NCL Cup Atlanta Invitational changes date and venue
This article originally appeared on Velo News
On Tuesday afternoon, the National Cycling League (NCL) announced the date and venue for the third race in the NCL Cup series.
The Atlanta Invitational, originally scheduled to be the second race of the series on May 14, will now take place on August 20, 2023.
The league says that it changed the date in order to accommodate a new host venue -- the Porsche Experience Center Atlanta, “a world class venue that has never hosted a cycling race before,” according to the NCL.
With the date change, the NCL Cup will see a large gap between its first and second races -- the Miami Invitational was last weekend, and Denver will now be the second event on August 13.
The updated Atlanta date and venue come on the heels of what the league is deeming a huge success at its inaugural race in Miami last weekend.
"The Miami Beach Invitational was broadcast to over 30 countries through our partnership with GCN+ and watched live by an estimated crowd of 20,000,” said Paris Wallace, co-founder & CEO of the NCL. “There can be no doubt that we validated our bold new vision of NCL racing.”
“With such a high bar set by our first race we are thrilled to have the opportunity to work with the Porsche Experience Center Atlanta. It is a singular unique opportunity to host an NCL Cup Series race at one of Atlanta's world renowned venues, we were happy to make a slight adjustment to our published schedule to take advantage of such a first of its kind opportunity"
The Denver Disrupters, one of the NCL’s house teams, is leading the NCL Cup series after winning the Miami Beach Invitational on Saturday. The race showcased two of the NCL’s race innovations -- the points-based scoring system, as well as the use of substitutions in-race.
According to the league, every race in the NCL Cup will follow a similar format, as well as shine a spotlight on what it calls “the revolutionary values and changes we injected into the sport, insisting on gender equal teams, changing the rules to be more broadcast and spectator friendly, creating and implementing the sports first ever scoreboard, and leading through technology.”
"Introducing the first virtual qualifier in the real and metaverse all proved we have the right strategic and operating model to scale the sport globally,” Wallace said.
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