Will, How and when will an aussie team have a pro team?

[The Falcon]

To answer the question one must first look at the questioner.
There must be a reason why Aussies are so jingoistic? Perhaps to compensate for something? Who knows.
Lets just sit back in awe of their awesomeness..
The sheer greatness.. c'est magnifique.

Nicely done. The French was a trump card. Maybe travel more, and learn that jingoism is a human condition, and Australian jingoism is a comparatively benign form. Unless of course you have a particular problem with the Supermen from Dowunder, which of course may be to compensate for something? Who knows

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Having a national team could help to raise the profile of Australia as a worthy racing country, even beyond the feats of individual racers already succeeding.

A ProTour team is NOT a national team. Don't think it is. An Australian ProTour team would be a ProTour team based in Australia (and even then it would probably be based in Europe for ready access to the major races). Because there isn't one, you make the connection of 'an Australian ProTour team' to national romanticism, but it isn't anything like that. Team Sky aren't much more British than CarmioOro-NGC, who fly the British flag as a flag of convenience. I don't see why having a team - which would either contain several non-Aussies or be completely contradictory in its goals (just as Team Sky set up sprint trains yet want to work for GC, and as a result of half-aiming for both, successfully manage neither) - is any better than supporting Cadel, or Matty Lloyd, or anybody else. In fact, from the experience of the Team Sky hype, Britons are being asked to cheer for the likes of Sutton and Henderson against British riders, and that hasn't really worked.

Your world calendar idea is similarly bogged down in romanticism (though not national this time); because the biggest races are in Europe, the biggest teams are based there. Racing elsewhere in the world from where you're based entails massive air miles, which raises costs, plus major jetlag, which lowers the amount of racing days available. The present situation is okay but not wholly satisfactory, but because the Spring Classics, the Giro, Tour and to a lesser extent the Vuelta are deeply entrenched, the big riders will ALWAYS want to do at least some of those. These races all have their relevant warmup events (Omloop, Montepaschi, Trentino, Dauphiné, Burgos) which the riders in those events will want to use to prepare, and that leaves little scope for long-distance travelling to events that do not have the same prestige or history. The UCI has acknowledged by making many of these races ProTour that the best way for these races to get good fields is to make the ProTour teams race there (Canadian races, to an extent California), or for the races to take undesirable or irrelevant spots in the calendar (TDU). A lot of reasonably limited-scope sponsors may be put off by the rising costs of sponsoring a team that has to jet around the planet - especially as many of those races will be added to the calendar at the expense of races more dear to them, both the sponsors and the riders (Lotto, QuickStep and the Tour of Belgium vs. the Tour of California, for example). In good economic times, this is perhaps not a problem, but at present, we can ill-afford to be driving sponsors away from the sport. It's great that new places want to get in on the act with cycling, but I'm afraid that, at present, cycling's Eurocentric attitude will have to be accepted, perhaps on credit to become a bit more metropolitan later.

 

[SpartacusRox]

Why does Australia need one?

Would it just be full of Australians? Why would a protour team structure itself like that?

I'd rather see our star riders in a variety of teams competing against each other.

Cycling is not cricket we dont need national teams outside of WC and Nalimpics... thankfully.

I agree, Plus 6 more reasons:

1.They will struggle to fund it, cycling is just not that big in Aussie for it to be long term viable.

2.Even worse the team would be full of Australians who would probably want to be kitted out in hideous green and gold kit.

3.Every time one of them won they would be yelling out "Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi!"

4.Before every race we would have to witness head butting competitions between Robbie and Stuey.

5. In a GT situation they would totally fail because it would be a case of: "I'm not riding for that wowzer he's a bloody Tasmanian!"

6. They would probably want to steal Greg Henderson to be their sprinter, claiming him as an Aussie because his wife is Australian.

As a Kiwi the whole idea makes me shudder.

 

[Notso Swift]

Davis is nowhere near as good as Boonen.

He was specifically talking about last years Tour, and that that time Davis was on high form, Boonan wasn't, and frankly, the Flanderian Floundered

 

[Sasquatch]

Maybe the question is : Which Major Aussie Company has a need for advertising in the US and Euro continent?

