Battle for 2023-2025 WT licenses

[Libertine Seguros]

Why do you even think that? They literally started with a complete roster in basically every WT race this year. Apart from a few in the beginning of the year were riders got sick last minute (when basically every team was having throuble turning up to races with a full roster because the whole peloton was getting sick).



This is also a stretch. Israel was hit by Covid and other diseases ridiculously hard the first few months of the season. They couldn't even start certain classics because they didn't have the minimum amount of fit riders that are needed to be able to start a race (UCI rules). After the classics they started spamming races just like Lotto did (and teams like Cofidis, Arkea and Intermarché had been doing for years), but they simply failed getting enough results in those. Nothing to do with ignoring the situation they were in for too long. Their riders simply weren't good enough to reverse the damage that was done in the first half of the season. Israel was like a 1000 points ahaed of teams like Arkea and Cofidis at the beginning of the season but then lost a lot of ground the first months cause they just couldn't race enough because of sickness.

Also why I don't get why people think Israel is done for. If their riders stay (and honestly they will, they'll still get a lot of WCs, probably even for the Tour and they won't get the money they're getting now elsewhere) they will have a way better season than last year (def with Teuns added), I'm convinced they'll be in the top 2 PCT Teams next year pretty easily. People are completely forgetting they probably had the most amount of bad luck out of everyone the first half of this season, no way that happens again.

The rules have been in place for three seasons, and they are by far the lowest ranked of the WT teams, so it's not just that they had a couple of bad months with illnesses although I think that pointing to the disproportionate impact of Covid is going to be a good case for them. They also appear to have whiffed on some of the points farms, like picking out races that not too many other teams were doing (see BikeExchange using the Spanish mini-season pre-Giro, for example, where there were very few WT teams to compete with). I may have exaggerated somewhat mis-remembering the illness situation around races like the UAE Tour for Lotto, but certainly when it came to things like the Vuelta they were clearly lining up an odds-and-sods lineup to keep their main points ponies for the smaller races knowing that a lot of the other teams had their A-teams either resting post-Tour or in Spain for the Vuelta.

I don't think people think Israel is done for... unless as per Adams' comments the sponsors pull the plug because they were expecting automatic invites. I think it's a bit of triumphalism that a rich man's plaything team that has spent its budget irresponsibly and an owner with a sense of entitlement, whose leadership is comprised primarily of known quantities and past-their-prime former stars, has got burnt. With the roster they've got, they shouldn't have any trouble getting wildcards to the biggest races just on name value alone and in reality even if they lose any case with the UCI they're likely to get to do almost any race they want, and it might even be better for them (having a team with enough money and talent to do a Cervélo or BMC at the ProTeam level for the first time in years might be good, to try to arrest the clear Premier Leagueification of the sport that has rendered wildcard teams largely an irrelevance in recent years). I just think that after Adams threw his toys out the pram and threatened to see the UCI in court like the stereotypical rich man with a chip on his shoulder, people are enjoying seeing the entitled characters behind it cut down to size a bit. Rather like how most people were not in favour of the Pegasus debacle or the Aqua Blue Sport implosion for the riders, but enjoyed the dollar store Tinkoffs in charge of those teams getting a dose of humility.

 

[Samamba]

The rules have been in place for three seasons, and they are by far the lowest ranked of the WT teams, so it's not just that they had a couple of bad months with illnesses although I think that pointing to the disproportionate impact of Covid is going to be a good case for them. They also appear to have whiffed on some of the points farms, like picking out races that not too many other teams were doing (see BikeExchange using the Spanish mini-season pre-Giro, for example, where there were very few WT teams to compete with). I may have exaggerated somewhat mis-remembering the illness situation around races like the UAE Tour for Lotto, but certainly when it came to things like the Vuelta they were clearly lining up an odds-and-sods lineup to keep their main points ponies for the smaller races knowing that a lot of the other teams had their A-teams either resting post-Tour or in Spain for the Vuelta.

