This story about A’s pitcher Huston Street taking public transit to games reminded me of how many cars are involved in pro cycling. God only knows how many vehicles are at the Tour, but here’s a breakdown of the 19 used by the Eusakeltel-Euskadi team during the season:

• 4 autobuses (buses, duh)
• 2 camiones (trucks)
• 1 caravana (RV?)
• 1 furgón carrozado (box truck)
• 9 turismos (station wagons like in the picture)
• 2 monovolumen (minivan)

I had a chance to meet Hunter Muraira, who manages the skateboard division of Nike, while I was working with Sneakerplay and he told me that “team sports are dead.” That’s not true yet, but there’s a kernel of truth in it for sure.

Brandweek reported last week that the International Fight League “will be acquired by a rival company or shut down.” The IFL, which two years ago had a $500 million IPO (seriously!?!?) is apparently now worth a million, tops. Their gimmick was basically to be the UFC but with teams instead of individuals fighters. Since the only realistic buyer, the UFC, doesn’t appear particularly interested, shutting down looks likely. 

As an aside, the Ultimate Fighting Championship is the dominant promoter but the sport isn’t called “ultimate fighting.” It’s mixed martial arts. I prefer boxing.

Anyways, I imagine the the IFL’s founder thought to themselves, “City-based teams work for baseball, football (US), basketball, hockey, football (rest of the world), so that format is a sure thing for MMA!” Apparently not. My guess is that demand for city-based teams is pretty much tapped out. New ones always seem forced and cheesy, like the IFL’s San Jose Razorclaws or Los Angeles Anacondas. The appeal of a team like the Celtics has so much to do with their history in Boston, and the appeal of expansion teams like the Bobcats has a lot to do with the recognition of Charlotte as a major city on the same level as Boston. Arena Football and Major League Soccer are doing ok with city teams, but that’s probably about meeting unmet demand for those sports rather than local pride. Meanwhile, the UFC’s individual format gives MMA fans all they could want - a (team-based…) reality show plus taped and live fights on Spike, major pay-per-view cards, and big events in major markets.

I think we’ll see more and more of a trend towards individual sports. The UFC is a great example,
but action sports is even more emblematic.At the very least, there’s probably no room for more team sports. Plus, if you look at how the NBA is marketed internationally, it’s based on individual star power.

What does this mean for cycling? I think it’s probably good. Both the business structure and tactics of cycling are based on teams, but fans seem to prefer rooting for people instead of corporations. And at the end of the race, it’s one guy on the podium by himself…

…with his kids. Cute!

The team formerly known as Saunier Duval-Scott is now… um… Scott-American Beef. There’s not much information on line about the Chihuahua, Mexico based meat processor, but they were briefly “de-listed from the list of authorized plants to export to the United States” in 2004 - see page 60 of this report (pdf) from the USDA. Gross. Here’s what they had to say about the sponsorship.

“We consider that what happened at the Tour is sad but do not have to condemn the whole team, who always showed fair play,” said Ricardo Creel, president of American Beef. “Those who are guilty must be punished, but all other honest racers, as well as the whole staff of the team, must be able to end the season with complete peace of mind.”

I guess I’m happy for them to have found a sponsor but it’s certainly an odd pairing. I wonder if Scott’s contract included veto power of the co-sponsors. Still no word from Kadisco client SRAM on their future involvement with the team following the Ricco mess.

via VeloNews

Post your video or written question ahead of time at The Road Diaries

A DJ and a bike shop from Montreal built up a bike with stock frame and components! The custom head tube badge is neat, but otherwise it’s just a regular pieced-together track bike like anything you’d see around town. Can someone at Cool Hunting please explain what the big deal is? Thanks.

McDonald’s is running a promotion on MySpace to come up with a new Big Mac chant - you know, “two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun”…

One of the finalists is a rapper from Miami who actually robbed a McDonald’s when he was 14, got tried as an adult, and was imprisoned for 12 years. Obviously, there’s a rich irony here but it’s disgraceful that we live in a country where you can walk out of prison at 26 having spent almost half your life there. Now he’s involved in the Real Talk Project and works with imprisoned youth all over Florida.

