"If the foundation weakens, everything collapses": Pogacar's agent on how to 'save' cycling's second division

The richest grow stronger while average men starve. That's one way to summarize the current situation of the two top cycling divisions. The difference between top WorldTour teams and bottom-tier ProTeams is absolutely abyssmal and thus the many sponsors of these smaller teams pulling out is a logical, yet saddening outcome of the little-to-no regulation of the transfer market from the governing body UCI. And at this pace, there will be barely any ProTeams left in a few years if no precautions are taken.

Rider super-agent Alex Carera followed with excitement as Uno-X Mobility in 2026, or teams like Alpecin-Deceuninck in years prior, were able to secure themselves a promotion to WorldTour from the second category. In the future, he sees teams such as Tudor and Q36.5 taking the step up as well, but UCI has some work to do on making the ProTeam category truly competitive and interesting for sponsors.

"For that to happen, new sponsors need a clear framework, guarantees, and a coherent calendar," Carera said in comments for Cyclism'Actu.

"Currently, a new team can easily find a sponsor willing to invest 3, 4, or 5 million euros to join the ProTeam ranks. If they then achieve results, earn invitations to the Tour de France, the Giro d'Italia, the Vuelta a España, or Paris-Roubaix, then the sponsor might consider investing more. But for that to happen, ProTeams need to have real prospects."

The current situation doesn't support this as new teams in ProTour are at the mercy of race organizers for any interesting wildcards as they tend to favor settled structures from the upper echelons of PRT level. "The problem is that only the WorldTour calendar is clear. ProTeams are operating in the dark. They need to be guaranteed a transparent sporting path and a genuine opportunity to win."

Carera proposes a simple solution. To restrict the access to 1.1 and 2.1 category races for WorldTour teams. This should bear two benefits. One is that smaller WorldTour team will no longer be able to sustain themselves in the UCI ranking through smaller races. The second, more important for Carera, is to build a level playing field for ProTeams where they can dictate the pace and have a success of their own.

"If the best teams in the world can field their riders everywhere, they win the biggest races… and also the 30 smaller ones. This crushes the ecosystem. We end up with 5 teams winning 250 races per season. That's not healthy. I don't want to prevent ProTeams from racing Milano-Sanremo or Paris-Roubaix via wildcard. I simply want there to be races where they can win as well."

"The UCI has created a WorldTour league. It now needs to create a true ProTeam league with its own calendar. Each team would then have the same number of race days, making the rankings much more realistic."

According to Carera, if UCI doesn't make a move to help ProTeams exist in the world of super-teams, there may not be any in a few years. And that could be the start of the end of road cycling.

"If the foundation weakens, everything collapses. The foundation of professional cycling is the ProTeams. If there are only five left tomorrow, then it will become almost impossible to see new teams emerge and reach the WorldTour one day. It's simple math," Carera comments.

"So saying it's 'against UAE' is ridiculous. Winning the Tour de France, the UAE Tour, Paris-Roubaix, the World Championships… that's essential for a great team. The total number of victories doesn't change that. The problem is that the big teams also take the smaller races that the ProTeams should be able to win. This harms the diversity of cycling."