The thing I responded to was you saying Israel just ignored the point situation which they didn't this year. Once they had their riders fit enough to ride they spammed races. They are the team with the most amount of racedays this years. They just simply weren't good enough in those smaller races. Just compare their results to those of Lotto, Arkea and Cofidis in those races. A team like BEX originally also failed to perform in those races (May and June) but they scored really good in the WT races, so they got themselves out of that mess.

About Lotto, They did focus on smaller races more instead of solely on WT (apart from the Tour) in the 2nd part of the season, that is true but they always turned up with 7 riders if they had enough fit riders (which wasn't the case in UAE). The Vuelta was an odd case tbh. They often have a pretty bad team there because their star riders usually focus on other races like Benelux and Canada. Their main goal in the Vuelta was Cras his GC but he crashed out in stage 2. And then 4 other riders got covid so yeah. I don't think a lot of riders that stayed home could've done good there anyways. Apart from De Lie, but he was never supposed to ride a GT. At the beginning of the season (so not taking points into account) the only difference was Campenaerts in. They did have a meeh team in Canada too but that was because Wellens and Kron were out due to heart problems and sickness.

 

[tobydawq]

How can UCI lose even if someone takes them to court?

Teams have 3 year licenses. They all end now so in the end of 2022 no one has a valid license anymore. UCI has 18 licenses to attribute. There are 22 teams in search of the 18 licenses. The teams need to meet a financial criterion. The 22 teams meet that criterion. So now UCI needs to sort them by a sporting criterion. What's the sporting criterion? Well, there you have it, the world ranking. And are they going to choose a World Ranking that comprises all the UCI sanctioned races or only World Tour ones? If they go to the latter, there are 18 privileged teams that are sure to be in that races while the others don't. So the remaining 4 take UCI to court because they didn't have the same playing field as the other 18 teams. And repeat.

What's next? A ProConti team will bring ASO to court because they choose a random french team because the other team doesn't have the luck of coming from the host country?

I don't really get that either. But I guess there is some sort of precedence from back when UCI randomly decided not to award Katusha a WorldTour licence where the team took them to court and ended up winning so there were 19 WorldTeams that season.

 

[search]

I don't really get that either. But I guess there is some sort of precedence from back when UCI randomly decided not to award Katusha a WorldTour licence where the team took them to court and ended up winning so there were 19 WorldTeams that season.

CAS specifically pointed out the importance of the license system back then, though, saying "the rules adopted by UCI in that respect appear crucial for the safeguard of the viability, if not of the survival, of the sport of cycling at national and international level. Their role can hardly be underestimated. In fact, they are designed to allow UCI to guarantee a proper competitive level, to address financial and organizational issues, and to increase the standards in terms of ethic". So I wouldn't think they have a general issue with the criteria used ("sporting" was always one of them).

The Katusha decision also didn't come down to a general invalidity of the rules, but to their interpretation of necessary ethical standards. The UCI hadn't lined out what exactly would be needed to fulfill those reuirements, so CAS deemed Katusha's to be sufficient.

 

[search]

Still two Italian teams left for the two available wildcards + the semi-Italian Q35. But Total (and maybe also Lotto) is likely to skip it, I guess?

not that they are very likely to get a Giro wildcard, but Corratec's plans to turn PT are also getting more concrete now:

TEAM CORRATEC PRONTO AL SALTO IN PROFESSIONAL, FRASSI CI SPIEGA TUTTO

Il direttore sportivo toscano: «Iter secondo i piani, Rajovic alla Bahrain ma Gandin e Stojnic restano»

www.tuttobiciweb.it

 

[samhocking]

With the rules and everything being clear before the period started - what is there to complain about?
"We didn't race the same races!" - no, but that's within the rules?
"The point system is flawed!" - it follows the rules.

What is it that makes it obivous that UCI will lose? If they had changes the rules I could understand it - but now I have no idea why it's obvious UCI would lose a case like this?

