Pro Tour DEAD. Properly.

iainf72

Having an Australian on the squad is not really relevant. If the sponsor has no interest in the Australian market then why go? Unless there is huge TV coverage in Europe.

sportzchick

there is mainly because its a great race and because of the Australians - the crowds are going up every year and we have it showing globally

mangaman

One thing I wonder about are about the fundamental rules of road racing

Obviously the UCI have set these up to now eg limiting developments in bike technology

Will the new organisation set it's own rules - I can't see it sticking to UCI regulations
A new organisation run by ASO/ING or whoever will want to set it's own rules

You could imagine them scrapping limits on bike weight / design or banning race radios for example, with a "Formula 1 style" technical arms race developing

This would be interesting, but would surely make it impossible for smaller teams to slot into races like the Giro or Vuelta

I can forsee 2 parallel series of race calendars (like darts has) with a closed shop of top teams in one, and a separate UCI run one, with different basic rules

RichN95.

Kléber wrote:

You can have a F1 GP anywhere. Apart from Monaco, it's often impossible to tell if the race is in Dubai or Donnington, as the cars lap a soulless circuit. Cycling is the opposite, you know where Wallers Arenberg is, the Mur de Huy, the Poggio or the Tourmalet.

It's fine setting up races in South Africa, Russia and China but they have to take time to build up. You can't put a new race on, add the word "-Classic" to its name and expect it to be a success, in terms of TV audiences, local population attending or the motivation of riders to do it. The UCI should put these races on and see if generous offers from race organisers can tempt riders and teams to take part, not force them to ride.

No new calender would abandon the great races. Playing tennis on grass is as big an anachronism as cycling over cobbled farming tracks - but Wimbledon is still a big event as it has the history and prestige. The same applies to Paris-Roubaix. But do we really need the Eneco Tour, the Tour of Poland, Plouay, HEW Cyclassics and the Tour of Catalunya on a ProTour calender. Couldn't they be replaced (only if it makes financial sense for teams and organisers) with races outside Europe.

Kléber

By all means have an Aussie race, just don't make it compulsory for every team to go there. Many riders took part in the Tour Down Under when it wasn't in the Pro Tour. You get sunshine, early season miles and it's a fun holiday with little pressure to perform for the big riders. A great idea. But no need for force every team to buy a licence and then to have to do every race, let teams pick where they want to race.

RichN95.

Kléber wrote:

By all means have an Aussie race, just don't make it compulsory for every team to go there. Many riders took part in the Tour Down Under when it wasn't in the Pro Tour. You get sunshine, early season miles and it's a fun holiday with little pressure to perform for the big riders. A great idea. But no need for force every team to buy a licence and then to have to do every race, let teams pick where they want to race.

Exactly. It should be compulsory to invite the ProTour teams, not for them to accept.

There should be less PT teams (14 perhaps) and they should have their right to be invited suspended for a few months if they have a doping violation.

bipedal

Kléber wrote:

By all means have an Aussie race, just don't make it compulsory for every team to go there. Many riders took part in the Tour Down Under when it wasn't in the Pro Tour. You get sunshine, early season miles and it's a fun holiday with little pressure to perform for the big riders. A great idea. But no need for force every team to buy a licence and then to have to do every race, let teams pick where they want to race.

Exactly... loads of teams will still attend the TDU

top_bhoy

I'm thinking that maybe cycling should get a little less parochial and be pro-active more in attracting bigger name sponsors. Why is it many other sports can attract the likes of relly big-time names such as Pepsi, Coca Cola, etc yet cycling struggles.

Presently, having races outside of europe is seen as a deterent to pro-cycling but why not take the other approach. Having races, in particular asia, the likes of pepsi, Coca-cola, sony, panasonic (again), microsoft, etc., can be attracted to become sponsors. The asian market is so huge, it makes no sense for pro cycling to ignore it.

sportzchick

bipedal wrote:

Kléber wrote:

By all means have an Aussie race, just don't make it compulsory for every team to go there. Many riders took part in the Tour Down Under when it wasn't in the Pro Tour. You get sunshine, early season miles and it's a fun holiday with little pressure to perform for the big riders. A great idea. But no need for force every team to buy a licence and then to have to do every race, let teams pick where they want to race.

Exactly... loads of teams will still attend the TDU

and if is not compusary to come, how cant you be so sure

sometimes I think you guys are so narrow minded in terms of growing the sport ouside your own continet

RichN95.

You make it worth their while - get in big sponsors - sell it properly to TV - then offer appearance money and big prize money.

