flahute » sponsorship

Save the Gila

flahute — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 14:24:30 +0000

After 25 years, the current economic status means that New Mexico’s Tour of the Gila is in danger of extinction, unless a title sponsor can be found for 2012 and beyond.

With mountains on tap every stage, there’s no such thing as an easy day at the Gila, and yet, this race is also one of the first chances that many amateur & professional cyclists get to race a true, multi-day stage race.

Beginning in Silver City, New Mexico, the men’s course covers around 540 km over five days, while the women’s course covers about 100 km less. It consists of three road races (currently stages 1, 2 and 5), a Individual Time Trial (currently stage 3) and a Criterium (currently stage 4). The Tour of the Gila is currently classified as a national race, which prohibits both UCI ProTour and UCI ProContinental teams from competing in it, so it is truly a showcase for riders on smaller, development teams to show what they’ve got … and many of the top domestic professional cyclists have done well here, including three-time winner Burke Swindlehurst, as well as two-time winners Chris Wherry and Scott Moninger.

In recent years, the race has also been able to attract some of the top international pros, competing without the support of a full team; including riders like two-time winner Levi Leipheimer and Chris Horner.

The women’s field has also attracted some of the top domestic and European based professionals, including two-time winners Kristin Armstrong and Mara Abbott, as well as Amber Neben, Mari Holden, Canada’s Clara Hughes, and French superstar Jeannie Longo, each of whom have won the race on one occasion.

One of the nice things about the Gila? While prize money doesn’t go as deep, due to the smaller field sizes, the three Elite (Pro/1/2) women’s podium placers actually received more than the three Elite men’s podium placers in both the overall general classification and individual stage places. This is an event that recognizes the value of parity between the men’s and women’s events.

However, even smaller races cannot survive on entry fees alone; sponsorship is required. If your business is looking for sports marketing opportunities, please let me know via email (flahute2004 at gmail dot com), and I’ll pass your information on to the race directors.

De-hyping the Amgen Tour of California

flahute — Mon, 16 May 2011 00:21:25 +0000

As the Amgen Tour of California gets ready to start, Team Jelly Belly’s (and future Team Rapha cyclocross team member) Jeremy Powers was profiled recently by Cyclocross Magazine … and the first sentence in the article got my gander up.

Not because of anything J-Pow related, but because of short phrase:

Jeremy Powers (Jelly Belly) is looking lean and fit heading into the 2011 Amgen Tour of California, and he hopes to build on last season’s successful ride at the fourth-biggest stage race in the world.

via A Ride and a Chat with Jeremy Powers at the Rapha Gentlemen’s Ride in San Francisco | Cyclocross Magazine.

The Amgen Tour of California is hardly the 4th biggest stage race in the world when you consider not only the rankings and caliber of the teams entered, but the ranking of the event itself by the UCI, and its very, very short history.

Yes, as a UCI 2.HC ranked event, AToC has a world-class group of riders, but only 9 of the 18 UCI ProTour teams are represented, whereas in races like Paris-Nice, the Tour of Switzerland, the Dauphine-Libere (and other similar UCI ProTour races), all 18 ProTour teams are represented.

In fact, any stage race with an HIS (Historical Calendar) or UPT (UCI ProTour) ranking is considered a bigger race than the Tour of California on just about every scale except perhaps its familiarity to the casual American cycling fan.

The Tour of California is the definitely biggest and most important stage race in the United States, may well be the 4th most important race to the various American-sponsored teams in the UCI ProTour, and is well worthy of being feted for the incredible event that it is, but hyping it beyond its actual importance is an affront to the history and traditions of our sport.

No event that has only been in existence for 6 years deserves to be ranked as importantly as events that have been ongoing for 60-70 (or even more) years, events that have been contested and won by the biggest stars of international cycling.

And that bugs the hell out of me.

Perhaps the Tour of California will one day become as storied and important as these other races, but American stage races have a history of fizzling out after a few years when the original sponsors feel they have gotten as much as they can out of their sponsorship, and no new sponsor steps up to take the reins. So until the Tour of California not only survives a cessation of sponsorship from Amgen, but moves into its second or third decade, don’t call it the 4th biggest stage race in the world.

Sponsorship returning to cycling

flahute — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 03:48:55 +0000

Great news on the sponsorship front for some major races in the United States.