Well, I think Vaughters is one of the multiple managers saying the ranking system is flawed for the reasons I gave. Add the fact there's clear ways the ranking system can be twisted by lower-ranked teams, which probably wasn't agreed by the teams. In fact, we know the voting system is in favour of UCI Committee anyway, so I doubt any team actually voted for a promotion & relegation system using the randomness that is the UCI'd calendar. Hopefully, UCI at some point can create a football-like fixture system of far fewer races in the the calendar that actually ranks and make those races obligatory for every team at the start of the season who sign something to say they are fighting for promotion.

 

[search]

Hopefully, UCI at some point can create a football-like fixture system of far fewer races in the the calendar that actually ranks and make those races obligatory for every team at the start of the season who sign something to say they are fighting for promotion.

every team in the world would sign that as it guarantees a Tour start.

 

[samhocking]

every team in the world would sign that as it guarantees a Tour start.

How? It would be a football-like fixture system. So World tour races are only raced by World tour teams. Pro Conti races are only racedby Pro Conti teams. There's no crossover other than for Worlds.

 

[search]

How? It would be a football-like fixture system. So World tour races are only raced by World tour teams. Pro Conti races are only racedby Pro Conti teams. There's no crossover other than for Worlds.

ah, okay, I misunderstood, I assumed all teams would need to compete in the same races, if it's supposed to be fair.

But you're basically proposing a system where WT teams can only score in WT, PT only in .HC, and bottom 2 / top 2 swap places for the following year?

 

[yaco]

ah, okay, I misunderstood, I assumed all teams would need to compete in the same races, if it's supposed to be fair.

But you're basically proposing a system where WT teams can only score in WT, PT only in .HC, and bottom 2 / top 2 swap places for the following year?

That is the perfect system as has has been previously posted in this thread - WT teams only get points for relegation/promotion in WT races, while Pro Teams acquire points in selected .pro and 1.1 races and Conti teams get points in 1.2,2.1 and 1.2 races.

 

[Ricco']

If there are only selected races where Pro Teams can score how does someone guarantee that all teams can start the same race if they want? This year there were 17 Pro Teams but in the last year before the pandemic there were 25 and 27 in 2018.

And if every Pro Team can be at the start of some Pro Series race, then the organizer will be forced to have very few WT teams and local continental teams. No WT teams, less interest of the broadcasters to show the race, less sponsors interested in paying for the race and of course, if a organizer is denied of having WT teams at the start, either he doesn't go through with the race or he doesn't want it to be a part of the list of races that count towards the ranking.

It's more simple to just adjust the points scheme to better reflect the difference in race status. A WT has bigger budget, so therefore should have riders who can score on the biggest races of the year. If they don't want the teams to farm points in smaller races, they should make those race days be less profitable.

In the same way, a ProSeries team who invest in some young talent or in bigger names to gain points (and bigger names want to race in bigger races), should they be penalized with no WT points counting towards their rankings? Would UnoX be able to hire Kristoff or keep Tobias Johannessen if they told him "look, I know you want to race the Dauphiné, Roubaix, etc. but you can't, you need to focus on Tour de l'Ain and Tro-Bro León because that's what gives us points"?

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

Add the fact there's clear ways the ranking system can be twisted by lower-ranked teams, which probably wasn't agreed by the teams.

By this, do you mean teams like Arkea that have participated in a lot of races and often had 3-4 riders in the top 10? Is that twisting the ranking system?

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

That is the perfect system as has has been previously posted in this thread - WT teams only get points for relegation/promotion in WT races, while Pro Teams acquire points in selected .pro and 1.1 races and Conti teams get points in 1.2,2.1 and 1.2 races.

That is not the perfect system. In this system, say a continental team like Alpecin, they wouldnt count any points in WT-races which is idk like half of their points?

