UCI to introduce 3 tier league system

Not sure what to think of this. Does it mean world tour teams won't be able to race in the smaller tours like the tour of Britain?

I need to read in to it a bit more but it's all looking a bit "football" for me.

Paul 8v wrote:

Also, would this put the end to invites in Grand tours for the pro tour teams?

Edit:

having looked at in more detail it looks like they can still race them but it wouldn't help them with their ranking, for example Movistar could ride the tour of Britain and it wouldn't count towards their points and vice versa with a pro tour team

I think you must be right there, otherwise the "Division 2" races would only have 8 teams riding in them! So Div 3 and Div 1 teams must be allowed to race if they wish.

Either way, 8 teams in Division 2 doesn't seem like many. Can anyone hazard a guess why this will be the case? Ensure that "talent" isn't too spread out over Division 2 teams?

RichN95 wrote:

It's hard to tell exactly what will be what from just one graphic, but the cycling calendar is long overdue a big overhaul and this looks like a move in the right direction.

Agreed. Any proposed calendar that doesn't involve overlap between the top tier races (e.g T-A and P-N) is to be commended.

As Rich said, hard to tell from the info so far.

A few off the top of my head comments:

1) No overlap in WT races is probably designed to make TV rights more saleable, increasing revenue. Knock on effect is better investment for sponsors. The win you got in a WT race won't be relegated to 5 minutes of highlights because the race was competing with another WT race for bidding/scheduling. This is a good idea.

2) Smaller WT teams as they don't need to cover two races at the same time? Probably not that much smaller, the riders cant race all year, but there needs to be some protection for domestiques in this, or some poor bastard will open his Gmail calendar and BOOM.

3) Reduced costs through a more efficient calendar? Teams might be able to trim budgets quite a bit by not having to race in two events on the same day, which makes sponsorship a little cheaper - again a good idea.

4) If I owned a 2nd level race I'd be worried. If the WT spreads itself out then whenever you race you'll be in competition with a higher level race. Can't see much in it for second level races, other than guarantee of the 8 second level teams, which would include a few of what are now WT teams. They might possibly gain a few WT teams by invite, for riders nor scheduled to ride a WT race for a while. But that would depend on how much the WT teams pared back their operations.

5) Relegation/promotion of teams - OK, gives a reason to stick with and invest in a 2nd level team, though failing WT teams may haemorrhage sponsors. But what about races? Can they move up and down categories, and if so, how?

6) Small amount of teams and low number of race days at 2nd level signals this is a "transition zone" - it's there to blur the boundaries. Races will be made up of a mix of WT, 2nd and pro-conti teams. 2nd level teams will be guaranteed quite a few invites to WT events.

In general, I think I'm positive, but the devil will be in the details, and as others have mentioned this is ripe to fall foul of the law of unintended consequences. If it works, it could stabilise cycling through the various levels of races and teams, if it goes pear shaped, then we see an elite top level leave everything else to wither and die.

Interesting ...