Pepsi sponsorship saves Tour of Battenkill

The United States of America was close to losing the UCI-sanctioned Tour of Battenkill when its former sponsor pulled its funding two months ago, but organizer Dieter Drake has found a replacement in PepsiCo that will allow the event to continue as scheduled in Cambridge, New York on April 18.

“I approached them back in January after we lost our presenting sponsor from last year during the Christmas holiday," Drake said. "With some persistence, they were receptive to talking about it. Selling a bicycle race is not an easy task but with a large, multi-billion dollar company like Pepsi it worked out.”

Without a replacement for previous sponsor, Malta-based GlobalFoundaries, Drake would have been forced to cancel the UCI professional men’s race, and the Pro/Am events held the weekend prior.

via Pepsi Sponsorship Saves Tour Of Battenkill | Cyclingnews.com.

And in an event that’s a bit closer to my heart, it looks like Zions Bank is returning as presenting sponsor of the Tour, with an expanded commitment to the race.

Tour of Utah steaming ahead

In what is perhaps a sign that the economy is improving, several major races have announced recently that they had secured major sponsors and are confidently approaching their scheduled launch.

The latest is the Tour of Utah, whose organizers announced Monday that all their 2009 sponsors are continuing this year, and that the race is adding a new title sponsor, Zions Bank.

The event, to be held August 17-22,will include a prologue and five stages, concluding with its toughest stage, the Park City to Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort.

The other stages include the University of Utah Health Care Ogden to Research Park road race, the Heiden Davidson Orthopedics criterium in downtown Park City, a time trial at Miller Motorsports Park sponsored by teamgive.org, and the XANGO Thanksgiving Point to Top of Mt. Nebo road race. Race route details will be announced soon.

via VeloNews.com – Tour of Utah steaming ahead.

As the VeloNews article notes, news like this really can be viewed as a sign that the economy is starting to improve, as advertising budgets start to open up again and businesses start to look for less traditional avenues for exposure.

Hopefully, this means not only the return of some other major races (like the Tour of Georgia), but also more money for teams and riders.

Of course, I also hope it means more money for employees of corporations as well. It sure would be nice to get a raise this year, since my salary has been frozen since December 2007 while my cost-of-living has increased over the few years (and rather abruptly so this past week).

Lance Armstrong Ponders Buying the Tour de France

flahute — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 05:04:18 +0000

Yeah … this one isn’t an April Fool’s joke … from the Wall Street Journal, March 27, 2009.

Lance Armstrong Ponders Buying the Tour de France in Bid to Run Pro Cycling – WSJ.com

Lance’s Plan for France — Off the Bike
Seeking to Overhaul Cycling, Armstrong Played a Part in Talks to Buy the Tour

Lance Armstrong’s broken collarbone may not improve his chances of winning the Tour de France this year. But his aspirations for the race have gone farther than a record eighth victory.

In 2006, Mr. Armstrong embarked on an effort to overhaul professional cycling that, in some scenarios, would involve him owning a stake in cycling’s most prestigious race. The race is owned by a family-run French company that says it has been approached by numerous entities looking to buy the race over the years. It says the Tour de France is not for sale.

According to his agent, Bill Stapleton, Mr. Armstrong has discussed the idea of buying the Tour with investors and remains interested in creating an organization that would run professional cycling and include the Tour. There is no current effort underway to buy the Tour, he said.

It is highly unusual for an athlete to attempt to own a sporting event he has dominated. Mr. Armstrong’s ambitions reflect the unusually powerful position he holds in cycling. Mr. Armstrong and his associates see an opening in the disarray of professional cycling, a sport that has been stung by doping scandals and feuding rival race organizers.

The Tour de France, founded in 1903, is owned by Éditions Philippe Amaury, a family-run company outside of Paris. It’s unclear whether the French government, which has blocked foreign takeovers of companies it deems “national champions,” would allow a sale of the Tour.

“People have been trying to put together a deal here for a long time. Lance has got to be in the middle of any of that or else it doesn’t work. He is such a magnet,” says Thomas Weisel, an investment banker who helped Mr. Armstrong round up potential investors. Mr. Weisel owned Mr. Armstrong’s first professional cycling team as well as the team that Mr. Armstrong competed on when he won seven Tours de France.

Mr. Armstrong, 37, came out of retirement this year and plans to compete in the Tour de France this summer. He had surgery this week to repair a broken collarbone, and Mr. Stapleton commented on his behalf.