A much better system would be that you have a set number of promotion spots and a set number of relegation spots (now it's top 18, so theoretically 18 pro teams could be promoted and 18 world teams be relegated).
Then you separate the WT-teams and the ProTeams, so the WT teams are competing against themselves to avoid the 2 relegation spots and the PCT teams are competing against themselves for the 2 promotion spots.
This way you could make it so only WT-races counts for the WT-teams and PCT-teams scores points in WT-races, .pro, 1.1, 2.1, 1.2 and 2.2.

To have only WT-races counting for the WT-teams is logical as the relegation part is the crucial damaging part of a system like this and then every team affected have the same possibilities.
For PCT-teams you should give them options to score in as many races as possible because these teams are depending on invitations and to make them only race in .pro and .1 would be bad as these are not the most important races these teams do if they get WT-invites.

So in short:

• Separate rankings for relegation for WT-teams and promotion for PCT-teams
• WT-races only thing that counts for relegation.
• WT-races, .Pro & .1 atleast (maybe also .2) counts for promotion.

There shouldn't be a promotion/relegation system between ProConti and Conti, as the difference here is mainly between the teams organization ("professional or not") and not sporting merits.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

How? It would be a football-like fixture system. So World tour races are only raced by World tour teams. Pro Conti races are only racedby Pro Conti teams. There's no crossover other than for Worlds.

Right, so a lot of the domestic calendars that rely on the national top names turning up die because of a lack of interest. And a lot of the ProConti teams die as a result of not having any races and not getting any of the wildcards.

A lot of races at the .PRO and .1 level rely on being able to attract a few top tier teams for survival, especially those outside of traditional cycling homes where the ability to attract a handful of top teams is a large part of their selling point to sponsors and stage hosts. And a lot of the second tier teams rely on sponsor money contingent on the exposure they get at the small number of wildcards they can get. You know, Spanish sponsors for teams who will be riding Catalunya and País Vasco, Italian sponsors for teams that will get wildcards for Lombardia, MSR and Tirreno-Adriatico, and so on; plus riders on Conti teams, especially in non-traditional countries, can build their whole season around showing themselves in the national race and the one time they get to show against the top level pros, in order to show what they can do and get noticed.

Road cycling isn't really capable of having locked tiers like that, because of the large organisational costs attached to the road closures and the need for local sponsors for jerseys and primes to support the races. The only way I could see that working would be for one day races, if you could have circuit races with multiple events using the same course over a span of a couple of days, like the support series in motor racing, so you could watch the Conti riders, then the Pro Series riders, then the Elite Women, then the Elite Men all do the same course. But while that could work at selected one-day races that use circuits or a restricted area, like Plouay, the fact you'd have multiple consecutive road closures along multiple days or all day across a very long point to point race for things like Roubaix or Liège would make it completely impractical, not to mention stage racing would be rendered almost impossible.

As I've said many a time, people seem to want to make the cycling system work like Formula 1 with a travelling circus of the same teams and riders appearing in every race which can then be packaged up and sold to the highest bidder with several junior and lesser formulae that feed development into the top level; but in reality cycling is much more like sportscars, which has multi-class racing, a variety of series of differing levels and teams working their own calendar often with the same car and drivers appearing across multiple series, with one overarching high level series that incorporates the most important events (including the one which everybody wants to do, which is on invites partially given out on merit across various series' performance, and partially at the organisers' discretion).

But then, if you said, OK, let's allow the top tier teams to do non-WT races as warmup events but they can't score any points, and ProTeams to do WT teams as wildcards but they can't score any points, it disincentivizes ProTeams from riding competitively in the races they build their entire seasons around, because they can't score any points in them and expending too much effort in these races would then potentially cost them form and points that could win them promotion in smaller races... plus the promotion race for ProTeams could be completely turned upside down by World Teams coming in and taking points off them even though they can't score them themselves, making a lottery of which teams have what points available to them based on how many WT teams turn up.

