"IMAGE" is "EVERYTHING"

esmit208

Well judging by the news of the demise of the professional cycling team once known as DISCOVERY CHANNEL, the world of sponsorship dollars appears to be drying up. This message more than any other could prove to be the LOUDEST! Are cyclists, both porfessional and continental, listening? If not you should start filling out applications at your local video rental store or maybe if you are lucky the 7-11. The corporate world no longer seems willing to receive bad publicity, although rumor has it that there is no such thing as bad publicity. If one of if not THE most successful cycling team in recent history can not get a title sponsor what will happen to the AG2R's of the cycling world? Gentlemen it is time to wake up and smell the coffee and leave the performance enhancing tricks where they are. Life in the REAL world can be a humbling experience. Send your CV's to: WWW.INEEDTOFEEDTHEWIFEANDKIDS.COM. I hope to see you all next season.[/b]

mrushton

Now, if we could apply this to Barry Bonds, well-known US drug-taking sportsman, most of the US NBA, the US Athletics Association and the NFL just think how many drug-taking athletes would be seeking work elsewhere just in the US alone.

jimmythecuckoo

Then you could come back to Europe and clean up the golfers, rugby players, footballers and other cheats.

HungryCol

Didn't you know it's only the cyclists that are the dopers. Every other sport is as clean as a whistle. No one else cheats in the world of sport except the cyclists.

Leaving aside the sarcasm for a minute the only reason Disco can't get a sponsor is because the next sponsor who steps in is bound to fail. Disco have has it very good up to now, they're quitting while they're ahead.

nick hanson

HungryCol wrote:

Didn't you know it's only the cyclists that are the dopers. Every other sport is as clean as a whistle. No one else cheats in the world of sport except the cyclists.

Leaving aside the sarcasm for a minute the only reason Disco can't get a sponsor is because the next sponsor who steps in is bound to fail. Disco have has it very good up to now, they're quitting while they're ahead.

Bound to fail in what respect?
At the end of the day,love or loathe them,they have the current TDF winner,& a young one at that,& also the winningest :roll: Team!
If you were doing a long term bet,now,on next years TDF & the Tailwind team were continuing with a corporate backer,then they would surely be worth a punt,& i bet the odds would be short

HungryCol

nick hanson wrote:

Bound to fail in what respect?

Bound to fail because Disco have had 8 of the last 9 years of TdF winning success. It's a very tall order for any team to take over and retain that level of success. That's why I think a new sponsor would be difficult to find and even if there was they would always be compared to the hugely successful Discovery Team.

Perhaps I'm wrong, perhaps it's not about the sponsor and more about the guys on the team. Keep the guys keep the success? Does it matter that they're wearing Wal-Mart (or whatever) jerseys?

nick hanson

Sure it's about the guys on the team,not the sponsor.Don't forget they were US Postal before Disco,& the team carried on performing when the sponsor changed,I seem to remember

Monty Dog

Damage limitation excercise? - you can only keep the 'lid on' for so long and once the can of worms gets opened you'll never get them back in. Taking the money and running methinks.

Eurostar

Yes, image is everything. Here is my take on it from the sponsors' POV (cross-posted from weightweenies).

I used to do the PR for Oracle, which was reportedly one of the companies which might have replaced Discovery. If I was advising them now, this would be my logic:

1. Sponsorship is PR. Big sponsors who pay the $45m that Tailwind wanted are paying it out of their PR budget. They're not in the bicycle industry: they're in IT, telecoms, food, floorcoverings, hearing aids, whatever. They don't give a damn about bicycles. If cycling doesn't give them the right press coverage they choose golf or sailing.

2. Cycling has a nightmare PR problem: doping scandals. If you can't fix this problem, pro cycling will soon be stuck with bicycle industry sponsors only.

3. UCI and Wada are not fixing this problem. Maybe they can't. There is little they can do unless all the team managers actively help to catch the dopers and the sponsors pay for some of the testing bills.

4. Vaughters is the only DS who has taken this on board. He's had incredible PR even though he doesn't even have a Pro Tour team. He and Doug Ellis have pulled off a masterstroke. (It's a shame that this coverage has been for the team, not the sponsor. Oops.)

5. CSC and T-Mobile have tried to copy Vaughters with a little external supervision of their anti-doping programmes, and the French teams think they already have enough external supervision through the French federation. It's a start. But really CSC, T-Mobile and the French need to accept that Vaughters has raised the bar, and get up there to join him. Prudhomme has also recognised this.

6. Bruyneel, as manager of the most successful team, should have helped lead the clean-up campaign. Instead he hired Basso, did nothing about helping to raise the bar and was thrown out of the AIGCP.

7. Even if we accept that Bruyneel's team was clean - and maybe it really was - his business plan was stunningly naive so he deserved to fail.

8. The failure of Bruyneel to get a sponsor proves to all the managers that Vaughters was right and that Bruyneel was an idiot or a cheat or both. The collapse of Tailwind will, I predict, come to be seen as the turning point which forced the AIGCP, ASO, the national federations and the ACE to work out a unified approach to catching the dopers. Tailwind's collapse was the amputation which might save the patient's life. (I celebrated it. And not just because I can't stand Lance or Bruyneel.)

9. A few riders will continue to dope, so there will always be scandals. In 2007 and 2006 there were just too many scandals so the whole sport became a joke, which risked every sponsor's investment. But at least the scandals got the sport a massive boost in coverage. In 2008 there's an opportunity for sponsors to get massive audiences for a good price IF they are perceived as strict on anti-doping. It's a great opportunity to buy some positive ethical brand values. Usually the most a sponsor can hope for is sheer brand awareness and perhaps a perception of being a winner, or having a big fat cheque book.

10. If a sponsor wants to take advantage of this, he has to find a DS who will go after the dopers - or at least be seen to go after them, and not be let down by a star rider. Vaughters is a great choice, except for the little problem that he won't win anything next year. Bruyneel was the worst choice because his price was very high and he thought that results were all that mattered. We can only hope that the AIGCP members and Prudhomme can learn from Vaughters and Bruyneel and get their act together. They don't have time to wait for McQuaid to think of something. He's irrelevant now.

Monty Dog

Eurostar - well said. It would be pretty obvious to Tailwind that they'd reach the pinnacle in terms of sweating the $$ out of sponsors and potentially the new sponsors demands for a 'clean' team and potential penalties probably presented too great a risk to their revenues. The fact that the UCI and WADA seem to be trapped in the internal politics whilst the media have a field day besmirching the reputation of cycling, whilst all other major sports are happy to have the heat taken off them primarily due to the UCI's intransigence. I guess we'll have to ride out the storm until next year's Olympics when half the Chinese team will be banned and the media finally wake up to the fact that 'eveyone's' at it.

jimmythecuckoo

HungryCol wrote:

Didn't you know it's only the cyclists that are the dopers.

...thats what they would have you believe...