Professional cycling could use a bailout. It lacks a central organizing body, like the National Football League or National Basketball Association. Individual races compete for sponsors and don’t have bargaining power in deals for broadcast rights; they don’t centrally negotiate. Union Cycliste Internationale, or UCI, in Aigle, Switzerland, is the governing body for the sport but it doesn’t control any races.

UCI and Amaury Sport Organisation, the arm of French media conglomerate Éditions Philippe Amaury which organizes the Tour, say they have feuded for years over issues from sponsorship to race calendars. The intensely private French company has been run by Marie Odile Amaury since the death of her husband, Philippe, in 2006. Cycling’s lowest point came when the 2006 Tour winner was dethroned for failing a drug test after the race.

Mr. Armstrong “has the clout as an athlete and a champion and he has the right ability to steer a model and steer a business and the right people that can help him do that,” Mr. Stapleton says.

Mr. Armstrong, in a well-known comeback tale, was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1996, just as his career was taking off. After recovering, he won the 1999 Tour de France and proceeded to win it six more times in a row, becoming the world’s highest-paid cyclist and helping usher in a new era of sponsorship money and media attention for the sport. He eventually commanded an annual salary in the $3.5 million to $4 million range, while some of his teammates made as little as $15,000 a year. Mr. Armstrong has faced a number of doping accusations during his career, which he has denied. He has never been sanctioned. He retired in 2005, after winning his seventh Tour de France.

In fall 2006, at a Manhattan bar, Mr. Armstrong, his agent Mr. Stapleton, and hedge-fund manager David “Tiger” Williams, along with actor Jake Gyllenhaal, discussed how cycling could benefit from central ownership. Mr. Armstrong said no new organization could succeed unless it controlled the Tour de France, say Mr. Stapleton and others familiar with the discussion.

Afterward, Mr. Armstrong rounded up a number of wealthy cycling enthusiasts willing to help fund a potential acquisition of the Tour de France, say Messrs. Stapleton and Weisel. It would have cost about $1.5 billion at the time to buy the Tour, people familiar with the matter say.

Others were also looking. In July 2007, Messrs. Armstrong and Stapleton entertained another prospective plan to reorganize cycling from Wouter Vandenhaute, a Belgian television executive and former sportscaster, who has a plan he calls the “World Tour.” At the Hôtel de Crillon in Paris, Mr. Vandenhaute proposed a series of races with the Tour de France as the de facto Super Bowl of the season.

Mr. Vandenhaute was talking with Luxembourg-based private-equity firm CVC Capital Partners. CVC remains interested in a deal, though any deal is probably a long way off, a person familiar with the matter said. Mr. Stapleton says the idea could still pick up steam.

The global economic crisis has quelled deal making. Meanwhile, in cycling, the two main bodies — Tour de France owner Amaury and UCI — say their long-time feuding is abating. Pat McQuaid, president of UCI, says the sport is in a “healing phase.”

“We want peace,” said Tour de France general director Christian Prudhomme in a November interview.

That said, even with a truce, Mr. Stapleton and Mr. Armstrong believe the sport’s fundamental problems — the lack of a strong central organization — aren’t fixed, making a deal attractive. “Until there is an economic incentive that’s based on television rights and unified ownership,” Mr. Stapleton said, “the issue won’t be solved.”

Take a hit, lose your job.

flahute — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 04:44:17 +0000

Phelps suspended from competition, dropped by Kellogg – CNN.com

(CNN) — Olympic hero Michael Phelps was suspended from competitive swimming for three months on Thursday — just hours after one of his sponsors announced it would not renew his contract after a photo surfaced of him smoking from a bong.

USA Swimming, the nation’s governing body for competitive swimming, said it was withdrawing financial support for Phelps and barring him from competition during the period of his “reprimand.”

“This is not a situation where any anti-doping rule was violated, but we decided to send a strong message to Michael because he disappointed so many people, particularly the hundreds of thousands of USA Swimming-member kids who look up to him as a role model and a hero,” they said in a statement.

“Michael has voluntarily accepted this reprimand and has committed to earn back our trust,” the statement continued.

Earlier Thursday, Kellogg Co. said it will not renew Phelps’ advertising contract.

Doping in sport is a problem. Drug-use (in general) is a problem, but most kids have experimented with something somewhere along the line, myself included. Michael Phelps stupidly has a photo taken of him smoking from a bong, and is definitely experiencing some seriously negative fallout, including loss of income, and loss of competition.

