Formal Team Invitations are going out next week. We can't give you too many details yet... but, we can tell you a bit about the process.
Being a new event we are faced with some unique challenges when figuring out which teams we want and need to invite. If money was no object it would be simple, send invites out to 15 Pro Tour Teams. However, this is not the case. We are playing a giant chess match with invites... and budgets do play a role in this game.
One of the difficulties in coming up with an invite list is balancing a number of things such as budgets, UCI requirements, team schedule, and providing the highest level of competition we can. The Tour de France has it easy; everyone wants to be there and will do anything to make that happen. As a first year event we don’t have that luxury. We need to convince the Pro Tour teams that they should come to our race. Given that our event falls smack dab in the middle of the European racing calendar it’s a tough thing to do.
We are targeting a small number of Pro Tour teams and Pro Continental teams that we feel would be a good fit to our roster of 15 invites. After that we look to the domestic Continental teams to make up the balance of our 15 slots. Again that is easier said than done. The tough part is we don’t have room for all the Domestic teams. Which means some will not get an invitation. We have to look at how the teams have done this year and how they represent the sport. Like I said, it’s a big chess game of, “if this team says yes then who we will slot for the rest of the spots.”
Check back soon, as we should be able to announce our first round of accepted teams in the next week or two.
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