View Single Post
Old 02-17-05 | 06:21 PM
  #271  
Brian's Avatar
Brian
Senior Member
 
Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 16,681
Likes: 3
From: Between the mountains and the lake.

Bikes: 8 bikes - one for each day of the week!

Originally Posted by Thylacine
Lance's high profile is great for getting more Yanks riding, but the fact that he ONLY concentrates on the TdF hints at a motivation that's not exactly focussed on winning bike races. It's about elevating the Cult of LanceTrekNike.
You don't understand the cultural differences. Andrew Johns or Shane Warne will never make anything approaching a US athlete's salary (from endorsements) for several reasons. Foxtel has chosen to gouge the consumer in exchange for fewer commercials. We pay $90+/month for commercial free crap. In the US, it's more like $30/month (mostly same crap). Sucks for the advertising industry. Why endorse a celebrity if there's no mass advertisements with his image? Even worse, with less than 1/10th the market size, you can't possibly justify paying someone to pitch your products to so few people. I'm kind of rambling here on my soapbox, but I get very frustrated by the fact that we get the very short end of the stick as far as price and selection. The government here gives away too much money, taxes too much, and doesn't do enough to promote commerce. I'm not saying the US is a better system, just that I don't see any incentive for business here. One day I will move back to the states, and make a very good living shipping stuff to Australia. I'm actually cutting this short before I really go off.
Brian is offline