Originally Posted by
pcfxer
You will have the old school tour de france. Citizens of France and Belgium supported the old tour and they do and continue to support today's tour.
What you will not have is a bunch of garbage floating around the tour; pamphlets booths with overpriced garbage and an overall cleaner tour that will support local bike shops and the local economy rather than trucked in corporate BULL crap.
Oh no, corporate sponsorship! It helps for charity but isn't necessary for real tours or events; it just isn't.
Supporting the premise is the first mistake here. Big time corporate sponsorship is going to stay as long as the fans stay so will the sponsors. They are there to advertise. Yeah some American companies might lose interest but really how much more then Lance retiring. I feel like most sponsors are sponsoring for the Euro market figuring a little bit of exposure in the US can only help. Are people going to boycott a sponsor if they sponsor a team that turns out to be dirty, I doubt it.
Biggest concern is that Versus would lose viewership and then sponsorship then stop broadcasting.
Keep in mind there have been controversies this big in cycling before and some of those sponsors are still around, ie Festina.