Granted, the suspension from the US Swimming team is only for 3 months; which isn’t really bad in the grand scheme of things. If nothing else, it will hopefully give Phelps a much-needed rest and let him come back as hungry as ever.

Now … I wonder if Kellogg’s decision to drop Phelps is really related to said screw-up, or if they were going to drop him anyway (due to rough economic times; Kellogg had already decided not to renew sponsorship of the US Swimming Team), and are just using this as a convenient excuse.

After all, like most companies, Kellogg suffered a rather precipitous drop in share price this past fall, although as a food supplier, they weren’t affected nearly as hard as many other makers of consumer goods, and definitely not as hard as companies in the financial sector.

What bothers me most, is that Phelp’s is likely going to get labeled as a drug user, when in reality, he’s just a 23 year old kid. At least he’s still alive, unlike many cyclists and other athletes who have died because of their drug of choice … people like Marco Pantani, Lyle Alzedo, Tom Simpson, and very likely Florence Griffith-Joyner.

Trek-Volkswagen calls it quits

flahute — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 03:05:01 +0000

VeloNews | Trek-Volkswagen calls it quits | The Journal of Competitive Cycling.
By Fred Dreier
Posted Jan. 3, 2009

The list of riders who have suited up for the Trek-Volkswagen professional mountain bike team over the years reads like a who’s who of North American off-road racing: Travis Brown, Alison Sydor, Roland Green, Susan Haywood and Jeremiah Bishop, just to name a few. But after 13 years, the Trek-Volkswagen program is calling it quits.

The news comes after Volkswagen declined to renew its contract with the Wisconsin-based bicycle manufacturer.

“The program was heavily contingent on Volkswagen’s buy in,” said Michael Browne, Trek’s brand manager for mountain biking. “The relationship will officially end at the end of the 2008 calendar year.”

Shouldn’t press releases and news articles announcing that something WILL end in the future be made public prior to the actual event that is being announced?

Could I have come up with a more complicated construction for that sentence?

More importantly, however, it is nice to know that Trek values their European-based teams more than their domestic teams, putting several American riders out of work whilst throwing a lot of money at Europeans, Kiwis and Springboks.

“Who would have ever guessed that Trek would pull out of domestic racing?” Haywood said. “I was with the team for 10 years, and it was such a good program built around some really good racers. To see Trek pull the plug with such little fanfare is frustrating. I think it deserves a better goodbye.”

But continuing with a domestic program, Browne said, simply does not fit into Trek’s budget for next year.

If Trek had any integrity, it would fund the team for this season on its own, allowing the riders that have helped make the team and the company a success at least one more year of guaranteed salary while the riders look for new sponsorships for the 2010 season, or the team attempts to to pick-up a mid-season sponsor.

But by delaying the announcement of the demise of the team until late December, many of the affected riders are going to have difficulty finding a team which still has room and budget to pay them what they would have been earning had Trek not gambled with their livelihoods.

Henry James once wrote, “What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character?”

Thank you, Trek … thank you for showing your true character as a company.

Awesome News!

flahute — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:08:08 +0000

VeloNews | Garmin is the new title sponsor of the Slipstream-Chipotle team

For the third time in 10 days, a major international cycling team has announced a new title sponsor heading into next month’s Tour de France.

GPS maker Garmin International has signed on as the title sponsor of American professional continental team Slipstream-Chipotle through 2010, Garmin and the team announced Wednesday.

The title sponsorship, which sees the team name change to Garmin-Chipotle presented by H30, will commence immediately. A new team jersey, which will incorporate Garmin’s logo with the team’s trademark argyle motif, will be unveiled on July 3 in Brest prior to the start of the Tour.

With Monday’s announcement that Team High Road is picking up title sponsorship from Columbia Sportswear, and last week’s announcement that Saxo Bank is picking up co-sponsorship of Team CSC for the remainder of this year, and title sponsorship for the next three years, it seems that things might be looking up on the cycling front …

Is it a coincidence that all three of these teams have strong, independent, third-party anti-doping programs?

UCI fury as Tour put under French jurisdiction

flahute — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 14:50:29 +0000

UCI fury as Tour put under French jurisdiction

PARIS (AFP) – The International Cycling Union (UCI) have threatened sanctions against riders and teams competing in this year’s Tour de France after organisers announced Tuesday that the race will take place under the jurisdiction of the French Cycling Federation (FFC).

