Are more ProTour teams somehow diluting the talent pool?

Pokerface

Currently 18 licences, but 21 teams will want one next year. UCI can expand the number to 20 if they chose to.

So - someone will be left out.

Question is - is having more ProTour teams somehow diluting the talent pool? Or does it actually improve competition?


And who will/should be left out of the 'top' tier?


Thoughts?

Tempestas

Simple to determine which to leave out, the one with the most riders who have tested positive

But yeah, seems daft to limit the number of Pro teams...after all, the more teams the more open the racing will be and the easier it will be for riders to make the step up for the amateur ranks, without having the need to dope to get good enough results to turn pro in the first place.

bikerZA

It's likely to create something akin to the English Premier League - there are 21 top teams, 3 or 4 of which are likely to battle it out to win the best races, the rest are fighting for the scraps they can get, while the lower end team are worried about losing sponsors and getting booted our of the ProTour. And once a Pro Conti team comes into the ProTour, unless they have a huge budget, they're unlikely to do well.

teagar

bikerZA wrote:

It's likely to create something akin to the English Premier League - there are 21 top teams, 3 or 4 of which are likely to battle it out to win the best races, the rest are fighting for the scraps they can get, while the lower end team are worried about losing sponsors and getting booted our of the ProTour. And once a Pro Conti team comes into the ProTour, unless they have a huge budget, they're unlikely to do well.

You make it sound like it's a bad thing that it might be akin to the premier league?

It's only the most watched league in the world.

I don't think cycling will end up like that, simply because when push comes to shove, only one guy can win, and if he thinks he has a good chance, he won't do the work for someone else.

Just get rid of team time trials and it's all fine!

prawny

bikerZA wrote:

It's likely to create something akin to the English Premier League - there are 21 top teams, 3 or 4 of which are likely to battle it out to win the best races, the rest are fighting for the scraps they can get, while the lower end team are worried about losing sponsors and getting booted our of the ProTour. And once a Pro Conti team comes into the ProTour, unless they have a huge budget, they're unlikely to do well.

Cervelo are doing ok?

jim one

prawny wrote:

bikerZA wrote:

It's likely to create something akin to the English Premier League - there are 21 top teams, 3 or 4 of which are likely to battle it out to win the best races, the rest are fighting for the scraps they can get, while the lower end team are worried about losing sponsors and getting booted our of the ProTour. And once a Pro Conti team comes into the ProTour, unless they have a huge budget, they're unlikely to do well.

Cervelo are doing ok?

They have an 8million euro budget per year which is bigger than some pro tour teams and allows them to have Hushovd and Sastre etc so results should be expected of them.

prawny

jim one wrote:

prawny wrote:

bikerZA wrote:

It's likely to create something akin to the English Premier League - there are 21 top teams, 3 or 4 of which are likely to battle it out to win the best races, the rest are fighting for the scraps they can get, while the lower end team are worried about losing sponsors and getting booted our of the ProTour. And once a Pro Conti team comes into the ProTour, unless they have a huge budget, they're unlikely to do well.

Cervelo are doing ok?

They have an 8million euro budget per year which is bigger than some pro tour teams and allows them to have Hushovd and Sastre etc so results should be expected of them.

That showed me! I thought I heard they had a small budget :oops:

afx237vi

jim one wrote:

prawny wrote:

bikerZA wrote:

It's likely to create something akin to the English Premier League - there are 21 top teams, 3 or 4 of which are likely to battle it out to win the best races, the rest are fighting for the scraps they can get, while the lower end team are worried about losing sponsors and getting booted our of the ProTour. And once a Pro Conti team comes into the ProTour, unless they have a huge budget, they're unlikely to do well.

Cervelo are doing ok?

They have an 8million euro budget per year which is bigger than some pro tour teams and allows them to have Hushovd and Sastre etc so results should be expected of them.

Yes, but it proves that it doesn't make a blind bit of difference whether you have a Pro Tour or a Pro Conti license. All that matters is your budget and the riders on your payroll - same as it's always been.

Team Sky or Radio Shack could get a Pro Conti license and still get into whatever races they wanted to get into.

bikerZA

afx237vi wrote:

jim one wrote:

prawny wrote:

bikerZA wrote:

It's likely to create something akin to the English Premier League - there are 21 top teams, 3 or 4 of which are likely to battle it out to win the best races, the rest are fighting for the scraps they can get, while the lower end team are worried about losing sponsors and getting booted our of the ProTour. And once a Pro Conti team comes into the ProTour, unless they have a huge budget, they're unlikely to do well.

