the total ad revenue. The premium-only competitions that, let's remember, will take him just as much time and effort to set up and update, no matter how many players participate.

Again, I love Velogames but I think they're going down the wrong road. Too many competitions are premium-only, including some pretty big ones. The premium-only competitions should be secondary/bonus competitions only. At least races like Romandie, Dauphiné and the World Championship should be open to all. Races like Catalonia/Pais Vasco and even TdS (if Dauphiné was available), I could live without as a free player, because there are parallel alternatives you can participate in.