The UCI has published the list of professional teams who have requested to register for the 2024 season, with the same 18 2023 men’s WorldTour teams applying for licences for 2024, 16 women’s teams applying for the 15 available places as Women’s WorldTour teams, and 17 men’s teams applying for Pro Team status.
The UCI announcement confirms that Jumbo-Visma and Soudal-QuickStep intend to continue as separate entities after negotiations to form a mega team ended in early October.
Jumbo-Visma are listed as Blanco Pro Cycling Team in the UCI list of teams. That is the name of the team’s management company, with Visma and Lease a Bike expected to be named as title sponsors.
All the other teams look set to continue their 2023 WorldTour status, with Arkea adding B&B Hotels as a second sponsor, while Intermarché-Wanty have lost Circus as a title sponsor.
A number of team changes are expected for the Women’s WorldTour in 2024. EF Education-TIBCO SVB are folding and Jayco AlUla and Liv-TeqFind have merged into one team under the former’s name. That has created slots for new teams.
AG Insurance-Soudal Quick-Step, Ceratizit-WNT Pro Cycling and Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi are the three teams trying to move up from the Continental level.
Rankings-wise, Ceratizit-WNT performed best of the three in 2023, finishing 11th overall in the team ranking, with AG Insurance in 13th and the Basque team down in 25th.
Three of this year’s teams were listed on the press release with different names with Jumbo-Visma women now under Blanco Pro Cycling Women, Israel-Premier Tech Roland just as Roland and Uno-X as Uno-X Mobility.
Human Powered Health and Bolton Equities Black Spoke absent from 2024 men's ProTeam list
There were 18 men’s ProTeams in 2023 but the US-registered Human Powered Health team and New Zealand’s Bolton Equities Black Spoke team are absent from the 2024 list.
Both teams have struggled to find new sponsors. TDT-Unibet have been added to the list as they work to step up from Continental to ProTeam level.
Other teams may still apply for ProTeam status for 2024 before the final deadline but face a race against time and extra costs. Continental teams are registered with national federations and follow a simplified process.
The UCI list of teams is important for riders under contract with the teams not listed. Under the UCI's rules, they can now terminate their contracts prematurely and sign with other teams. We can expect a number of WorldTour and ProTeams to conclude deals with riders and announce some last-minute signings as they complete their rosters.
The teams’ licence applications include sponsorship information, budgets, bank guarantees, rider contracts and staff structure. They will all now be studied in detail by the UCI Licence Commission and external auditor PwC to check they respect the sporting, administrative, ethical, financial and organisational criteria and the UCI regulations.
The UCI said it will issue a press release on 12 December, when the decisions of the Licence Commission have been communicated to the UCI and the teams.
Thanks to the points scored in 2023, Lotto-Dstny and Israel-PremierTech will receive automatic invitations to all the WorldTour races, including the Tour de France, with Uno-X invited to the one-day WorldTour races.
The other ProTeams, including TotalEnergies, Tudor Pro Cycling and Q36.5 will have to pitch to race organisers for the final two or three Grand Tour wild card places and other race invitations.
