Milram: Cold Feet

One thing that occurs to me as this story is the opposite of the Golden Bike award.
The Golden Bike implies a certain stability and maturity in the sport as there is a) money behind those journalists reporting on the sport and b) a general understanding of what the sport is about, especially in Europe but increasingly worldwide.

Milram looking to get out however speaks towards a continuing disorganization much like in a struggling start-up sports league that has revolving ownership and teams in different cities/countries both folding and starting every year. In other words people/companies with big bucks like the sport but aren’t sure how to properly engage with it and so end their involvement sooner rather than later and without selling their franchise (team and/or race) at a profit. In the case of Germany and its companies sponsoring both races and teams pulling out one can see that to a large degree the country no longer understands the rules of the game because of the doping scandals or more properly didn’t understand the de facto rules until now and no longer understands what they see. How does one “read” the pro cycling game when it seems that its not clear how any participant got to be good at it (i.e. by the published rules or some other way)?

Contrast to say soccer where the organization of the game is so strong that they can minimalize the impact of drugs and gambling so that the money stays in that game and relationships of team with fan stay intact.

I know I’m not wording this quite right…

Yeah okay so in Pro Cycling you have the owner of the license actually in middle level management while the real owners- those with the $$$- being reduced to being “sponsors” like those companies on the front of soccer kits. To me that’s a long-term stability problem for the sport because there’s no real long-term vision and a greatly reduced long-term fan base.

Contrast Pro Cycling with both big team sports like soccer or US football and more individual sports like tennis or golf and its clear to me how Cycling for all intents and purposes has a “kick me” sign on its back.

- There’s only a faint local fan base supporting any particular team. Contrast that with team sports where owners and managers come and go but the team lives on in the hearts of its local supporters. There’s a wiff of local pride in Saxo bank or Garmin but its not like those teams ever have a “home” race they “defend” in front of their fans. (No, the Tour of Denmark doesn’t count.)

On the other end you have tennis and golf where the events are the key along with the player associations. Every year around the same time there’s an Australian Open and a Hamburg Open that local fans flock to. Unlike Cycling, events happen in a more orderly progression with agreements between local ownership, players and worldwide associations working things out.

That type of stability makes it so that the sport in question isn’t rocked by the inevitable scandals and changes in legal relationships (Bosman, for instance). But Cycling, having precious little ties, not only gets rocked harder by things like doping that other sports but also has owner/sponsors feeling so little attached to their teams that they feel fine about bailing when they change their minds. I mean that’s just unthinkable in other sports- not the wanting to get out part but the disappearance of the team part, unless you are in an alternative brand new league like the XFL or ABA were in the past in the US.

Certainly, German sponsorship is in trouble. Katyusha and ISD are Eastern European, natch. But several other new sponsors have come in this season from Italy and France – Servetto, a Heulot’s new French team has two French sponsors, blah blah. Columbia and Garmin are American. Riis found Danish sponsors.

So, I’m not sure I’m seeing all Eastern European money by any means. I do think finding pro tour level commitments is difficult and isn’t going to get easier.

“We hereby confirm that we are currently revising our cycling sponsorship. There will be no further statement regarding this topic at the moment.
We will inform the public about further developments.”

(link)

It can’t be a good sign when the sponsor doesn’t even try to deny the rumors a bit.

Really. First he leaves CSC to ride for a German team—T-Mobile—and within a year or two they pull their sponsorship, leaving the team to wander off and become American. So he stamps his foot and says: Nein, I wanted a German team, and jumps ship for Milram. Which almost immediately decides to reconsider sponsoring the team.

Oh, and this September Leenoos wins the Deutschland Tour. In October, they decide to cancel it for next year.

I’m telling you, the man is cursed.