I don't think any system can realistically be fair in road cycling that doesn't incorporate points at all levels, but they need to find a much better balance in the points between races than they currently have, and probably need a much steeper drop-off in points from WT down to PRO and then .1 and .2, plus perhaps points for secondary jerseys and also a better balance between one-day and stage races, because at present less important one day races, especially at the .1 level, are insanely overvalued relative to stage races of a similar level, and rating winning a 1.1 race almost at the same level as 10th place in a Grand Tour is just ludicrous.

 

[samhocking]

I'd argue the sport is more than capable of having an organised race fixture system by division. The issue is the sport is run by race organisers and sponsors, not by the teams and UCI like other sports. It all comes back to cycling is not capable of earning any revenue, it must beg to sponsors to form, to exist, to race and to renew each sponsor or disappear. So a split divisional ranking system would cause issues for small races that in reality fight above their weight through the flexibility of UCI essentially permitting two levels of team to race two levels of race concurrently and distort their importance and potentially the ranking system itself as it stands. In fact those races should really be dead races or if they wanted to survive, non-ranking, open races.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I'd argue the sport is more than capable of having an organised race fixture system by division. The issue is the sport is run by race organisers and sponsors, not by the teams and UCI like other sports. It all comes back to cycling is not capable of earning any revenue, it must beg to sponsors to form, to exist, to race and to renew each sponsor or disappear. So a split divisional ranking system would cause issues for small races that in reality fight above their weight through the flexibility of UCI essentially permitting two levels of team to race two levels of race concurrently and distort their importance and potentially the ranking system itself as it stands. In fact those races should really be dead races or if they wanted to survive, non-ranking, open races.

But the sport already does have an organised race fixture system by division.

It's just that the entry requirements are open - enabling the big teams with localised sponsors (e.g. Quick Step) to enter smaller races within their sponsor's or team's targeted area, and the smaller races to be able to afford to put on better events because of attracting those teams. It's a mutual benefit. Road cycling doesn't have stadia or ticketed revenue, so it has to attract sponsorship to be profitable. What you suggest is achievable in track, in 'cross, in MTB, but the problem is those have much smaller fields that don't need such divisions at the elite level. Road cycling, with its cast of thousands and its ever-changing point to point courses that require large amounts of public and police cooperation to operate, is different. You are proposing essentially killing off races like the Tour of Belgium, Tour of Britain, Tour de Provence, a large part of the domestic calendars of all major European cycling nations, and all non-WT one-day classics including some historic races like Tre Valli Varesine and Paris-Tours, by guaranteeing they cannot have any starters above ProTeam level - and that, shorn of the opportunity to get a chance of a wildcard at the biggest classics and WT stage races, those ProTeams will have weaker rosters and less investment, and a lot of those sponsors who rely on their handful of WT invites for exposure to make the investment worthwhile simply won't bother. The police's time and safety barrier hire, road closures and so on still costs the same, only you're getting less TV exposure (because fewer people will want to watch the lower divisions) and attracting smaller audiences and less sponsorship money, so the race is harder to make profitable, so stage races lose race days and one-day races die, strangling development for riders not picked up as prospects by the WT teams, and depriving many fans - especially those in countries without a WT race - of the chance to see their heroes all year.

And for what? The ProContinental level is already considerably weakened compared to 10-15 years ago, you're proposing we mutilate it completely, for the purpose of protecting the investment of some entitled douche who overspent his means on past-their-prime old guys and is throwing his toys out the pram because he has to face the prospect of having to compete for wildcards?

 

[SHAD0W93]

Every team knew the rules, races available, races teams were trying to go too, points on offer, and what was at stake. For the last couple years we had been talking about how bad Lotto and Israel are. Why should they continue at World Tour. Lotto is a poor man’s HTC/Quickstep/Alpecin and Israel relies on aging riders that are past their best while signing another to enormous money. Every team was affected by Covid, injuries, and bad luck.

We all know the points need to be reworked. Another thing UCI can do is cap teams at a race event or race day max limit

 

[yaco]

Right, so a lot of the domestic calendars that rely on the national top names turning up die because of a lack of interest. And a lot of the ProConti teams die as a result of not having any races and not getting any of the wildcards.