The decision follows a long-running dispute between the two bodies which stems from whether race organisers including ASO (Amaury Sport Organisation), who organise the Tour de France, or the sport’s governing body, the UCI, have the final say over who rides in their races.

As with the Paris-Nice race earlier this year, the 2008 Tour will be organised under the authority of the FFC with the country’s anti-doping agency AFLD in charge of doping controls.

“We have asked the FFC that the Tour be organised under their authority. The AFLD will therefore be in charge of the doping tests before and during the race,” Tour de France race director Christian Prudhomme said.

The UCI, meanwhile, slammed the move as “a bad decision for cycling” and judged it as “extremely regrettable for the sport and the unity of the cycling family”.

“It is not correct that ASO leaders, backed by the FFC, preferred to make the announcement during a press conference before warning the international federation beforehand,” the UCI said in a statement.

“It constitutes additional evidence of the ASO’s wish to no longer take into account the authority of the UCI concerning international cycling.”

And they warned that riders and teams could face sanctions for competing in a race being run outside the UCI authority.

“Riders and teams by competing will expose themselves to sanctions through the fault of ASO leaders,” the UCI said.

So, UCI … are you going to ban 200 professional cyclists from racing in events that ARE on the UCI calendar, thus depriving those races of the very cyclists that make them a success? Do you not realize that ASO actually has the power here?

If the UCI sanctions cyclists, more races will seek sanctioning from national federations, rather than from the UCI; because the races want riders.

The UCI is becoming increasingly irrelevant … and carrying through on a threat like this will do your cause more harm than good.

Unfortunately, until the riders get involved, there’s not going to be a resolution.

Here’s a scenario. All the teams that have been invited start the Tour. The UCI announces sanctions mid-way through the race.

What should the riders do? Do they strike against ASO, backing the UCI, and refusing to race? Or do they continue to ride, backing the organisers’ rights to invite whom they choose? Regardless, unless the teams act unanimously, the issue is not going to be resolved.

Multiple (and competing) governing bodies will emerge. Cycling will lose its status as an Olympic sport. More sponsorship dollars will flow away from the sport … and we can all get back to just riding our bikes.

Too Funny!

flahute — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 03:35:43 +0000

VeloNews posted the following article after my earlier post today on Rock Racing and the Tour de Georgia.

Michael Ball: Georgia’s promoters had one condition, “Don’t freak us out.”

Rock Racing team owner Michael Ball said Friday that his team earned an invite to the Tour de Georgia based on just one simple condition.

“They said, ‘can you conduct yourselves in a way that doesn’t freak us out?’ ” Ball said in a conference call with reporters.

He said that at Georgia he will not be accompanied by the Hollywood-style entourage that followed him at the Amgen Tour of California. He also said the team would not bring podium girl models to Georgia, although he said that’s because the models were unavailable, not because of his promise to avoid freaking anyone out.

Rock Racing had filed suit against the race when it was not invited, but dropped the suit this week when the race announced that the Saunier Duval team was not going to attend and that Rock Racing would fill the spot.

At the same time, Rock Racing was named as a Founding Sponsor of the race. Ball said his company’s sponsorship of the race was not a condition of its invitation.

“I know it could appear that way,” Ball said. “My intention is to support cycling. This is another great American tour and from the get go we have tried to get involved.”

Somehow, I doubt that my earlier post had anything to do with this comment, but I find it funny that other people were obviously thinking the same thing.

(Crack) Rock in Georgia

flahute — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 21:58:30 +0000

VeloNews | 2008 Tour de Georgia

Rock Racing gets in

Domestic team Rock Racing was not originally invited and had threatened take race organizer Medalist Sports to court over a disputed verbal invitation, but was given Saunier Duval’s team slot Tuesday. With that settlement, Rock has signed on as a founding sponsor of the Tour de Georgia — the event’s highest sponsorship level.

“My commitment to cycling is long-term and I am proud to support this world-class race which has featured such winners as Lance Armstrong and Floyd Landis,” Rock team owner Michael Ball said. “As a tribute to the state of Georgia and to the rich tradition of this race, we plan something special for the final stage, so stay tuned.”

Hmm … sponsorship? Or bribery (on Rock Racing’s part) / extortion (on Medalist Sports’ part)? The timing of this sponsorship announcement is awfully suspect … making it seem as though the sponsorship is part of the agreement to let Rock race … a nice little quid pro quo.

The exchange of money does not make either the team OR the organizers look good.