Teams and Squads
At Leadout Esports, we organize competitions around Teams and Squads.
Teams
A Team is the largest grouping of riders, and it can have from a few dozen members to hundreds. One or two Team Owners are responsible for the Team's branding within Leadout (uploading their logo, links to their social accounts, and more), as well as managing the Team roster (accepting and removing riders).
Team Owners are also the point of contact between the Team and Event Organizers. This is not only for dispute resolution, but also to coordinate the delivery of prizes that the Team (or any Squad within the Team) has earned in competition.
All Teams are created by direct request to Leadout Esports and must be approved before riders can be added. This is to prevent SPAM and impersonation, especially at the elite levels of competition.
Squads
A Squad is a group of riders from the same Team that competes together on a specific event. Any competition that is not Individual is a Squad competition.
The most typical example would be a Squad Time Trial, commonly known as a Team Time Trial.
Another common competition type is one where the riders from the Squad accumulate points (or time), and the Squad with the greatest number of points (or the smallest amount of time) wins. The version with time is typically used in multi-stage competitions such as the Tour de France.
On any given event, a Team might have many Squads participating. Depending on the nature of the event, this might hurt the Team's chances of having a winning Squad, but at the same time it could maximize the total prizes that the Team can win.
A Squad can be of any size depending on what the Event Organizer accepts. Some events might require a minimum number of riders, and most events will require a maximum as well.
Caveats, questions and clarifications
You might have a few questions already, so here are some answers.
No. A Team Owner manages the roster and other settings of the Team. They can review requests to join the Team and accept or decline them.
A Squad Leader, on the other hand, is the point of contact for a Squad that is competing on any given event. In the case of disputes, performance verification, disciplinary actions, and anything else that affects a rider in a Squad, the Event Organizer will contact the Squad Leader first.