This year's will be one of the most important in the team's history? Why? First of all, we have our first millionaire in Robert Gesink. Second, the very first rider to have signed for the team, Paul Martens was not offered a new contract. Having been a loyal domestique throughout the years, Martens also got his share of glory in breakaways, some of which ended in success, the most important one being the German RR title in 2011. The last few years saw less and less result for Martens though and the best decision for both parties was to part ways after 7 years together.
Two other domestiques were not offered a contract for 2017, Tom Leezer and former Romanian national champion Andrei Nechita. Leezer has been a very useful domestique in the last years but given his age he was not seen as a solution for the future and the team felt it would be best to let him take his chances elsewhere before retirement. Nechita has failed to step up as a PT rider and after losing the Romanian TT title for the first time in his career it was clear that he won't be an eBuddy rider in 2017.
A total of five riders didn't not renewed their contracts. If the 3 already mentioned weren't offered a new contract, the other 2 declined the offers received from the team. After a fantastic Dauphine in 2016, Rob Ruijgh wanted a pay raise but the team didn't feel that the amount of extra money he was asking for was acceptable. Another who felt like his work is not valued enough was George Alexandru Stancu, which came as a surprise for the team since while Ruijgh proved himself as a good PT rider, Stancu is yet to deliver anything significant.
After a quiet 2016 transfer season when only 3 new riders joined the team, the ManGame madness was back at the eBuddy headquarters for the 2017 season, which saw 10 new riders coming in. 10 was also the number of riders that left the team as another 5 riders joined the 5 that left during renewals on the list of former riders.