NCL cancels Miami Nights’ 2024 season
The Miami Nights’ 2024 season has been canceled. The National Cycling League (NCL), which owns the pro cycling team, announced on Monday that it is ceasing operations for 2024. The NCL hopes to be back for the 2025 season.
Multiple outlets have reported that riders and staff were notified via a Zoom call, which lasted less than five minutes and where attendees were not allowed to ask any questions.
“One of the goals for the National Cycling League has been to build on the current domestic cycling scene,” said Andrea Pagnanelli, NCL CEO via a press release. “For us to reach this goal in this market, we felt that pausing our 2024 plans to adjust our model will allow us to come back even stronger in the future.”
The NCL, which debuted in 2023 with two full co-ed teams, The Miami Nights and Denver Disruptors, and was adding a new team, Atlanta Rise, in 2024, promised to bring back professional cycling to the United States. The NCL teams competed against each other and a host of other cycling teams in the NCL Cup, which offered points-based criterium races in each of the team’s host cities.
The Miami Nights’ 2024 season was looking promising as the team won the NCL Cup in 2023.
“Pausing our 2024 plans affects many teams and riders, and we are working with everyone individually to help them through 2024 and to position everyone for success in 2025,” said Reed McCalvin, VP of Operations and Teams in a press release.
Riders and staff had signed non-disclosure agreements and, according to VeloNews, were told that those agreements were still in effect. VeloNews also reported that riders were paid through April and top riders salary was said to be just $3,000 per season.