A lot of races at the .PRO and .1 level rely on being able to attract a few top tier teams for survival, especially those outside of traditional cycling homes where the ability to attract a handful of top teams is a large part of their selling point to sponsors and stage hosts. And a lot of the second tier teams rely on sponsor money contingent on the exposure they get at the small number of wildcards they can get. You know, Spanish sponsors for teams who will be riding Catalunya and País Vasco, Italian sponsors for teams that will get wildcards for Lombardia, MSR and Tirreno-Adriatico, and so on; plus riders on Conti teams, especially in non-traditional countries, can build their whole season around showing themselves in the national race and the one time they get to show against the top level pros, in order to show what they can do and get noticed.

Road cycling isn't really capable of having locked tiers like that, because of the large organisational costs attached to the road closures and the need for local sponsors for jerseys and primes to support the races. The only way I could see that working would be for one day races, if you could have circuit races with multiple events using the same course over a span of a couple of days, like the support series in motor racing, so you could watch the Conti riders, then the Pro Series riders, then the Elite Women, then the Elite Men all do the same course. But while that could work at selected one-day races that use circuits or a restricted area, like Plouay, the fact you'd have multiple consecutive road closures along multiple days or all day across a very long point to point race for things like Roubaix or Liège would make it completely impractical, not to mention stage racing would be rendered almost impossible.

As I've said many a time, people seem to want to make the cycling system work like Formula 1 with a travelling circus of the same teams and riders appearing in every race which can then be packaged up and sold to the highest bidder with several junior and lesser formulae that feed development into the top level; but in reality cycling is much more like sportscars, which has multi-class racing, a variety of series of differing levels and teams working their own calendar often with the same car and drivers appearing across multiple series, with one overarching high level series that incorporates the most important events (including the one which everybody wants to do, which is on invites partially given out on merit across various series' performance, and partially at the organisers' discretion).

But then, if you said, OK, let's allow the top tier teams to do non-WT races as warmup events but they can't score any points, and ProTeams to do WT teams as wildcards but they can't score any points, it disincentivizes ProTeams from riding competitively in the races they build their entire seasons around, because they can't score any points in them and expending too much effort in these races would then potentially cost them form and points that could win them promotion in smaller races... plus the promotion race for ProTeams could be completely turned upside down by World Teams coming in and taking points off them even though they can't score them themselves, making a lottery of which teams have what points available to them based on how many WT teams turn up.

I don't think any system can realistically be fair in road cycling that doesn't incorporate points at all levels, but they need to find a much better balance in the points between races than they currently have, and probably need a much steeper drop-off in points from WT down to PRO and then .1 and .2, plus perhaps points for secondary jerseys and also a better balance between one-day and stage races, because at present less important one day races, especially at the .1 level, are insanely overvalued relative to stage races of a similar level, and rating winning a 1.1 race almost at the same level as 10th place in a Grand Tour is just ludicrous.

No - Pro teams and their riders collect points in WT races BUT they don't count in the team ranking for promotion/relegation and likewise when WT teams ride non-WT races.

 

[yaco]

That is not the perfect system. In this system, say a continental team like Alpecin, they wouldnt count any points in WT-races which is idk like half of their points?

A much better system would be that you have a set number of promotion spots and a set number of relegation spots (now it's top 18, so theoretically 18 pro teams could be promoted and 18 world teams be relegated).
Then you separate the WT-teams and the ProTeams, so the WT teams are competing against themselves to avoid the 2 relegation spots and the PCT teams are competing against themselves for the 2 promotion spots.
This way you could make it so only WT-races counts for the WT-teams and PCT-teams scores points in WT-races, .pro, 1.1, 2.1, 1.2 and 2.2.

To have only WT-races counting for the WT-teams is logical as the relegation part is the crucial damaging part of a system like this and then every team affected have the same possibilities.
For PCT-teams you should give them options to score in as many races as possible because these teams are depending on invitations and to make them only race in .pro and .1 would be bad as these are not the most important races these teams do if they get WT-invites.

