The 9th World Cup season began in December 1974 in France and concluded in March 1975 in Italy.

Three major changes took place on the World Cup circuit this season.

First, Alpine combined races were recognized as World Cup events for the first time; both the men's and women's seasons included three combined races, all of which were won by the overall winners (Thöni and Moser-Pröll); in fact, Thöni's three combined wins were directly responsible for his edging out Ingemar Stenmark for the title.

Third, and more importantly, the new head of the International Olympic Committee, Lord Killanin, reached a compromise to preserve the "amateur" status of skiers receiving endorsements, manufacturer's fees, and other payments, as long as the payments were made to the skier's national association or Olympic committee and not directly to the skier, that also eliminated the prohibition on year-round training and competition in a sport.

[1] While further criticism of this rule, known as Olympics Rule 26, would continue and would lead to future problems, such as the banning of World Cup champions Stenmark and Hanni Wenzel from the 1984 Winter Olympics,[2] the immediate impact of this change was to check the steady migration of World Cup skiers to the professional circuit.

[3] Partially as a result, World Cup races this season took place in Europe, North America, and Asia.

He won 8 races out of 9, but at the downhill of Megève one of his bindings opened and he did not finish the race; this meant also that he could not score the 15 points for a third place in the combined of Megève (which he would have gained easily after a decent slalom result in Chamonix two days earlier), and in the end he missed the first place in the men's overall World Cup by just 10 points.

This was the important key that enabled Thöni to defeat Ingemar Stenmark in the Overall World Cup standings.