The Court of Arbitration for Sport announced earlier today that it will uphold USADA’s suspension of Floyd Landis, whose website is currently down. That was Floyd’s last chance to be exonerated through the global sporting establishment, although it is possible that he’ll continue through civil court.

I’ve never been able to commit to a position on Floyd’s guilt or innocence. Both are plausible scenarios and there are arguments to support each one. But from the early going, it was clear that his innovative defense strategy would have a far-reaching affect on anti-doping hierarchy. By opening the Malibu hearing to the public and though the inaptly named “Wikipedia Defense“, Floyd drew back the curtain on a previously opaque system and exposed it as sloppy, arbitrary, and vindictive. He fought back through the media, particularly online social media, and almost pulled it off.

Regardless of whether he doped, Floyd sent a message any bureaucracy would be wise to heed:

If you don’t show people what you’re doing, someone else will show them for you.

As always, Trust But Verify has the best Floyd coverage.

There’s been a flurry of news in the UK (1, 2, 3) that Dave Brailsford, architect of British Cycling’s dominant track program, is planning a top-flight road team for next year. Not that anyone had to do much digging to find that out. Brailsford has embarked on what amounts to a press tour, outlining his plans in a BBC interview for “establishing a team brand which will be around for the long term, which you can emotionally tie into.” Apparently, he has a business plan ready to go that will derive revenue from sources other than selling naming rights to a title sponsor.

British Cycling seems to be on board but I’m not sure about Brailsford using his position as a publicly funded employee to launch his own private business. Furthermore, his concept sounds a lot like the original model for United Pro Cycling, which didn’t exactly go as planned. However, that model makes more sense for a “Team Britain” with the best British riders racing in the Tour de France than for a “Team America” with second-tier US riders racing on the domestic circuit.

As for Brailsford’s PR campaign, I think it’s a great move. At best, he catches the eye of a sponsor that otherwise wouldn’t have been in the picture. At worst, the embarassment of the team not panning out would be far outweighed by his track program’s near-certain success in Beijing.

Puma has released I-Cycle, a series of video shorts featuring the founder of the Recycle-A-Bicycle program in New York, actor Matthew Modine’s Bicycle For a Day, the guy who had the first pedicab in New York, the organizer of the Bicycle Film Festival, and Puma’s bike collecting CMO.

One thing that jumped out at me immediately was that the interviews were done on the bike, not in the studio. Being able to see the person talking instead of just hearing a voiceover during a riding shot makes it feel so much more personal. Also, Puma branding is almost non-existent. I noticed a shot of the Bike Film Festival guy wearing Pumas and there are obviously some kicks in the video with their CMO. But Puma has smartly told interesting stories about bike culture, not about their products

via PSFK

The BBC has published a guide for its producers on how to use social networks and other social sites to promote the BBC and its programming. The principles that they outline are essential for any marketer who wants to use social web sites in a way that feels natural and appropriate to users. Here are their spot-on recommendations about Tone of Voice:

We should be sensitive to the expectations of existing users of the specific site. If we add a BBC presence, we are joining their site rather than the opposite. Users are likely to feel that they already have a significant stake in it. When adding an informal BBC presence, we should “go with the grain” and be sensitive to user customs and conventions to avoid giving the impression that the BBC is imposing itself on them and their space.

For example, we should respect the fact that users on site X are not our users; they are not bound by the same Terms of Use and House Rules as we apply on bbc.co.uk. Attempts to enforce our standard community rules on third party sites may lead to resentment, criticism and in some cases outright hostility to the BBC’s presence.

This is not to say that behaviour likely to cause extreme offence, for example racist insults, should be tolerated by the BBC on a BBC branded space on a social networking site. It should not. Neither should behaviour which is clearly likely to put a child or teenager at substantial risk of significant harm. But where we do decide to intervene, we will normally need to do so with a light touch, sensitive to different expectations and a different context from bbc.co.uk

via NewTeeVee

Last night was the opening of the “Pressure” art show, a collaboration between RVCA and Cinelli. The show featured bike-themed works by some really well known graphic artists like Barry McGee, KAWS, Phil Frost, and others. MASH was given the corner window display to play around with, and Mike came up with this giant dreamcatcher made of used tires and broken bike parts. (that’s his photo, too)

Check out Mike’s blog on Honeyee to see the rest of his photos of the other pieces and the opening reception. Wow, there are a lot of links in this post.

Plenty of reports this morning that Slipstream has signed Garmin as its new title sponsor, but Velonews explains the deal in the most detail. I might write something later about this, or maybe just wait until the next ROAD column to go over all three recent deals. Anyways, congrats to Slipstream.

Good news came on Monday that High Road Sports, the former T-Mobile team, has signed Columbia Sportswear as title sponsor for its men’s and women’s teams through 2010.