Telstra?

Telstra is run by 2 year olds.

 

[tidean]

Aussie team - no need

All you people wanting an Aust Pro Team are barking (mad), up a the wrong tree. We have a great thing going at the moment with lots of our talent doing great things, GC, sprinting, time trialling et al. many of these talents could not work on the same team. You want to win the tour de France then you lose lots of the non GC talent. It will not be an Aust team because as a few of you said it will be based in Europe & will probably need a few other nationality riders to help when allegiances are made in races. Have a look at the Aust national football teams problems with being outside the center of football - Europe & there is alot more money to make this work than there is in cycling. A totally one national team may get other teams to actually band together to work this monoglot team over. Give this a idea a miss & get on with appreciating all of our great talent coming to the top when they do & when they don't as well. PS it is great to see Pro Cycling growing world wide as it is & it is really better to see it on TV with Phil & Paul commentating any how. Who wants to stand on the side of a freezing cold Belgian road with a load of pi***ed Belgians (or Aussies for that matter) when you can sit at home a& watch the whole race unfold on TV then go out in the morning & have good ride in nice warm weather, & I am talking about winter too.

 

[tgsgirl]

He was specifically talking about last years Tour, and that that time Davis was on high form, Boonan wasn't, and frankly, the Flanderian Floundered

Boonen crashed three or four times in the first week. Still, doesn't matter. Boonen is the Belgian star in a Belgian team. Davis should know better then to expect to be put ahead of the golden goose, especially since it wasn't like Davis was ripping up the sprints. He won TdU, and then nothing. Not even a dozen **** small wins.

And for the record - I do love a lot of the Aussies, and I really hope Robbie Mac can win something again before his inevitable retirement.

 

[stefank]

I agree, Plus 6 more reasons:

1.They will struggle to fund it, cycling is just not that big in Aussie for it to be long term viable.

2.Even worse the team would be full of Australians who would probably want to be kitted out in hideous green and gold kit.

3.Every time one of them won they would be yelling out "Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi!"

4.Before every race we would have to witness head butting competitions between Robbie and Stuey.

5. In a GT situation they would totally fail because it would be a case of: "I'm not riding for that wowzer he's a bloody Tasmanian!"

6. They would probably want to steal Greg Henderson to be their sprinter, claiming him as an Aussie because his wife is Australian.

As a Kiwi the whole idea makes me shudder.

This is mainly true. It's amazing that a New Zealander thought of it!

 

[Eratosthenes]

A ProTour team is NOT a national team. Don't think it is. An Australian ProTour team would be a ProTour team based in Australia (and even then it would probably be based in Europe for ready access to the major races). Because there isn't one, you make the connection of 'an Australian ProTour team' to national romanticism, but it isn't anything like that. Team Sky aren't much more British than CarmioOro-NGC, who fly the British flag as a flag of convenience. I don't see why having a team - which would either contain several non-Aussies or be completely contradictory in its goals (just as Team Sky set up sprint trains yet want to work for GC, and as a result of half-aiming for both, successfully manage neither) - is any better than supporting Cadel, or Matty Lloyd, or anybody else. In fact, from the experience of the Team Sky hype, Britons are being asked to cheer for the likes of Sutton and Henderson against British riders, and that hasn't really worked.

Your world calendar idea is similarly bogged down in romanticism (though not national this time); because the biggest races are in Europe, the biggest teams are based there. Racing elsewhere in the world from where you're based entails massive air miles, which raises costs, plus major jetlag, which lowers the amount of racing days available. The present situation is okay but not wholly satisfactory, but because the Spring Classics, the Giro, Tour and to a lesser extent the Vuelta are deeply entrenched, the big riders will ALWAYS want to do at least some of those. These races all have their relevant warmup events (Omloop, Montepaschi, Trentino, Dauphiné, Burgos) which the riders in those events will want to use to prepare, and that leaves little scope for long-distance travelling to events that do not have the same prestige or history. The UCI has acknowledged by making many of these races ProTour that the best way for these races to get good fields is to make the ProTour teams race there (Canadian races, to an extent California), or for the races to take undesirable or irrelevant spots in the calendar (TDU). A lot of reasonably limited-scope sponsors may be put off by the rising costs of sponsoring a team that has to jet around the planet - especially as many of those races will be added to the calendar at the expense of races more dear to them, both the sponsors and the riders (Lotto, QuickStep and the Tour of Belgium vs. the Tour of California, for example). In good economic times, this is perhaps not a problem, but at present, we can ill-afford to be driving sponsors away from the sport. It's great that new places want to get in on the act with cycling, but I'm afraid that, at present, cycling's Eurocentric attitude will have to be accepted, perhaps on credit to become a bit more metropolitan later.

