rangerdavid

Me Too!!! and its a GREAT phone!! Hell, with all the HTC phones I've bought, I've at least paid for somebody's handlebars or a wheel or two. What are they going to do with all those S-Works bikes anyway!!! Damn, give me one or two.

rangerdavid

here's the press release from the HTC web site:

August 04, 2011
"After an exhaustive search to secure long term sponsorship we have concluded that it's time to release our team members to pursue other options," said team owner, Bob Stapleton. "Our team's success has been based on our outstanding people. It's in their best interest that we make this decision now."

"The team has had unmatched athletic success," continued Stapleton. "The dedication shown by our athletes, management team and staff year after year has been exceptional. Together they created one of the most successful teams in cycling's history. Our athletes are the most sought after in the sport, and our management and staff are the most capable in cycling. They will lead new teams and the sport forward. Helping to create the individual success of the people in our team has been the most important and enjoyable element of our management team. We wish everyone the best for the future."

"Finally, we would like to thank our partners who worked very closely with us over the years to help set Highroad as the benchmark for elite cycling teams," added Stapleton. "We are very proud of the performance and value we gave our sponsors and our fans."

The team will race through the end of the 2011 season and likely reach its 500th race win since its inception in 2008. To date, the team has won 484 races including 54 grand tour stages and has a large collection of classic and stage race victories to its name.




Nothing in there that sounds like any portion of the team would be kept up, meaning men's and women's teams will be disbanded.

HigherGround

It sounds like Cav moving to Sky is not a done deal, and that GreenEdge may be his destination instead. It's interesting that Cav still hasn't announced his new team, even after Highroad has officially pulled the plug.

chasm54

Speaking for myself, I wish you'd do more of it. One of the reasons the road forum is often a PITA is that it is full of threads that are not road-specific and would be more appropriate to general cycling, training and nutrition, mechanics, A&S etc. If more of these were moved out it might (only might, I agree) encourage some of the more vapid posters to be a bit more discriminating?

Of course, this is only a temporary solution pending the introduction of a forum specifically dedicated to inane questions and ridiculous claims. When can we have one of them?

surgeonstone

surgeonstone

Sir Mr. Dr. Surgeonstone to you Sir, and you also have a nice day. I am officially unpissed.

seypat

^
This is the question that must be answered. And not from a cyclist's perspective either. What is going to make the average non-cyclist set down and watch? I hate to say it but you can lump Pro cycling in with figure skating. Think about it. Why don't you watch figure skating, because what the skaters are doing is certainly tough and athletic. The reason is because watching a bunch of skinny, wimpy looking guys in goofy outfits doing their thing is just not very interesting. To bring in the average sports fan you need more Thors and Cavendishs and Cadel Evans. At least they look like they could do something else athletically at a high level. AND at least to the average fan they look like they are trying to win. It hard to stay interested when the race favorites are "battling it out" and "giving it their all" and are still finishing 3 or 4 minutes behind the stage winners on most days. This years TDF was the most interesting I have watched in years. Why? It certainly wasn't the GC contenders. With the exception of Voeckler, and Andy's/ Contador's one day, they were their usual uninspiring selfs. They just stay in the pack and mark each other. Where is the excitement in that? But this year we had Thor and Boasson Hagen. We had Hoogerland to watch. We had Cadel riding a great TT to seal the deal. And we had all of those Frenchmen and other breakaways desperately trying to win a stage. And that is what made this year exciting! Give the Average Joe fan more of that and maybe they will start watching. Give them stages like Thor's first stage win and they will be hooked! Otherwise they see the focus on the GC guys and think, "Great, more figure skating! Let me see if I can find something else to watch.

Sad but true.

InReverse

Excerpt from Yahoo/Reuters article (July 15, 2011):
"In terms of global exposure, the team generated the equivalent of 450 million euros ($636,997) in revenue. It's now become a pretty big company," [Bob Stapleton] said, adding that each victory by Cavendish on the road amounted to five to 10 million euros in media revenue.
"We made a survey at the end of the last Tour which showed that Cavendish stage wins generated more revenue than (Spain's Alberto) Contador's Tour victory," he said.

Is he just pulling numbers out his ass? He doesn't specify how he arrives at those numbers. (FWIW, I took a survey and found out that I'm the most valuable person in the whole world. Surveyed two parents when I was five years old.)

Rotten Bastard

^Those numbers are legit. They have a way of quantifying all that. Don't ask me how, though.

merlinextraligh

Basically, you look at the number of exposures from newspapers, magazines, television, websites, and the circulation of those media, then calculate how much it would cost to buy all that as advertising. Imprecise, and subject to puffery, but not complete anal extraction.

unterhausen

on the other hand, I never realized what HTC did until I saw some stories about the patent suits. So, granted, i knew the name, but I don't think it was doing them that much good.

InReverse

There's an easier way to quantify it. If a sponsor cancels after investing $20 million, then it's worth less than $20 million to them. If there are no other takers, then $636 million is likely not a correct estimate, or the entire world of marketers is really, really bad at their jobs for passing up a $616 million bargain.

I was just pointing out the level of salesmanship in his pitch.

Rotten Bastard

Often, just getting the name in the backs of people's minds is considered a good result of a marketing campaign.