Not easy to find new sponsor
Do you have $15 million a year to spend to support your interest in cycling? Then you can pick up sponsorship of the bicycling team made famous by Lance Armstrong at the end of the year.
The Discovery Channel cable network says a corporate restructuring means it will no longer sponsor the bicycling team owned by Tailwind Sports, which is looking for someone else to foot the bill.
Bill Stapleton, part owner of the team, said they've already talked to several potential sponsors, but the combination of the costs and bad publicity from doping allegations in the sport is making it a tough sell.
Remember the Phonak-iShare deal last year? The US-based iShares was ready to take over full sponsorship in 2007 until the doping allegations against Floyd Landis arose following the Tour de France. iShares quickly got cold feet, pulled out of the deal, and the team went completely down the tube.
Apparently the fear of a doping association is giving corporations cold feet about getting into the sport. Stapleton told the New York Times:
“Right now, it’s an easy ‘no’ because of everything that has gone on in the sport. The good news is we have plenty of time. We have a number of target companies, and we’ve already talked with some of them. But I think it could be more difficult than the last time” the team searched for a new sponsor.
Discovery picked up sponsorship of the team — also owned by Armstrong and team manager Johan Bruyneel, among others — in 2005, the year Armstrong won his 7th and final Tour de France. For 8 years previously, the team was sponsored by the US Postal Service.
After Armstrong left, the team had a lackluster 2006, with not much to brag about. The high point might have been veteran George Hincapie's road race win at the US Cycling Championships.
This year, Discovery brought on US rider Levi Leipheimer and Italian Ivan Basso. Leipheimer was former boss of the Gerolsteiner squad, while Basso was CSC's top rider. Basso won the Giro last year, and vowed to take the Giro and Tour de France last year. He made the same promise last year, but was forced out of the Tour when his name came up in the Operacion Puerto drug investigation in Spain.
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