Cervelo are doing ok?

They have an 8million euro budget per year which is bigger than some pro tour teams and allows them to have Hushovd and Sastre etc so results should be expected of them.

Yes, but it proves that it doesn't make a blind bit of difference whether you have a Pro Tour or a Pro Conti license. All that matters is your budget and the riders on your payroll - same as it's always been.

Team Sky or Radio Shack could get a Pro Conti license and still get into whatever races they wanted to get into.

True, but more often than not, a sponsor willing to pay significant amounts to a team wants to see it as a ProTour team, not a Pro Conti..

dennisn

I'm not really sold on the idea that more money equals a better team. Plenty of Pro sports teams around the world that don't have monster budgets and they still win their share
of titles. By the same token some monster budget teams win a few also. I suppose the big
money ones have a bit of advantage but it doesn't always hold true.

finchy

teagar wrote:

You make it sound like it's a bad thing that it might be akin to the premier league?

It's only the most watched league in the world.

Just get rid of team time trials and it's all fine!

And McDonalds is the most popular restaurant in the world. Still shite, though. I think what the poster meant is that it will end up being a closed shop with only a few teams being able to chase the major prizes - like the Premier League, fine if you support one of the 4 (possibly now 5) big teams, utter crap for everyone else.

You're right though, that probably won't happen in cycling - there are too many big races throughout the season and there will always be teams who want to concentrate on winning classics more than a grand tour. If you count the number of teams that have won a grand tour jersey, classic or short tour in the past couple of seasons, you'd get... well, can't be bothered to count, but I would imagine it's in double figures.

+1 for team time trials as well. An utter snore fest interrupted by the occasional comedy accident.

afx237vi

johnfinch wrote:

teagar wrote:

You make it sound like it's a bad thing that it might be akin to the premier league?

It's only the most watched league in the world.

Just get rid of team time trials and it's all fine!

And McDonalds is the most popular restaurant in the world. Still shite, though. I think what the poster meant is that it will end up being a closed shop with only a few teams being able to chase the major prizes - like the Premier League, fine if you support one of the 4 (possibly now 5) big teams, utter crap for everyone else.

You're right though, that probably won't happen in cycling - there are too many big races throughout the season and there will always be teams who want to concentrate on winning classics more than a grand tour. If you count the number of teams that have won a grand tour jersey, classic or short tour in the past couple of seasons, you'd get... well, can't be bothered to count, but I would imagine it's in double figures.

+1 for team time trials as well. An utter snore fest interrupted by the occasional comedy accident.

That's because there are 3 grand tours and 5 classics in one season, but only one league title. Cycling is just as much a closed shop as football. USP / Disco / Astana have won 14 grand tours since 1999... their nearest rival is Saeco / Lampre, who won 3. How is that different to the big 4 football clubs buying all the talent and making the Premiership a snoozefest each year?

drenkrom

More money does not necessarily make a better team. Case in point: Cofidis. Among the biggest budgets teams for many years, but the results... More money helps, of course, when used wisely.

Pro Tour licensing seems more based on politics and sponsor stability guarantees than true sporting merit. To me, it's more like a reservoir of safe teams that are sure not to disintegrate mid-season than a higher level of sport. Following that, more ProTeams shouldn't dilute the talent pool, as the team budget is pretty much fixed before the license is awarded and the teams will exist, with the PT license or without it. It is gearing up to be quite a riders' transfer market this year, though.

LangerDan

The current "limit" of 20 teams is fairly close to the sports maximum capacity. Most big events will have field limits of 150 - 200 riders, due to road capacity. (I think that in the late '80s, the TdF fields got to ~ 220, but the event looked overcrowded)

If you increase the number of PT teams, plus allowing for wildcard PC squads, the only way to accommodate them is reduce the number of riders each squad can enter in races, so it doesn't really improve matters.

finchy

afx237vi wrote:

johnfinch wrote:

teagar wrote:

You make it sound like it's a bad thing that it might be akin to the premier league?

It's only the most watched league in the world.

Just get rid of team time trials and it's all fine!