Outside of the implications for cycling, what’s interesting to me about this deal is the shift in Columbia’s brand. Earlier this year, they dropped the agency that developed their long-running ad campaign featuring their everyman president, Tim Boyle, being tormented by his mother under harsh conditions to test their jackets. Now, with a major global sponsorship like High Road and a slew of other athletes and events, Columbia appears to be deemphasizing a playful, approachable tone in favor of high-end performance. The last year has been pretty rough for them, which might explain the new, more North Face-y look.

In any event, this is great news for High Road and it’s really encouraging that they and Riis Cycling were able to sign major deals this spring. Reports of cycling’s demise may once again have been exaggerated.

TechCrunch reports that garbage and recycling company Waste Management has launched a social network called Greenopolis that encourages users to “Learn. Act. Reward. Together.™” It’s a full-on social network with user profiles, friends lists, blogging and media, forums, etc. It’s also an example of a company hopping on the social networking bandwagon a bit too eagerly, even if a $20 billion dollar company like Waste Management can afford to throw some promotional weight behind Greenopolis.

Still, the site is unlikely to have nearly the impact of the (Lil) Green Patch Facebook application. As a user, all you need to do is add the application, plant something in your friends’ patches, and get back to doing whatever else you do on Facebook. There’s no new profile to create, new blog to write, new media to upload, new forums to use, etc. With 5.5 million profiles and over 615,261 daily users, the (Lil) Green Patch reaches a lot more people than it looks like Greenopolis ever will.

For whatever reason, green social networking hasn’t taken off, at least not in proportion to the size of the population that cares about environmental issues. The sites are out there but they haven’t really gained traction with users. Maybe the problem is that we’re already doing as much social networking as we can handle in a 24 hour day, so a niche social network is a tough sell to new users unless there’s already a thriving community in place. Like Dogster.

In any case, brands - whether green or not - are probably better off taking a cue from (Lil) Green Patch and tapping into existing social networks rather than starting their own. If Waste Management had done that, maybe they’d have more money for their U-23 cycling team.

Just got a press release from AEG’s PR agency announcing that they’ve partnered with ASO to co-market the Tour of California and the Tour de France. Based on the release here’s my impression of the agreement:

ASO receives:

• Sponsorship packge of the Tour of California
• Assistance from AEG with sponsorship sales to US companies

AEG receives:

• Sponsorship package of the Tour de France
• Assistance from ASO with TV production
• Assistance from ASO with international broadcast rights sales

Sensibly, AEG is now aligned with the most important organization in cycling while ASO gets greater access to a potentially lucrative US market. The UCI, meanwhile, gets, well…

Full text of the press release after the jump.

(more…)

Robert Scoble had a guest column on TechCrunch yesterday arguing that Kyte beat out its competitors in the market for live video streaming from your mobile phone. We’ve already selected Kyte as the video platform for the project that I’m working on for SRAM, so we must be really smart.

BikeRadar’s North America Editor Gary Boulanger has weighed in on Boonen’s transgressions with this:

Placing any sports figure on a platform is not healthy. Give them suitcases full of cash, and many times all hell breaks loose. It’s one thing for a professional American football, soccer, basketball or baseball player to choose to let fame go to their heads (or through their nose or veins) when they come from poverty or straight out of high school, but when a rider with Boonen’s background takes a turn like this, and has a team surrounding him that doesn’t acknowledge a bigger problem, how can we - media, fans and sponsors - feel safe in the knowledge that what we’re witnessing is pure athletic achievement and not synthetic, orchestrated behind the scenes because there’s so much money at stake?

The statement about athletes coming “from poverty or straight out of high school” is outrageous. Basically, Gary is saying that we shouldn’t even bother to ask for what he considers acceptable behavior from poor people because they don’t know any better. Same goes for athletes coming out of high school, like those miscreants LeBron James and Kevin Garnett. Then there’s the issue of the color of most America pro athletes’ skin. I can imagine the shitstorm that would erupt if a sportswriter from a major newspaper had written that sentence.

On top of that, it’s hard to believe that anyone who follows cycling, let alone a journalist, was ever “safe in the knowledge that what we’re witnessing is pure athletic achievement and not synthetic.”

Michael Z from SRAM was telling me in Philly about a private fundraiser for Barack Obama that was organized by Stan or F.K. Day. (I forget which, sorry guys). It turns out that at the event, Obama promised to “increase funding for cycling and pedestrian projects,” according to Bicycle Retailer & Industry News. My girlfriend pointed out that it’s just another example of money driving politics, but at least money is driving politics in the right direction.

Anyways, something in the BRAIN article that jumped out at me was Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) saying that “it’s important for [the bike] industry to understand that it is a force.” Even in a strong economy, the rising cost of gas alone would make cycling more attractive. But when the economy’s bad, everything else that makes cars so expensive becomes more of a concern for drivers: car payments, insurance, repairs, etc. Then there’s the whole “green” thing, which is quickly becoming a mainstream value. Also, urban living is coming back into style and bikes are getting to be pretty fashionable.

Those are powerful economic, social, and cultural forces coming together that favor the use of bicycles, so it’s smart for Obama to align himself now with the bike industry and show everyone that it’s ok to look dorky on a bike.

picture via LAist