Cheers for your considered response. I wonder though whether a team which is identified as having a national element (i.e. is talked about as being Australian and is alrgely composed of Australians) may be more attractice and draw the interest of traditional non-cycling fans who might be attracted by individual Aussie successes on protour teams but become committed with what APPEARS TO BE and is promoted as anationalistic team.

Your second paragraph points are all good ones, and as you observed my previous post was a romanticised one. However in the medium term it really should become more International and if that becomes a reality then you will attract more sponsorship money which will support it. There is large advertising potential, as was seen in the TDU. Where there is money there is a way. I enjoy an armchair view of sports (despite being continually tired), however I would like the chance in seeing top riders whizz past without having to travel 20 hours on a plane with family in tow. One day.


I also have to watch myself that I don't become too perocial (spellling?), so with the advent of Cadel's success I find myself focussing a bit too much on him. An "Australian' team, in whatever form, may also encourage this nationalism which can detract from fully enjoying the exploits of others.

 

[fatandfast]

AU will get a team when you have a brand name of kangaroo meat for export. Maybe a vegemite media blitz worldwide and samples to be given out at all the big races. I had some sheep cheese at a fancy food show that was really great I think it made somewhere in WA..Team Sheep Cheese is a catchy name for an Aussie pro team...Cadel would look cool in a wooly skin suit. Cooper's beer is an export that AU does right they should be approached for sponsorship

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Cheers for your considered response. I wonder though whether a team which is identified as having a national element (i.e. is talked about as being Australian and is alrgely composed of Australians) may be more attractice and draw the interest of traditional non-cycling fans who might be attracted by individual Aussie successes on protour teams but become committed with what APPEARS TO BE and is promoted as anationalistic team.

It may be more attractive to Australians to have a whole team to support, rather than individual riders. But the Australian riders in the pro péloton cover all facets of the sport, from sprinters like Goss, Sutton and McEwen to climbers like Lloyd and all-rounders like Evans. It isn't realistic to expect that and Australian quasi-national team would be able to reconcile the goals of riders like Evans and Porte with those of McEwen and Goss, and that would lead to splitting the team; aiming for both often means you achieve neither, because you're not fully committed to either. Australians would have more success in the current format, where the best Aussies can have their relevant teams working for them, and go to teams that suit their intentions best.

Your second paragraph points are all good ones, and as you observed my previous post was a romanticised one. However in the medium term it really should become more International and if that becomes a reality then you will attract more sponsorship money which will support it.

In the medium term perhaps, but in the short term it would be disastrous. A lot of the sponsors in the sport - especially the most long-standing - are entirely regional products. What benefit is appearing at the TDU for the French or Belgian lottery services? Or for an Italian gas company? Or a French savings bank? Or a Basque telecommunications company? The TDU does at least get broadcast in Europe, but when the sponsor's goals are relatively localised, they may be driven out of the sport by being demanded to go to all these international events, especially if they mean that they cannot attend events important to them (again, using Lotto/QS being asked to do the Giro and the Tour of California and still needing to scrabble together a team for the Tour of Belgium, which is very important to them) - in Belgium, the Tour of Belgium will have much more coverage than the Tour of California, so why would Lotto go to a race which costs them much more (travel expenses, jetlag meaning the riders involved will be out of commission for three weeks and only racing for one week of that) and gets much less coverage in their key target markets?