And McDonalds is the most popular restaurant in the world. Still shite, though. I think what the poster meant is that it will end up being a closed shop with only a few teams being able to chase the major prizes - like the Premier League, fine if you support one of the 4 (possibly now 5) big teams, utter crap for everyone else.

You're right though, that probably won't happen in cycling - there are too many big races throughout the season and there will always be teams who want to concentrate on winning classics more than a grand tour. If you count the number of teams that have won a grand tour jersey, classic or short tour in the past couple of seasons, you'd get... well, can't be bothered to count, but I would imagine it's in double figures.

+1 for team time trials as well. An utter snore fest interrupted by the occasional comedy accident.

That's because there are 3 grand tours and 5 classics in one season, but only one league title. Cycling is just as much a closed shop as football. USP / Disco / Astana have won 14 grand tours since 1999... their nearest rival is Saeco / Lampre, who won 3. How is that different to the big 4 football clubs buying all the talent and making the Premiership a snoozefest each year?

Er, that was exactly the point that I was making - that there are enough prizes to go round in cycling, unlike football, and that the grand tours aren't the be all and end all of cycling.

Even if you couldn't manage a grand tour or a monument, a team on a small budget could still make its season worthwhile by taking races like Het Volk, Paris-Tours, G-W, Switzerland...

USP/Astana/Disco winning 14 grand tours since 1999 - that leaves 17 that they haven't won (when you say since, are you counting the 1999 season?), and Vino's Vuelta was from a time when Astana and DiCh were rivals.

Compare that to the footie, where the prizes worth winning - league, FA Cup, Champions League, UEFA Cup - have been won by only 7 teams since the Pr£mi£r League came into being. Unless your team is going to massively overspend (Portsmouth, Blackburn), or you are an Everton fan, forget it, you're not going to win anything and you know it. That said, the bottom of the table can be a good laugh - sorry Newcastle fans

guv001

johnfinch wrote:

And McDonalds is the most popular restaurant in the world. Still shite, though.

Now that is purely your opinion. I'm lovin it......

teagar

guv001 wrote:

johnfinch wrote:

And McDonalds is the most popular restaurant in the world. Still shite, though.

Now that is purely your opinion. I'm lovin it......

I'm guessing you think McDonalds is more or less as shite as all the big chain fast food outlets. Don't hate the player (or to continue the analogy, the league), hate the game!

If that makes any sense whatsoever.

takethehighroad

johnfinch wrote:

Even if you couldn't manage a grand tour or a monument, a team on a small budget could still make its season worthwhile by taking races like Het Volk, Paris-Tours, G-W, Switzerland...

I'm not sure about this, if we look in the recent past, it's always been the bigger teams that have won these races, save for last season when Gilbert won Het Volk and Paris Tours. But that didn't particularly make FdJ's season, just meant that they lost Gilbert to one of the big boys.

To give it a football analogy, it's like my team, Sheffield United, unearthing two quality players last season but ultimately being unsuccesful and so having to sell them to one of the big boys (Tottenham) because they offered enough money.

finchy

teagar wrote:

I'm guessing you think McDonalds is more or less as shite as all the big chain fast food outlets. Don't hate the player (or to continue the analogy, the league), hate the game!

If that makes any sense whatsoever.

Pretty much. I was just using it as an example.

finchy

TakeTheHighRoad wrote:

johnfinch wrote:

Even if you couldn't manage a grand tour or a monument, a team on a small budget could still make its season worthwhile by taking races like Het Volk, Paris-Tours, G-W, Switzerland...

I'm not sure about this, if we look in the recent past, it's always been the bigger teams that have won these races, save for last season when Gilbert won Het Volk and Paris Tours. But that didn't particularly make FdJ's season, just meant that they lost Gilbert to one of the big boys.

To give it a football analogy, it's like my team, Sheffield United, unearthing two quality players last season but ultimately being unsuccesful and so having to sell them to one of the big boys (Tottenham) because they offered enough money.

Who, in your opinion, is a big team, and who is a small team?

Would you consider Credit Agricole (RIP) a small team, and their green jersey a few years back a success that would make the season?

And Francaise des Jeux won Paris-Tours twice in three years - would you consider that as being worth a season's investment of time and money?

I suppose that it all depends on how you define major success, but any of the top-level teams might point to their record and say well, we've done x, y and z, and on our budget we're very happy with this - except Cofidis, obviously.