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No ProTour, no problem (updated)

Posted on 29. Sep, 2009 by Josh in Bike Racing, Sports Business

After the UCI announced that Bbox-Bouygues Telecom and Cofidis would not be asked back to the ProTour – although both are assured of a spot in the Tour de France – Bbox manager Jean-René Bernaudeau commented:

This decision will not prevent us from progressing more quickly. It doesn’t change much. Concerning our participation in the Grand Tours, we are covered by the contract signed by the 18 ProTour teams in London in 2008 that expires in 2010… We have a loyal sponsor who supports us. We’re held to the same objectives and this decision will not change them.

In other words:

We’ll still race the races that are important to us and we’ll race in fewer races that aren’t so important.

Other than the embarrassment of getting kicked out of the ProTour club, there’s little downside for these teams. In fact, Cofidis stated last year that they weren’t planning on re-upping their ProTour license, although they eventually changed their minds. Bbox, meanwhile, has never shown much interest in racing outside of France – they’re currently ranked 21^st on Cycling Quotient but 4^th in the Coupe de France. And like Jean-René said, they’re still on board for the Grand Tours and, I imagine, for other races promoted by RCS (Giro), ASO (Tour), and Unipublic (Vuelta). It seems that the biggest risk is that they might not race the Tour Down Under.

Meanwhile, the UCI has given the top 3 non-ProTour teams the option to race any ProTour event, which leaves us with:

• A ProTour license doesn’t determine a team’s status with the organizers of the Grand Tours.
• Teams don’t necessarily care about racing the ProTour’s full calendar, which is pretty uninspiring to begin with.
• If a team gets good results, they can pick and choose the ProTour events that they actually want to race.

So… um… what’s the point of the ProTour?

Addendum

The guy in the picture, Pierrick Fédrigo wants out, saying “I also have to think about me and my ambitions at the highest level.” Fair enough. My argument above refers to the set of incentives faced by team managers, not riders. For the latter, their future income depends on results at the kind of high-profile races that the managers of Bbox and Cofidis may now choose to skip. Fédrigo in particular is a former French national champion and Tour stage winner… and he’s in a contract year. So if Bbox opts for a lower-profile schedule, he’ll have fewer opportunities to increase the value of his next deal. I don’t mean to say that Pierrick’s motivation is purely financial but I’m sure it’s crossed his mind.