As a result, the sponsors you would need in your projected, globalised, international cycling market would have to be globalised, international companies. For many of them, there are easier ways to get that international exposure than sponsoring a cycling team, though there are some companies who cover multiple sports who could be appealed to - the likes of Red Bull and Virgin spring to mind. The other problem, of course, is that cycling has a negative reputation because of Clinic matters. It doesn't matter that a lot of other sports are just as bad if not worse; cycling has a negative reputation, and it will need to rebuild its international reputation before the type of sponsors required for the situation you've envisioned would be attracted to the sport. In fact, it might be more the case that the globalisation can't really happen until those sponsors have been attracted - it may be a case that the sport needs international sponsors to come in and then put the pressure on for better exposure for their home events, as has happened with the TDU and California.

There is large advertising potential, as was seen in the TDU. Where there is money there is a way. I enjoy an armchair view of sports (despite being continually tired), however I would like the chance in seeing top riders whizz past without having to travel 20 hours on a plane with family in tow. One day.

I also have to watch myself that I don't become too perocial (spellling?), so with the advent of Cadel's success I find myself focussing a bit too much on him. An "Australian' team, in whatever form, may also encourage this nationalism which can detract from fully enjoying the exploits of others.

On the contrary, I think parochialism is a threat but also traditions should be honoured. And they WILL be. In your internationalised calendar, it doesn't matter what races you put in, the most important races will be the April Classics, the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France, for the same reason that, regardless of which tracks put on the best races, the Monaco Grand Prix will always be more prestigious than the new races in Turkey, Abu Dhabi and so on, and for the same reason that Lord's holds a special place in the heart of cricket fans. You won't be able to compete wholesale with those events. Then jetlag rules out the viability of further Grand Tours or lengthy Tours in countries far removed from the Low Countries/France/Italy in and around that time of year. AToC works as a TdF prep because it's so far ahead that the riders can get over their jetlag, get some specialised prep on the TdF course, then get a quick bit of racing at the Dauphiné or the Tour de Suisse in to work for form. You couldn't put a high-profile race in, say, Japan, in the middle of June for that - it would play havoc with peoples' TdF prep, or it would attract a field almost entirely of second-stringers, the same way the Tour of Austria regularly has quite entertaining and exciting routes but will never have the top talent because of being in July.

Also you have the problem of weather - the TDU mostly has to be in an off-peak time for the best weather in Australia. If you extend the season too much, though, you're asking far too much of the riders. And because riders will always target the races most important to them - often a home race, a Grand Tour and some classics or the Worlds - very few people are prepared to give it their all in races like the TDU in January-February, and similarly, apart from the Giro di Lombardia and Paris-Tours, anything after the Worlds is only really appended on to a season that's winding down.

 

[craig1985]

So what possible relevence is there for teams to jet off and race the Tour of Qatar or the Tour de Langkawi?

 

[Winterfold]

I can see why an Ozzie team might win a lot of stuff and be successful - but still wonder why?

I can see the why for Sky quite clearly = Murdoch Jnr is into biking so they will sponsor the sport the boss likes and having SKY all over Queen Victoria's chest as she wins on the BBC must be great for them.

If a Brit rider won a GT my guess is it would go hge for them as they are genuinely putting money in at the grass roots/ everday end of things.

But right now, Sky seems like a nice collaboration between poms, antipodeans and scandies - and why not? That is a very civilised combo.

I dont know who the Aussie company is who would benefit from this - I guess some of the mining companies would benefit from some Euro exposure - but are any of them Ozzie?

 

[the_kman]

I can see why an Ozzie team might win a lot of stuff and be successful - but still wonder why?

I can see the why for Sky quite clearly = Murdoch Jnr is into biking so they will sponsor the sport the boss likes and having SKY all over Queen Victoria's chest as she wins on the BBC must be great for them.

If a Brit rider won a GT my guess is it would go hge for them as they are genuinely putting money in at the grass roots/ everday end of things.

But right now, Sky seems like a nice collaboration between poms, antipodeans and scandies - and why not? That is a very civilised combo.

