20 Team Pro Tour

its about time that cycling followed the logical "leauge" system employed by most other successful
pro sports...

this works great in soccer... you know who the best teams are with the mosty money and they compete
mainly in their own league against themselves... the next teirs of teams have their league and they
have their own important events and are not so much over shadowed by bigger budget teams in
publicity and they end up with their own unique places in the grand scheme... every season there are
interesting opportunities for the teams to cross over and play bigger teams who are "out of their
league"... it works great!...

there needs to be reasons other than the tour to sponsor teams.. stratisfying the competition would
start to make this happen... every team isnt top club material, but under the current system the
teams are all jumbled together so that tiny teams can quite realisticly harbor "delusions" of
participating in the tour or world cup events, when they should more realisticaly focus on a more
modest national calendar...

the sponsors of the smaller teams would end up much happier, as a league system would end up
creating marketing value for teams that cant participate in the grand tours, or world cup... right
now you have too few "winning teams" and the rest are then forcibly losers only because they dont
have the $$$ to compete and even if they did, there isnt enough space available... the only way to
create more winners is to break up the drastic slope that exists now into several graded and level
playing fields... rather than being absolutely nowhere in the big picture, a small team from itlay,
or poland, could boast being a championship team among their peers even if they never race a grand
tour or a world cup...

the bottom line is that there a lot of teams and sponsors that get choked out because the system is
too top-down and lop-sided.. thats not so good for the long-term health of the sport becasue there
are too many teams and no organization... imagine if all the minor leauge baseball teams were thrown
in with the major league teams... thats what we have now in cycling...

i have thought for a long time that the US calendar would benefit from a system like the new UCI
PRO TOUR...

"erik saunders" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

its about time that cycling followed the logical "leauge" system employed

by

Quoted message said:

most other successful pro sports...

<SNIP>

Pro Teams / Leagues work in other sports because they have a geographic fan base to pull from.
People tend to root for teams that are located close to them. The local media covers the local team,
etc. In cycling, people will tend to root for the best two or three teams / riders. The fan base
will not have the ability to put pressure on a team owner to improve the team, they'll just root for
a different team. Don't expect much change.

-T

"Tom Schulenburg" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

"erik saunders" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

its about time that cycling followed the logical "leauge" system employed

by

Quoted message said:

most other successful pro sports...

<SNIP>

Pro Teams / Leagues work in other sports because they have a geographic fan base to pull from.
People tend to root for teams that are located close to them. The local media covers the local
team, etc. In cycling, people will tend to root for the best two or three teams / riders. The fan
base will not have the ability to put pressure on a team owner to improve the team, they'll just
root for a different team. Don't expect much change.

Dumbass -

You've got your head in your stick-and-ball-sport ass.

The model which cycling is closer to is either NASCAR or Formula 1, where teams are sponsor driven,
not geographically tied.

NASCAR and Formula 1 are both very successful and they have a season long points series where all
teams enter. Due to the points race, every race will be important to the eventual outcome.

I think the proposed UCI change is a good one.

From what I've read about the plan, it is more about trying to challenge the hegemony of the TdF vis
a vis sponsorship and media than it is about Lance winning. Were the Pro Tour more prestigious than
the TdF, you can bet Lance would be racing it.

In article said:

From Pro Cycling mag's web site: tinyurl.comrbadOpen ↗

"Likely to be introduced in 2005 or 2006, the Pro Tour would be made up of 20 teams, racing on
four year licences, of maximum 25 riders who would compete in around 30 European landmark events.
Included of course, would be the three major Tours of Italy, France and Spain, all the current
World Cup races and 'hors categorie' races such as the Tour of Switzerland or the Dauphine
Libere."

As much as I think the current motivation for doing this is just sour grapes about Lance's TdF
success, I do think it's necessary for the good of the sport. There will have to be some
strategical changes to make it work but having the same 20 teams compete in the most important
races would probably have the desired effect of securing long-term sponsors.

Discuss.

--
Check out my bike blog!

diabloscott.blogspot.comdiabloscott.blogspot.comOpen ↗

Quoted message said:

--------------------------<

Posted via cyclingforums.com cyclingforums.comcyclingforums.comOpen ↗

"Kurgan Gringioni" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:Kfnkb.110604> Dumbass -

Quoted message said:

You've got your head in your stick-and-ball-sport ass.

The model which cycling is closer to is either NASCAR or Formula 1, where teams are sponsor
driven, not geographically tied.

NASCAR and Formula 1 are both very successful and they have a season long points series where all
teams enter. Due to the points race, every race

will

Quoted message said:

be important to the eventual outcome.

I think the proposed UCI change is a good one.

Dumbass -

The post I responded to used Soccer as an example of how this change would improve things. People
are fans of NECKCAR because the chance of someone crashing and dying starts the moment they fire up
the engines. Bike fans have to wait for a tricky decent or bunch sprint to get the same thrill.

-T

P.S. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, I'm saying that I don't expect it to change things very much,
if at all.