So in short:

• Separate rankings for relegation for WT-teams and promotion for PCT-teams
• WT-races only thing that counts for relegation.
• WT-races, .Pro & .1 atleast (maybe also .2) counts for promotion.

There shouldn't be a promotion/relegation system between ProConti and Conti, as the difference here is mainly between the teams organization ("professional or not") and not sporting merits.

This is fairly much what I proposed. What I did not make clear was that Pro teams/riders get points for WT races BUT this does not count in the teams ranking for promotion and relegation.

 

[Bolder]

Every team knew the rules, races available, races teams were trying to go too, points on offer, and what was at stake. For the last couple years we had been talking about how bad Lotto and Israel are. Why should they continue at World Tour. Lotto is a poor man’s HTC/Quickstep/Alpecin and Israel relies on aging riders that are past their best while signing another to enormous money. Every team was affected by Covid, injuries, and bad luck.

We all know the points need to be reworked. Another thing UCI can do is cap teams at a race event or race day max limit

I think it's pretty cool that Alpecin and IWG have become near top-tier teams; would love to see Arkea develop the same way. Lotto and especially ISN deserved relegation.

All that said, points farming is not great for the sport. I concur that one solution is to make the WT/pro level disparity greater (but not so great that you can't draw WT teams to pro-level races -- I for one like to see WT riders who wouldn't get a chance to ride for themselves in WT races come into their own, like E. Hayter last year)

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

This is fairly much what I proposed. What I did not make clear was that Pro teams/riders get points for WT races BUT this does not count in the teams ranking for promotion and relegation.

You made it clear, which is why I wrote long about why the separation between WT teams and PCT teams in two different rankings is important so that points scored in WT by PCT teams do count. These races are the most important the PCT teams do, it would be stupid to not let them count.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

This is fairly much what I proposed. What I did not make clear was that Pro teams/riders get points for WT races BUT this does not count in the teams ranking for promotion and relegation.

As EE says, though, this completely disincentivizes the wildcard system.

Say ISN are at ProTeam level, and they get a TdF invite as a wildcard based on the quality and name value of their roster relative to other ProTeams. It goes well for them, Teuns wins a stage, Fuglsang or Froome end up in the bottom half of the top 10 of the GC, Michael Woods wins a couple of stages and the GPM (hey, he's gone after it a couple of years back). This counts for nothing towards promotion because it's a WT race.

Meanwhile let's pick another ProTeam with less name value... I've picked Human Powered Health, because I know they have riders across all styles, rather than being targeted specifically for classics like Sport Vlaanderen, or stage racing/climbers like Caja Rural, and because they're a solid team but not one you would expect to be front line for promotion from the level, sort of middle of the ProTeam pack. Let's say that they win the Österreichrundfahrt with somebody like Ben King (he's won two Vuelta mountain stages, he's a good climber) or Paul Double (he has good results in places like Slovenia and Italy and is still young enough to feasibly be improving), and then some stages and the GC at the Tour de Wallonie with one of their ATVs. Then, during August, ISN are scoring very little because all their best riders did the Tour and are recovering because, hey, most of them are 35 or more, and HPH get a bunch of top results at races like Circuit Franco-Belge, Arctic Tour of Norway, Danmark Rundt and the Maryland Cycling Classic while ISN's second-stringers struggle to get top results.

Come the end of the season, these results could wind up being the difference between a team securing promotion or not... because in that scenario the best thing for ISN would have been to treat their Tour wildcard like Lotto did their Vuelta invite this year - which completely would have negated the point in giving them a wildcard, seeing as you'd think the objective of giving them a wildcard for the Tour would be because they have guys like Froome, Fuglsang and Teuns on the roster.

Edit: forgot King is retiring this offseason, whoops!

