Battle for 2023-2025 WT licenses

[janraaskalt]

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.

But I believe the point that others are trying to make is that IPT would bring their best riders to a race, which won't help them promote to the WT-level, whereas other teams gather points on the lower level. It might be more beneficial not even take the wildcards.

 

[Ricco']

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.

So, we are saying that the current relegation system is not good for sponsors longevity because in the short term, if a team fails to perform, they need to step down a level and therefore we risk the sponsor gets mad and leaves the sport.

On the other hand, we're saying that if someone wants to start a new project and invest good money, they need to be patient and stick to secondary levels at first in order to have a chance, in the future, to be in the first division?

Put yourself in the position of a marketing chief of a big brand: Would you invest significant money in a team who would focus primarily on small races, of which most doesn't bring any good coverage for the brand in the hope that in 3 years time they could climb the ranks? Or divert that money to be a co-sponsor in a WT team where, for 3 years, he would share the spotlight with another brand but be prominent in the races that matter?

I'm going to stick to the example of Alpecin because it's a team I follow well. If WT races importance for ProSeries teams were to be diminished, no way they would be able to keep VdP for 4 years while being a secondary tier team, no way they would be able to hire Philipsen (a GT stage winner and hot prospect for sprints and classics) and therefore no way sponsors like Alpecin and Deceuninck (who were already prominent in World Tour teams) were keen to invest in them or be one of teams which receives good funding by a manufacturer like Canyon.

In the same way, moves like Quintana to Arkéa, Kristoff to Uno-X or even smaller moves like Diego Rosa to Eolo or the rumoured talks of Moschetti and Brambilla to a small team would be less frequent because although they may be past their prime, they still would have a space in WT teams to have some results during a season.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

In the same way, moves like Quintana to Arkéa, Kristoff to Uno-X or even smaller moves like Diego Rosa to Eolo or the rumoured talks of Moschetti and Brambilla to a small team would be less frequent because although they may be past their prime, they still would have a space in WT teams to have some results during a season.

Not to mention that transfers like Quintana to Arkéa, Kristoff to Uno-X, Sagan to Total and so on are often done by those teams explicitly in the hope - nay, expectation - that having those riders will be their key to additional wildcard opportunities. That's one way Adams' gambit has worked; they may have got relegated but riders like Teuns, Froome, Fuglsang, Woods these bring name value and mean that they are likely to be able to attract wildcards to the majority of major races that they are interested in.

And that sometimes those wildcard opportunities can be contingent on specific riders entering or not entering. There was a Belgian semi-classic back in 2010 that un-invited BMC Racing Team on the basis that they did not bring Evans, Ballan, Hincapie or any of their name value riders that had been part of the agreement to offer the invite; similarly CCC (the Polish ProConti team, rather than the post-merger with BMC lineup) were given a Giro invite one year on the specific agreement that they not enter Davide Rebellin.

 

[yaco]

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.

A strange analogy - Of course Alpecin would take MVDP to Paris Roubaix - It's MVDP who in effect built the team and got them invites to big races (initially) and his performances allowed them to get more sponsors and better riders - My proposal has always suggested these .pro and 1.1 points apply to X amount of races per season which is the same as WT teams only accruing points for WT races.

 

[yaco]

But I believe the point that others are trying to make is that IPT would bring their best riders to a race, which won't help them promote to the WT-level, whereas other teams gather points on the lower level. It might be more beneficial not even take the wildcards.

This is exactly what Arkea did in 2022 when they refused the invite to the Giro because they believed they could accrue more points ( which they did ) participating in other races during this period - So this still happened under the current system.

Anyway, promotion/relegation is not needed - The UCI should be happy that 20 teams have the finances to be viable WT teams - Instead of raking in this money, they are pushing it away.

Finally it's the same with the women's peleton - They have 14 current WT teams - They want to hand out a 15th licence, yet have three teams vying for that licence - Why not have 17 WT teams if they meet the criteria.

 

[janraaskalt]

Anyway, promotion/relegation is not needed - The UCI should be happy that 20 teams have the finances to be viable WT teams - Instead of raking in this money, they are pushing it away.

And what if there are 26 teams that have the finances for WT?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

A strange analogy - Of course Alpecin would take MVDP to Paris Roubaix - It's MVDP who in effect built the team and got them invites to big races (initially) and his performances allowed them to get more sponsors and better riders - My proposal has always suggested these .pro and 1.1 points apply to X amount of races per season which is the same as WT teams only accruing points for WT races.

And then if Alpecin then miss promotion because a team like Bingoal does better at 'the races that count' like Druivenkoers-Overijse and Nokere-Koerse while MVDP is busy doing something meaningless like winning Roubaix, and the sponsors get POed because they're still relying on wildcards and threaten to reduce funding costing them MVDP?

The thing is, you and I know that Roubaix is more important than any of those smaller Belgian 1.PRO and 1.1 races. Bingoal know it, Alpecin know it, MVDP knows it. But if sitting out Roubaix and racing those smaller races where he'd be shooting fish in a barrel is a ticket to a guaranteed ride at ALL the big races for years to come? I mean, Lotto know full well that the Vuelta a España is more important than the GP Fourmies too, but for what they could realistically achieve for their goal of avoiding relegation, they knew that sending an odds and sods lineup to the bigger race and sending their A-team to other races where there would be lesser competition was a better gameplan.

And while a race like Paris-Roubaix might still get the best riders a team has to offer, my example earlier about ISN using a Grand Tour, which takes most of a month to complete and then several weeks to recover from, where most of a team's best riders will be unavailable to score any points whatsoever for their team if ProTeams can't score points in WT races... just becomes an obstacle that jeopardises the team's chance of progressing past that level. For middling ProTeams who are not likely to be in the promotion hunt OR the relegation hunt from the level, like Caja Rural, that might have little impact, but for the Alpecins, Lottos, ISNs of this world, competing for promotion, abandoning the promotion hunt to chase TV time that scores no points for several weeks might be less attractive as the season goes on (especially adversely affecting late season top races like the Vuelta and Lombardia), especially when it comes to smaller WT races like BinckBank and Poland.

The argument that "the strongest riders on the ProTeams will do the WT races even if they score 0 points" relies purely on the intrinsic value of those races and the eyeballs drawn to them. If you're a team which is currently a few points off promotion, though, sending your best riders to the Münsterland Giro and the Famenne Ardenne Classic instead of Lombardia to guarantee you get to do the Tour, the Giro, the Vuelta and the Monuments next year seems awful tempting.