I dont know who the Aussie company is who would benefit from this - I guess some of the mining companies would benefit from some Euro exposure - but are any of them Ozzie?

err bhp is aussie, its the biggest mining company in the world and its bigger then coca cola. but theyd have nothing to gain from exposure, itd be a waste of money for them.

an aussie team would be good just to boost the sport in australia and create a long term fan base. aussies will follow the sport if there is a team to go for.

but dont get me started on the old .. "aussie aussie aussie oi oi oi" f-ck its so annoying. WE REALLY NEED TO FIND SOME NEW CHANTS OR SONGS DAMMIT!

 

[Eratosthenes]

It may be more attractive to Australians to have a whole team to support, rather than individual riders. But the Australian riders in the pro péloton cover all facets of the sport, from sprinters like Goss, Sutton and McEwen to climbers like Lloyd and all-rounders like Evans. It isn't realistic to expect that and Australian quasi-national team would be able to reconcile the goals of riders like Evans and Porte with those of McEwen and Goss, and that would lead to splitting the team; aiming for both often means you achieve neither, because you're not fully committed to either. Australians would have more success in the current format, where the best Aussies can have their relevant teams working for them, and go to teams that suit their intentions best.

I agree, I wasn't saying that all of the current best Australian riders would have to join up together. Sure they should choose a basket to put their eggs in. A GC team would I think be more popular.

In the medium term perhaps, but in the short term it would be disastrous. A lot of the sponsors in the sport - especially the most long-standing - are entirely regional products. What benefit is appearing at the TDU for the French or Belgian lottery services? Or for an Italian gas company? Or a French savings bank? Or a Basque telecommunications company? The TDU does at least get broadcast in Europe, but when the sponsor's goals are relatively localised, they may be driven out of the sport by being demanded to go to all these international events, especially if they mean that they cannot attend events important to them (again, using Lotto/QS being asked to do the Giro and the Tour of California and still needing to scrabble together a team for the Tour of Belgium, which is very important to them) - in Belgium, the Tour of Belgium will have much more coverage than the Tour of California, so why would Lotto go to a race which costs them much more (travel expenses, jetlag meaning the riders involved will be out of commission for three weeks and only racing for one week of that) and gets much less coverage in their key target markets?

On the contrary, I think parochialism is a threat but also traditions should be honoured. And they WILL be. In your internationalised calendar, it doesn't matter what races you put in, the most important races will be the April Classics, the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France, for the same reason that, regardless of which tracks put on the best races, the Monaco Grand Prix will always be more prestigious than the new races in Turkey, Abu Dhabi and so on, and for the same reason that Lord's holds a special place in the heart of cricket fans. You won't be able to compete wholesale with those events.

Lotto probably wouldn't. There would be more "pro Tour" like teams, and those teams would specialise in the set of International races I assume and they would correspondingly be sponsored by companies with International exposure. (But I can see that this is very problematic with regards to who will be chosen to race the TDF and others, possibly it canly occur if the current and International races are entirely separate). Yep short term, no chance, and medium term is probably 10 to 20 years? I would think it would be an entirely different league, however the best riders would not want to miss out on TdF and major classics since there is so much money tied in. It may not work, but it should be done. Cycling is an International sport, English speaking riders are coming tot eh fore. It HAS to go International. Think of F1, motoGP, cricket, etc. Of course the International events won't all be GTs, but rather of varying sizes such as TDU sized. The person with the most points will be the world Champion (like F1). As the status and more importantly money increases it will attract more top riders, some who might not care that they miss out on the TDF, Giro, and major classics (though they are much more easily accomodated). Yep if riders were still doing the TDF then any races prior to the TDF would be poorly attended (unless that is when the British race is held so jetlag is no problem).

I don't think there will be competition with other sports necessarily, just make sure any events near those areas are not run at the same time. I think there is room for a number of International races, maybe the GTs can be a part of that, maybe not since they run so long.

 

[santacruz]

Let us Americans pray the Aussies never get their own pro team... god help us all.... it'd be kind of like Garmin, but with a lot more victories, and perhaps some good old fashioned head butting??