If the Aussies can't make it happen, then find a country that can.

sportzchick

youve just prove my point mate

Kléber

By all means have new events but you can't ignore 100 years of history. From Eugene Christophe's tale in Campan to the legends of the Mur de Huy, cycling is based on legend and more. There is room to build additional races, look at the excellent Tour of California.

If you get a great local race in California or Australia, far better to have willing European pros battling out with local talent, rather than Pro Tour only riders making up the numbers to the exclusion of local teams.

iainf72

sportzchick wrote:

Exactly... loads of teams will still attend the TDU

and if is not compusary to come, how cant you be so sure

sometimes I think you guys are so narrow minded in terms of growing the sport ouside your own continet[/quote]

History tells us some teams will go - There have always been a few euro-teams going down to Oz for TdU. It's a nice training race - But why force people to go? If you're so interested in expanding the sport wouldn't it make more sense to have some top tier teams, perhaps a few teams from Asia etc etc?

Look at the Tour of California - They didn't want to be a PT race because they prefered to be able to invite some American teams etc.
[/list]

leguape

Top_Bhoy wrote:

I'm thinking that maybe cycling should get a little less parochial and be pro-active more in attracting bigger name sponsors. Why is it many other sports can attract the likes of relly big-time names such as Pepsi, Coca Cola, etc yet cycling struggles.

Presently, having races outside of europe is seen as a deterent to pro-cycling but why not take the other approach. Having races, in particular asia, the likes of pepsi, Coca-cola, sony, panasonic (again), microsoft, etc., can be attracted to become sponsors. The asian market is so huge, it makes no sense for pro cycling to ignore it.

Big brands don't sponsor sport unless they can see clear benefits to market penetration (see previous Garmin example). Almost all of them have sold themselves into new territories on the back of football, ten to fifteen years ago. It's not the big western brands you need to attract, it's the big regional brands.

The danger of attracting those brands as race sponsors can easily be seen in the fate of the Tour Of Britain in the 1990s. In ain't pretty and it's why Amstel Gold is the exception rather than the rule.

andy_wrx

The big teams (plus Phil Liggett ) have been going to Tour Down Under for several years, as well as Langkawi and more recently Qatar, because they were well organised races with good organisation, hotels & infrastructure, etc and were in sunny climes at a time when it was off-season in cold&wet Europe.

They could send their junior guys out there and use it as a training race to gain experience.

This year TDO was in ProTour and - apart from Aussies in their home race - how many other big names did the teams send ?

blazing_saddles

Well, here's one piece of negative theory, regarding the dumping of the PT.
Yates announces on air (ESUK) today, that Astana will now cut their rota for next year. Assuming other teams take this obvious, cost-cutting measure, riders will be competing for fewer jobs.
It's bound to come down to being performance related and we all know what that can so easily lead to.....

top_bhoy

leguape wrote:

Big brands don't sponsor sport unless they can see clear benefits to market penetration (see previous Garmin example). Almost all of them have sold themselves into new territories on the back of football, ten to fifteen years ago. It's not the big western brands you need to attract, it's the big regional brands.

The danger of attracting those brands as race sponsors can easily be seen in the fate of the Tour Of Britain in the 1990s. In ain't pretty and it's why Amstel Gold is the exception rather than the rule.

I'd argue that the asian market, in particular, China, there are still huge inroads to make for many companies. For instance, how many PS3s or X-Boxes could Sony or Microsoft sell there, or coca-cola, even if it takes 1% market share away from Pepsi....what would that do for them?

There are only a relatively few sponsors in football, plenty of scope for other sports to produce a product good enough for companies to want to sponsor. Needs a bit of imagination, good marketing and dare I say it - a sport where its not perceived as the norm to take performance enhancing drugs. If I was a big brand sponsor, I'd be reluctant to endorse a sport where this perception was commonplace.

To save me time googling, what happened

The danger of attracting those brands as race sponsors can easily be seen in the fate of the Tour Of Britain in the 1990s. In ain't pretty and it's why Amstel Gold is the exception rather than the rule

? I can't remember anything particularly nasty happening even though I attended several events in Glasgow during that era.

aurelio_-_banned

Ms Tree wrote:

Secondo me (In my small opinion) the ProTour was Verbruggen's idea and McQuaid has got landed with it - although I think I am right in saying Verbruggen still has some sort of job at the UCI? Plus one with Olympics? How much is he on?

In reality `Puppet` Pat McQuaid was Verbruggen`s place-man. Remember all that hoo-ha about the UCI being non-democratic when Verbruggen called for all delegates to vote for McQuaid when Verbruggen`s time was up but he was still President?

Vebruggen still has a position in the UCI - as Vice President and member of the Executive Board!

http://www.uci.ch/templates/UCI/UCI1/la ... Id=MTI2Njc