So literally no security for teams. Good luck finding long term sponsors wanting to give 20M+ combined to teams that aren't sure to always be in that top 15. If you really want even more teams begging some Arabs to put oil money into the sport you should definitely do this yes.
The less WT licenses for 1y only was already proposed before, the teams do not want this. No one who actually thinks about the consequences of this thinks this is a good idea.
So we continue to make it so only the teams at the World Tour level can eat, and give us essentially the NHL system where the second and third tiers consist only of development and overspill for the top tier and there's no variety or jeopardy. ProConti teams have been completely strangled and made paupers so that teams have to be totally reliant on being WT teams to gain sponsorship.
Now you can say that the top teams need the long term commitment to the top tier so they need to ensure long stays at the top level and that's good for sponsors... but it's not good for sponsors for anybody but the top 15 teams. And in reality, the top 2 or 3 because their budgets trample all over everybody else's. More wildcards means more chances to make ends meet for teams that don't have a superbudget, because they can do the races that matter to them and not be relegated to afterthoughts. It's not that long ago that every major race had at least one if not more wildcard team or teams that had genuine threats to win the race or at least affect it in meaningful ways.
That was sacrificed in favour of a travelling circus of the same teams and riders in every single race, to appease a bunch of Jonathan Vaughters disciples who wanted to close the door behind them and prevent anybody improving their lot in the same way they themselves had just done, in case they were the ones that had to make way. And that way they can introduce more flyaway races and drive the cost of the WT up, because they have a captive audience, and so you need sponsors to throw in those huge budgets. You didn't need those budgets to race a good calendar 15 years ago, when there were more wildcards and domestic pélotons were stronger. If the system means that budgets are lower, it means less concentration of all the top talents into the same 2-3 teams and potentially therefore makes for the sport overall providing a better product.
The teams don't want fewer WT licences because they want to guarantee their place in the top division. It's pure self-interest. Nothing more, nothing less. Do you think if the Premier League proposed increasing the number of teams that would be relegated, that teams like Leeds, Nottingham Forest, Brentford or Fulham would vote for that? Of course not. But do you think they would vote for having relegation only once every three years? Of course they would. It's not to do with what would be good for the sport, it's to do with what would be good for their pockets. And so the story goes with cycling. The teams like Arkéa, Cofidis, Movistar, Astana, Jayco, EF who were in that battle last year for points, of course they'll vote against reducing the number of WT teams, because that puts them in more jeopardy.
I'm proposing a system that makes it less of a punishment to be relegated, because there are more wildcard spots available, and make it easier for small-to-mid budget teams to survive a bad season without plugging up the WT with a bad team for 3 whole years just because they survived a previous season then lost a lot of their key stars, like we're seeing happening with Astana. And if that system upsets a few Jonathan Vaughters types on the way, then all the better.
Besides, pray tell, what is a "wildcard" about a guaranteed invite? All it means is instead of 18 guaranteed invites and up to 4 (stage races) or 7 (one day races) teams that are at the organisers' discretion, you have 20 guaranteed invites and further strangle the individuality of races and the organisers' ability to give their race some character and pick out teams that care about the race rather than teams that have to be there because the UCI got scared of being sued by Sylvain Adams because his team failed when the UCI attempted to add an element of long-term meritocracy to the system.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram