Team Sky & Murdoch

Ron Stuart

'I wonder what a highly principled man like Dave Brailsford thinks about his main sponsors BskyB, 39.1% owned by News Corporation (Chaired by James Murdoch) in light of current events?

Also British Cycling are Sky Cycling's main partners, is this a good thing?

Is this team founded on 'dirty money' and should we support it?

Is gaining money by unlawful means just another form of cheating bearing in mind the size of Sky Pro Cycling's budget?

Does this not fly in the face of the founding principles of Sky Pro Cycling .... zero tolerance to cheats!

I am sure the whole Sky Cycling set-up is sound but what about where the money comes from?

I am becoming a bit more than 'torn' on this one and would feel very compromised giving my full support to this enterprise.' :roll:

Sirius631

How is it dirty money? They provide a service, people pay for it. Just because there has been trouble in the print media arm of News Corp isn't going to stop me from enjoying The Simpsons, unless of course Homer was hacking The Duchess of Cambridge's mobile.

Bobbinogs

Yepp, News Corp are a huge global org and the NOTW media bit is very small in comparison so no problems of a moral dilema there, IMO. I don't think that News Corp have handled the affair too well but that is another thread altogether.

Yossie

'I wonder what a highly principled man like Dave Brailsford thinks about his main sponsors BskyB, 39.1% owned by News Corporation (Chaired by James Murdoch) in light of current events? He probably doesn't care. He's DS, not a politican, journalist or bent copper. His job is to win races, not worry about what a minority shareholder in his team's sponsor may or may not be thinking/doing/.

JM has bigger things on his mind then Team Sky at the moment, and, to tell the truth, even if all this phone hacking hadn't kicked off, he probably worries more about what he is going to have for dinner than the day to day escapades of Team Sky (or "Who?" as they are known in his house).

Also British Cycling are Sky Cycling's main partners, is this a good thing? I can't see any problem whatsoever, so I wouldn't worry about it.

Is this team founded on 'dirty money' and should we support it? No it is not - if it was everyone would be locked up for money laundering and yes if you want to.

Is gaining money by unlawful means just another form of cheating bearing in mind the size of Sky Pro Cycling's budget? Nothing has been gained by unlawful means, NI do not provide Team Sky's budget.

Does this not fly in the face of the founding principles of Sky Pro Cycling .... zero tolerance to cheats! No one has cheated so no. Unless you have a few journos on EPO and blood transfusions to make them type faster.

I am sure the whole Sky Cycling set-up is sound but what about where the money comes from? The money comes from Sky and associated sponsors (Pina, etc) not NI. NI probably don't give a fig about Team Sky.

I am becoming a bit more than 'torn' on this one and would feel very compromised giving my full support to this enterprise.' See this - no need to worry about anything, nothing to see here, walk away now.

http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtop ... t=12790438

No need to be torn, peturbed, worried, lose sleep, become anxious, depressed about abything at all.

Redhog14

Whilst an abhorrent infringment of civil liberties the situation in relation to SKY, to me, reads like this:

Huge multinational has problems with an outlet - on another day someone gets food poisoning from eating a McDonalds in Bishop Stortford (I don't even know where that is..) but it doesn't and shouldn't stop people from eating at one of their other outlets in Glasgow...

Having worked for huge multinationals myself I have known incidences of seemingly successful parts of the business operating with very bad practices indeed and people get sacked as a result, the issues with and reaction to NI is the nature and size of the infringement and target. NoW sold lots of newspapers and ran accurate (if distaseful and dubiously obtained) exposes and stories for their consumers, ergo a successful part of the business was allowed to continue. To be honest I dont read newspapers as I have had to deal with them in my professional life and the journo's are all c U nest tuesdays.

RichN95.

Yossie wrote:

JM has bigger things on his mind then Team Sky at the moment, and, to tell the truth, even if all this phone hacking hadn't kicked off, he probably worries more about what he is going to have for dinner than the day to day escapades of Team Sky (or "Who?" as they are known in his house).

You say that, but apparently on the day that J Murdoch was closing the NotW, he still found time to send his congratulations to the team for winning their first Tour stage.

Yossie

RichN95 wrote:

Yossie wrote:

JM has bigger things on his mind then Team Sky at the moment, and, to tell the truth, even if all this phone hacking hadn't kicked off, he probably worries more about what he is going to have for dinner than the day to day escapades of Team Sky (or "Who?" as they are known in his house).

You say that, but apparently on the day that J Murdoch was closing the NotW, he still found time to send his congratulations to the team for winning their first Tour stage.

yeah right.

(adopt cod Aussie accent):

G'day blue, errrr, we're here to close down a 168 year old newspaper, sack a few hundred people and risk ensuing bad publicity, litigation and political fall out, we've offended a nation (temporarily until we get the next picture of someone's tits out on the beach in the paper), caused a few coppers to resign, risked the role of the PM in the UK, face massive losses potentially totalling billions of pounds through the loss of the BSkyB bid and are being ridiculed in the media across the world.

I'm about to lose my role as head of the family business, my father thinks I'm a numpty, my sister, who I've been fighting with all these years over control of the family business is looking like golden girl and 'Bekka has had to resign which considering our whole heareted support for her all this time makes us look like a bunch of hunts.

I've also got to go to a Parliamentary committee to face cross questioning on the whole issue which will be broadcast across the world.

But hold all that - some gallah on a pushie has won a stage on the Tour de France. Pass me my mobile and I'll send them a text saying well done - I think they are on speed dial. Fackin' predictive text, I can never get it to work properly."

Did he? Did he really? Really, really, really? Really, really, really, really?

Nah, didn't think so.

Sorry.

Apparently the NOTW also didn't hack everyone's 'phones, so I wouldn't believe ebrything you may or may not have read.

Ron Stuart

Thanks for the feed back so far but just to clear up a point I paste in a Brailsford quote from Cycling Weekly:-

Brailsford said that although British Cycling's resources and expertise will be at the disposal of Team Sky's riders, their services would not come free.

To understand the delicate relationship, it's important to understand that Team Sky is owned by a company called Tour Racing Limited, which holds the team's UCI ProTour licence. TRL is a holding company owned by BSkyB and on the board of TRL are two senior Sky executives and Ian Drake and Brian Cookson, the chief executive and president of British Cycling. There is a service-level agreement between Tour Racing Limited and British Cycling that means Team Sky can purchase services from the national federation.

Brailsford describes British Cycling as the team's 'ethical partner' and says his role as team principal is a salaried and contracted position. "I have no interest in it, no options, no shares, nothing related to money at all. I have a contract and I get paid for it. If I do a good job I'll stay, and if I don't I'll get fired."

Just to repeat BskyB is 39.1% owned by News Corporation chairman James Murdoch.

Please continue

RichN95.

Yossie wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

Yossie wrote:

JM has bigger things on his mind then Team Sky at the moment, and, to tell the truth, even if all this phone hacking hadn't kicked off, he probably worries more about what he is going to have for dinner than the day to day escapades of Team Sky (or "Who?" as they are known in his house).

You say that, but apparently on the day that J Murdoch was closing the NotW, he still found time to send his congratulations to the team for winning their first Tour stage.

yeah right.

(adopt cod Aussie accent):

<snipped for brevity>
Did he? Did he really? Really, really, really? Really, really, really, really?

Nah, didn't think so.

Sorry.

Well, this prominent cycling journalist thinks he did: http://twitter.com/lioneljbirnie/status ... 2318573568

I'll believe him ahead of someone who thinks that James Murdoch has an Australian accent.

nferrar

Although he might be a snivelling git apparently James Murdoch does cycle and is a cycling fan. I'm guessing his sugar daddy hasn't got a clue he owns a team though.

sloppyschleckonds

RichN95 wrote:

Yossie wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

Yossie wrote:

JM has bigger things on his mind then Team Sky at the moment, and, to tell the truth, even if all this phone hacking hadn't kicked off, he probably worries more about what he is going to have for dinner than the day to day escapades of Team Sky (or "Who?" as they are known in his house).

You say that, but apparently on the day that J Murdoch was closing the NotW, he still found time to send his congratulations to the team for winning their first Tour stage.

yeah right.

(adopt cod Aussie accent):

<snipped for brevity>
Did he? Did he really? Really, really, really? Really, really, really, really?

Nah, didn't think so.

Sorry.

Well, this prominent cycling journalist thinks he did: http://twitter.com/lioneljbirnie/status ... 2318573568

I'll believe him ahead of someone who thinks that James Murdoch has an Australian accent.

Yossie

Apologies, educated in the US, worked in Australia, Australian father, American wife - I may have my colonial really messed up due to too many influences accents mixed up. To tell the truth I don't really care and it was just a flippant comment for comedy value. I could have put in "ridiculous Welsh accent" but I didn't for fear of incurring hockey player wrath. But I didn't.

He could be speaking broad Mockney for all I know.

At the moment he is Chairman and CEO of News Corporation Europe and Asia, Chairman of SKY Italia, Chairman of STAR TV, Non-Executive Chairman of British Sky Broadcasting and Non-Executive Director of GlaxoSmithKline.

I think that he may habve been too busy recently to worry about this.

But you stick with your Twitter feeds. You're right, he did send congratulatory texts/emails out, inbetween all the above and the pre-mentioned. I bow to your logic and intelligence.