merlinextraligh

Article in the New York Times today about Sponsors pulling out of bicycle racing. Essentially the article says that sponsors are skiddish due to the drug issue, most notably Landis' ongoing troubles, as well as the drop in television coverage world wide, and a drop in attendence. The article gives an example of a european one day race (forget which one) with a 77% drop in attendence this year.

Also the Zurich championship was apparently hit hard because Landis was on a Swiss Team. This is a race that had been run for almost 100 years, including through WW II.

If Professional cycling doesn't clean up the circus, things could be dark for awhile.

Snicklefritz

Where's that photo that someone posted ages ago showing Landis and Tyler photoshopped into a famous painting where one is behind the counter and the other sitting on a barstool?

VT Biker

Can you please link to the article. I cannot find it on the NY Times Website and I have a TimesSelect membership.

patentcad

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/11/bu...=1&oref=slogin

Duh. That did the complete IDIOTS in the UCI think was gonna happen???

Absolutely unfathomable. And all you morons pontificating about moral rectitude in cycling can turn out the friggin lights when you leave the room. It's a BUSINESS you pinheads.

But perhaps not now. Now it's becoming a footnote to the ashbin of history. All so DocRay can scream 'They're ALL DOPING!!!!'.

patentcad

>>A public supporter of Mr. Landis, Mr. Eustice says that the real issue scaring sponsors is that the sport of cycling does not manage its public travails well.

“I think the problem is not so much doping,” Mr. Eustice said. “It’s the fact that the people who run cycling let it turn into such a circus. I think cycling is courageous to fight in a clumsy way, but they seem like a sport that no one controls.<<

Correct.

DocRay

Right. Blame the UCI because riders cheat. I really like to watch super riders take off with 8-10 minutes over everyone else for the sake of business.

Cycling has its ups and downs, always has. It thrived before and during doping, it will long after.

I'm in Italy right now, and I can't even figure out how to get close to the first two stages of the Giro because of the crowds and police blocks. Tour or Flanders had 1,000,000 viewers, Paris-Roubaix had close to that, TDF will still have 1 billion viewers without the super yanks. It's like Indy or Superbowl, except a month long.

These races have been around over 100 years.

Perhaps a certain Lance chamois-sniffing Cat 4 should focus his advice on the great American tours, none of which can seem to keep running more than a few years.
Perhaps Pro cycling should adopt the Us pro-business model of NASCAR? ride around in tiny circles, slow down the field and create false competition for the sake of entertainment and business? Small wonder there is no interest in US business-driven sports outside of the US.

Seriously, no one gives a **** about the US viewing market, they never needed it, they never will.

You don't get it Lancerbator, you never will.

botto 

bobkestrut.com

patentcad

All pro sports are business driven. 'Pro' being short-hand for 'Professional' as in 'How you earn your money'.

The obllivion demonstrated by your posts is utterly cosmic.



I would change my user name to 'Dude Ray'. Dude. And by all means, get us some of what you're smoking. They don't give us urine tests in the USCF races around here.

patentcad

Hey Dude Ray, why do you hate America so much? You are one nasty Canuck.

merlinextraligh

Read the Article. The World wide audience is slumping:

Rhonde Van Vlaanderen in Belgium, attendence off 91%, as well as attendence being off in other european races;

The almost 100 year old Championship of Zurich dead;

World wide television coverage down 40%;

Spain and Italy dropping live TV coverage of races.

This is not just an American problem.

And of course cycling will survive, but it's at risk of doing so with less money and less exposure for some time to come if they don't get their act together.

botto 

i find it VERY hard to believe that the Ronde (no h) lost that many viewers. I'll ask a friend who was there, and has been to many editions over the years.

if it was lower, that could easily be explained by the fact that it was on Easter sunday, and the weather was amazing, so people did something else. regardless, a 90% drop doesn't sound right. they had 15,000 people ride the tourist version of the ronde this year, an all time high.

El Diablo Rojo

I do blame the UCI and WADA to a great extent. The poor handling of the drug issue is as much to blame for all of this as the cheats. If you think that the governing bodies are doing a good job and handling this properly then you are on some drugs yourself.

merlinextraligh

that statistic did seem rather amazing, and I kinda thought there might be more to it, like how it fell on the calender, but the general trend is not good.

patentcad

Correct.

dirtyphotons

performance enhancing drugs, in some form, have been around much longer than that. and they were an open part of early competitive cycling.

i'm not sure what can or should be done to "clean up" cycling. but the notion that there was a time when no one doped is naive. it just wasn't considered cheating at the time.

Ernesto Schwein

Yeah, there is some real Canadian business wisdom, ignore US markets.

patentcad

Is this an oxymoron?

Ernesto Schwein

definition of a Canadian business plan: 6 newfies with baseball bats and a box of black horse

chipcom 

Oh my. You best go back to the T&P avatar, DocRay, it's starting to sound like that whole invade Canada thing is rearing its ugly head again!

merlinextraligh

But only in the last 20 years or so have they really been performance enhancing. I'd take my chance in a multi day stage race against a field wired on amphetimines and cognac.

Racing against a field laced with EPO would be an entirely different story.

waterrockets 

Meh, it doesn't really matter to me if sponsors pull out. If there is less money in the sport, then there will be less reason to use drugs to do well in it. It's not like the major races are going away, and I couldn't care less who actually races in them.

merlinextraligh

But don't you care about whether you get to see them on Television?

patentcad

Why would anybody invade Canada?

MDcatV

Is it possible this actually means that attendance was only 91% of whatever the baseline is (prior year I assume), and therefore "off" 9%? I find it difficult to believe that only 9% as many people attended flanders as did the prior year. I would speculate that even T-of-Georgia didnt lose that much from the years LA did it to this year.

chipcom 

Why indeed, Dr. StrangePedal?