Bjarne Riis successfully found a new sponsor to replace the outgoing CSC in Saxo Bank. Effective immediately Saxo Bank will cosponsor the team with the highlight being big exposure at the Tour. In 2009 Team CSC will become Team Saxo Bank marking a smooth transition over to the new sponsor. With the advent of sponsorless teams such as High Road and Slipstream and the loss of Gerolsteiner as a main sponsor it looked like cycling would have a tough time getting new sponsors into the sport. With Riis’ success at attracting Saxo Bank hopefully more sponsors will take another look at cycling.

Team CSC News

T-Mobile has dropped their main sponsorship from their Bob Stapleton run cycling team. The news comes after Adidas dropped sponsorship of the team in light of the ongoing-neverending doping stories surrounding the team. The team will not disband as T-Mobile’s contract was set to go until December 2010 and there must be a decent enough exit payment that will allow Stapleton and Co to continue for at least 2008. The team will now be called appropriately enough Team High Road. The good news for George Hincapie is he won’t have to wear Magenta in South Carolina. Riding with feminine like colors in the South is not good. Then he would get into more trouble when the UCI would say he was a “man in black” for training without his team colors. Perhaps that is why George was pissed at Levi for winning the US Pro Championship. Levi and others probably knew that George was going to go to T-Mob next year and the specter of wearing pink in the South must have been a real FU to George when Levi took the win.

With Team High Road and Team Slipstream in the Pro Peloton could this be the dawn of sponsorless team names? I hope so. It would actually be better for a team’s long term survival since they would not necessarily be attached to a specific sponsor. Team could weather the storm of a major sponsor loss since they would not necessarily be associated with a specific product. Products would then be associated with the team making it easier to switch around.

Anyway, thanks for the years of cycling T-Mobile. It is unfortunate that just as the team was clean T-Mobile decided to leave the sport. It is perhaps premature and hasty. T-Mobile could have stayed on with a cleaner image instead of leaving under a cloud of doping related stories.

Race organizers are predicting that the eight-day event that ends in Long Beach Sunday will attract more than 1.3 million spectators and break its own record as the biggest sporting event held in California since the 1984 Olympic Summer Games.

The racers like the conditions here in the US much better too.

“Some of the early season Pro Tour events there are horrible,” says Tom Danielson, a rising star on the Discovery Channel team. “The hotels are small and cramped and the roads are really, really bad. Sometimes there’s hardly anyone at the races, the road and towns are empty when we pass.”

The riders like racing here and the fans turn out. Some of the bigger companies have a stake in the US market too. Owning a cycling team compared to other sports is a bargain where the return is as Lance Armstrong puts it ten fold.

Discovery, the heir to Armstrong’s first six Tour de France wins and title sponsor of his seventh, is dropping its $10 million annual sponsorship at the end of the season in the wake of a management shakeup at the network. Team officials says they’re already talking with potential replacements.

“Its never easy,” says Armstrong. “Ten million a year is a significant financial commitment. But if you look at what we did with Discovery Channel, we can prove that they got $100 million in benefits. Even last year, after I retired, they made money on the deal.”

Ten Million is not much when you compare it any of the major ball sports here in the US. The Indianapolis Colts are trying to restructure Payton Manning’s contract just to freee up Eight Million dollars extra. Petty cash in the NFL is ProTour team cash in cycling. Plus, fans do not have to purchase tickets to go watch the sport.

USA Today Article | http://www.goclipless.com/

A change in the top level management at Discovery Channel has resulted in a loss of sponsorship for the cycling team at the end of 2007.

Armstrong’s agent spoke to USA Today to relay the news that was released on the Friday which is when most high profile people like to dump bad news.

Stapleton told USA TODAY Friday that the Discovery’s decision to not renew for a fourth year is connected to Monday’s firing of Discovery Network’s president Billy Campbell by new Discovery Communications president and CEO David Zaslav.

Campbell was the major force behind the company’s decision to sponsor the team in 2004. He also pushed the team to sign Italian star and Tour favorite Ivan Basso this year despite a since-resolved controversy about the rider’s role in a Spanish doping scandal.

“This would not have happened if Billy Campbell was still there,” Stapleton said. “This is about their change in management.”

Stapleton said the company is already evaluating potential replacements for Discovery and could sign another company before the 2007 season is over.

Tailwind sports has some very good prospects of picking up a new sponsor for 2007. iShares may want to get back into the cycling game after dumping the takeover of Phonak dude to the Landis scandal at the Tour de France. Other companies may also be interested in picking up sponsorship of the high profile American team. Cycling is going strong in the USA with more races getting UCI ratings so the sport can easily attract a new high profile sponsor to replace Discovery.

For Discovery Channel, the run was short and could be marked by a lack of marketing buzz outside of cycling. The promised features with Lance Armstrong having a show on Discovery Channel never really materialized. Sure there was a profile on George Hincapie on Fit TV’s “Art of the Athlete” and the Lance Chronicles, but Discovery Channel never fully used the cycling team to the full potential.

Discovery Channel team jerseys were available in the Discovery Channle stores, but outside of that not much more. Discovery may have had a great deal of exposure from Lance’s 2005 victory where he road to victory in Disco colors, but last year’s lack of success showed a team in transition struggling to find its new role. 2007 will be a much bigger year as the team brought in Ivan Basso who could prove to be either the new leader or a new liability. The Tour de France organizers ASO have not decided what to do with Ivan Basso. They talked tough saying they will not allow Operation Puerto tainted riders into the Tour. But their stance may be getting lenient since most charges have been dropped and Operation Puerto is yet to convict a single rider much less provide any solid evidence against anyone.

If Ivan Basso is barred from the Tour again this year then Tailwind sports will be in big trouble. However, with Lance Armstrong’s celebrity and profile, the team could probably wrap up a new sponsor deal before the Tour.

USA Today

Facts about iShares
iShares is the brand name for one of the world’s largest ranges of exchange traded funds (ETFs), which is marketed and managed by Barclays Global Investors (BGI). iShares manage over 129 funds listed globally, totalling over $150 billion. iShares funds are available to institutional investors and private investors. ETFs are index funds that are bought and sold like ordinary shares on a stock exchange and are a tool to gain diversified exposure to a market.

Tuttobici Web

Phonak Press Release