 

[yaco]

You made it clear, which is why I wrote long about why the separation between WT teams and PCT teams in two different rankings is important so that points scored in WT by PCT teams do count. These races are the most important the PCT teams do, it would be stupid to not let them count.

Of course the points count on the teams record and on the riders palmares - But it doe not count as points for promotion because not every PCT team receives the same wildcards for WT races. It's not dissimilar to the current system where teams can only count points from their top ten riders.

 

[yaco]

As EE says, though, this completely disincentivizes the wildcard system.

Say ISN are at ProTeam level, and they get a TdF invite as a wildcard based on the quality and name value of their roster relative to other ProTeams. It goes well for them, Teuns wins a stage, Fuglsang or Froome end up in the bottom half of the top 10 of the GC, Michael Woods wins a couple of stages and the GPM (hey, he's gone after it a couple of years back). This counts for nothing towards promotion because it's a WT race.

Meanwhile let's pick another ProTeam with less name value... I've picked Human Powered Health, because I know they have riders across all styles, rather than being targeted specifically for classics like Sport Vlaanderen, or stage racing/climbers like Caja Rural, and because they're a solid team but not one you would expect to be front line for promotion from the level, sort of middle of the ProTeam pack. Let's say that they win the Österreichrundfahrt with somebody like Ben King (he's won two Vuelta mountain stages, he's a good climber) or Paul Double (he has good results in places like Slovenia and Italy and is still young enough to feasibly be improving), and then some stages and the GC at the Tour de Wallonie with one of their ATVs. Then, during August, ISN are scoring very little because all their best riders did the Tour and are recovering because, hey, most of them are 35 or more, and HPH get a bunch of top results at races like Circuit Franco-Belge, Arctic Tour of Norway, Danmark Rundt and the Maryland Cycling Classic while ISN's second-stringers struggle to get top results.

Come the end of the season, these results could wind up being the difference between a team securing promotion or not... because in that scenario the best thing for ISN would have been to treat their Tour wildcard like Lotto did their Vuelta invite this year - which completely would have negated the point in giving them a wildcard, seeing as you'd think the objective of giving them a wildcard for the Tour would be because they have guys like Froome, Fuglsang and Teuns on the roster.

Edit: forgot King is retiring this offseason, whoops!

This is exactly what Arkea did this year ( Giro ) BUT the difference is that there are few races that run alongside the TDF, so you will accept the invitation because there is next to no opportunities to farm points.

It's great if PCT teams are invited to bigger ( WT ) races and good for their brand BUT what is better for their brand is is they perform well enough in .pro and 1.1 races so they will be in the WT.

 

[Ricco']

Of course the points count on the teams record and on the riders palmares - But it doe not count as points for promotion because not every PCT team receives the same wildcards for WT races. It's not dissimilar to the current system where teams can only count points from their top ten riders.

With that system, this year Timothy Dupont would be more valuable for a Pro Series team than Mathieu van der Poel (a monument and GT stage winner plus top-3 in another monument). Therefore, if Bingoal was competing with Alpecin for a WT spot, they would have an advantage because their best rider was racing in 1.1 races while Alpecin's star was "wasting" time preparing for Grand Tours and WT classics.

What would Alpecin tell their sponsors? "Have patience Alpecin and Deceuninck guy, you pay millions for our team but we won't bring Mathieu to Paris-Roubaix this year. We are not going to risk an injury that makes him miss Brabantse Pijl next week"

I don't have a problem with some teams having more opportunities to score big points by having wildcards more easily available - it means they have stronger rosters and therefore should be above in the rankings. If they don't have strong rosters but anyway are invited to GTs and WT stage races (be it by sponsors or by home country advantages) they won't have it easy to score points against WT teams and therefore they are in a disadvantage because they could possibly score more points by not competing in WT races that they earn by going to WT races.

It's not like teams like Bingoal, Kern Pharma, etc. are in an disadvantage by not doing GTs or many WT races. They would likely score negligble points anyway and they can make a much bigger return by taking their best riders for 3 or 4 small races in the same period.