text: down 17% from 2009. Profit!

While an early exit by Lance Armstrong took some of the air out of Versus’ tires, the network’s coverage of the 2010 Tour de France still drew one of the largest aggregate audiences since the lanky Texan won his last yellow jersey in 2005.

Yes, the 5ft 7 lanky Texan.

ROFL.

Quote from article: “Racing bike manufacturers Trek, Specialized and Cervelo signed on for integrations in this year’s race, and all three sponsors invested in standard :30s as well.”

We noticed – a bit more product placement than years past, uh yeah…Tom Cruise!

As great a blessing it was to have the Road ID ad over and over (make your own!), I can’t believe the bike companies could even come close to affording the same ad rates as the beer and car companies. Cervelo is just not that big a company, and it must have been understood that Nissan and Michelob pay more for their ’30’s.’

Anyways very surprised to see this called a success – it’s not like the most frequent advertisers Road ID and Cervelo outbid the bigger sponsors for commercial time. Perhaps ‘the success’ is seen more in the context of a cable channel, rather than a big event.

Historically, it is a bad sign financially in pro bike racing when the bike companies become the major team sponsors. It has to be the case now, too, imo. No team even wants Contador bad enough to really bid for him. Compare that to soccer or baseball, where the situation is totally different.