Yea, the two systems are, as you nicely expressed, fundamentally incompatible. Moreover, cycling has always been based on a rotating door system of title sponsors, in which x corporation buys in for x number of years, usually because said corporation is either directly invested in the cycling industry or has an owner mad about the sport - pick your examples. Then it remains contractually on board for only as long as annual profits, publicity and advertisement returns justify the budget expense. In the pre-globalization era this could be substantial for national, even regional, companies that considered investing in pro cycling as part of the strategic planning of their businesses. When cycling was still basically a continental European affair, the system was thus buoyed by grass roots, often family owned, brands (from automobile to salami manufacturers, etc.), which, as a matter of national pride (and local market interests), kept funding pro cycling teams for years, even decades. By contrast, in the age of globalization corporations often remain only nominally French or Italian, etc., but are owned by foreign investors whose only interest is driving up profits in expanded markets. In other words, the almost quaint home-grown and grass roots aspects that gauranteed a certain stability and corporate replenishment in cycling, has given way to an increasingly unstable environment in which title sponsors pulling out often leads to a crisis when a dearth of new financial backers, offering a paucity of funds, inevitably results in teams folding. In this sense the sport has remained within the mentality of local tradition, even as it has gone global, but without adapting its business model to new market demands. And the title sponsors must assume all the burden of expenses, without benefiting from the profits generated by headline events as franchise sport teams do. Oleg Tinkov was vexed over this (not that I'm his fan).
But how would cycling adapt to a francising model? It does already have leagues so to speak between World Tour and Pro-Conti levels, which, however, aren't firmly ensconced within metropolitan identities that gaurantee huge profits from TV broadcasting rights enhanced by stadium ticket sales and the whole business of amphitheater shows. By contrast, there are no stadiums in cycling - the towns and roads being its great caveae and arenas - thus no ticket sales, no amphitheater spectacles (except for track racing obviously), for which it's unlikely you could have a Manchester United or a Real Madrid or Milan cycling team. And the profits from broadcasting rights don't go to the teams and their title sponsors, but to the race owning Ltds, their shareholders and the governing body of cycling that organize and offer the calendar of events to qualifying teams. In this sense, unlike the francise system, cycling teams don't own a piece of the action of their sport, whose title sponsors therefore only stand to see a return on their investments by participating in premier events. So in this globalized world, also given the meritocratic points system instituted to promote or demote teams based on results, without the stadiums and all the rest it has become increasingly arduous for the movement to attract big, long-term investors; especially now since the costs of running a World Tour outfit have skyrocketed from when the sport and its race calendar were more or less confined to a handfull of Continental nations. In the absence of a marquis rider, furthermore, such as an Evenepoel in Belgium, to draw in big funding from national companies, which is particularly dire for Italian cycling, even having a World Tour team becomes impossible with the running costs involved.
So perhaps it's more urgent to make reforms to the cycling business model, ensuring that teams and their sponsors share in the overall profits that races like the Tour generate through TV rights and commercial publicity, than changing the points system because of a disgruntled owner who invested poorly on washed-up has beens. That might work for Barnum and Bailey circus freak-show side act, but not the circuit of World Tour racing. Although the one doesn't necessarily exclude the other, perhaps. Because if the teams by right share in the profits generated by races, then things could evolve into a kind of francise system (along the lines of World Cup football?) that would make the points one obsolete and investing in teams more attractive to the big corporations.
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