Anyways, go vote for BAiNG. He’s contestant #4.

via TechCrunch

I was looking at the Fail Blog just now, then I came aross this story on ReadWriteWeb. Apparently, some guy at Deloitte looked at a bunch of branded online communities and found that:

Thirty-five percent of the [corporate] online communities studied have less than 100 members; less than 25% have more than 1,000 members - despite the fact that close to 60% of these businesses have spent over $1 million on their community projects.

As RWW points out with insights like “They are stupid,”  the study misses the real reason that corporate social networks fail: nobody cares.

I’m at the PSFK conference right now, dealing with the fallout from the Ricco positive as relates The Road Diaries. It’s interesting to be part of the internal debates but mostly it’s a shitty situation for everyone involved.

We’ve decided to leave the posts related to Ricco and Saunier Duval-Scott up on the site, except for a couple that were deleted before we reached that decision. Especially at a moment like this one, it’s important to be open and transparent, and not try to pretend that the stage wins didn’t happen or that we weren’t excited about them. We were thrilled, and that’s part of why this is so angering, disappointing, and frustrating.

(post edited a bit when i got home from the conference)

I guess this is it. The lied-about “private league” of pro cycling is finally going to happen and I think it will be a good thing.

We learned today that the teams formerly known as “ProTour teams” will not renew their contracts with the UCI. Instead, they’ll seek to work out a deal directly with ASO (Tour de France), RCS Sport (Giro d’Italia), and Unipublic (Vuelta a España), of which ASO owns 49%. Here’s the UCI’s response to the teams:

The International Cycling Union has noted the teams’ intention not to renew their UCI ProTour licences for 2009.

This decision was entirely foreseeable in view of the meetings held recently between the teams and the management of ASO.

The UCI notes that the teams have once again succumbed to pressure from the management of ASO, whose aim for the last four years has been to destroy the UCI ProTour.

By signing the agreement that ASO’s management has imposed on them, the teams appear to want to join the parallel system that ASO is seeking to put in place.

The UCI is looking into the situation and will take the necessary decisions in due course.

ASO’s aim is not to destory the ProTour. Their aim is to make money and if the ProTour helped them do it, they’d be all for it. If ASO has in fact forced the teams to sign a one-sided deal, their best option is collective bargaining. Succumbing to the UCI’s threats would be a dead end, since the ex-governing body no longer has any clout with ASO.

The question now is what will happen to amateur cycling. There still needs to be a pipeline to develop the athletes who will eventually be on these teams and race in the Tour de France, but I doubt that the ASO-led alliance will have much interest in managing this sprawling and presumably unprofitable system. I’ll be thinking about this for an upcoming post or column.

I suppose Trek has had a number of great ideas, although this might be my favorite: a bike parts vending machine stocked with tubes, tire levers, water bottles and such. Here’s a prototype installed near their HQ in Madison, Wisconsin. In general, Trek is has a major commitment to making bicycles more accessible to the average person. It’s a forward-thinking strategy, even though their competitors might also benefit from Trek’s efforts to grow the market.

via PSFK, via Treehugger

I took this screenshot a couple days ago of the New York Times website. It’s just regular ol’ Tour coverage, not a feature or doping scandal. I looked again just now and, sure enough, Mark Cavendish’s win in stage 5 was the lead story. Maybe people are interested in this bike race after all.

Just sent in my column for the September issue of ROAD. The piece talks about the recent sponsorship deals with Garmin, Columbia, and Saxo Bank for the teams formerly known as Slipstream, High Road, and CSC, respectively. Here’s an excerpt:

On the surface, the trio of deals seems like an unquestionably auspicious sign for cycling. But ESPN’s Bonnie D. Ford, a veteran chronicler of the sport and of Slipstream in particular, speculated that the team’s deal with GPS device maker Garmin and High Road’s deal with Columbia sportswear aren’t sufficient to run a Tour de France team. A statement from High Road owner Bob Stapleton seemed to confirm her hypothesis.

If it’s true, it could put smaller teams in a difficult position by setting a precedent that the title sponsorship of a competitive Tour de France team can be had for less than what it currently costs to run one. For a program without the backing of a billionaire like Stapleton or Slipstream’s Doug Ellis, the only choice would be to cut costs, with reduced salaries for riders being a likely result.

The issue hits newsstands on August 14. My past columns are archived here.