On UCI pro teams... can you help a brother out?
I know that there are several levels of UCI professional ranks and there are a handful (dozen or so?) top level teams, but I'm still having a hard time putting it all together, made more confusing (or clear, maybe) by moments like this:
This is of course, an Ineos Grenadier (an off-road vehicle for sale this year?) loaded up with bikes from Team Ineos Grenadiers (a UCI racing team, formerly Team Ineos, Team Sky), and with the livery of the same team... Ok, so I understand that sponsorship plays a large role in all teams/names/branding to some extent, so then what is the continuity of UCI teams? Is it team managers/directors who organize the teams? Most teams don't seem to have any sense of place (or do they?) even though some are (quasi) national teams or have nationalism branded into them. It seems like some teams come and go in the night with/out lack of funding... how does this work? Or do I just need to breathe it all in until it makes sense?
You have teams that have been around for a very long time but they change sponsors so the name of the team changes. Quickstep, for instance have strictly speaking been in existence since 2003, but they themselves were formed after the Mapei team went under due to the sponsor pulling out. Quickstep were a junior sponsor so formed a team with a lot of the riders from the former Mapei squad.
Similarly, JumboVisma have been around for an age but were most well known as the Rabobank squad from the 90s/00s. It was after one too many drug busts that they pulled out and they've had various sponsors since then. Similarly, Movistar are probably most well known as the Banesto team that Indurain won his 5 Tours and 2 Giros with. I think they're the longest running team in the sport, having been formed in 1980.
That's probably the common model, with sponsors backing a team who are then named after them, but the team is owned by a separate body, with a notable exception being the EF squad, which is actually owned by EF Education First. Having spoken to Vaughters, they very much believe that gives them the security to take a more long-term approach to things. As you say, teams can come and go very quickly. A famous example was Team Coast from 2003, who had guys like Ullrich and Zulle in the ranks, but they were beset by financial troubles and the team folded halfway through the season, with Bianchi stepping in and keeping the team going for the rest of the year before it folded for good.
The nature of the sport means that few teams have much in the way of a base, with riders typically living somewhere right from a terrain/weather/tax perspective (Girona, Monaco/Nice, Sierra Nevada, Andorra etc.) and they do their own training outside of dedicated training camps and then meet up for races. Most riders are essentially contractors rather than employees (think Uber as a comparison). The team sponsorship is complicated by individual sponsorship for particular riders. For instance, I think most of the wages of Peter Sagan and Mark Cavendish are paid by their individual sponsors rather than team sponsors.
You will get teams with a national or regional identity. For instance, the Euskatel squad famously only used Basque riders, and Rabobank would have a strong Dutch core to the team. Even today Quickstep will have a core of classics men from the Benelux as that's their bread and butter, with Movistar similarly having a lot of Spanish climbers. Bora tend to have a lot of riders from central Europe. One of the nice things about the sport though, for me at least, is that fans tend to cheer on everyone, and while they may have favourite riders, it's less common to follow particular teams, with most happy just to see good racing.
