Posted on 05. Jan, 2009 by in Bike Racing, Client News, Sponsors, Sports Business | 1 Comment
The March 1989 issue of VeloNews – reproduced on page 18 of the January 2009 issue – estimated budgets for some of the era’s leading teams: Cafe de Colombia, PDM, Panasonic, etc. In 2008 dollars, the average of the 9 teams on the list that contested the ‘89 Tour is $6.12 million. According to VeloNews’ [...]
Posted on 17. Nov, 2008 by in Bike Racing, Sponsors, Sports Business | 3 Comments
Like a can of peaches [cringe], the Tour de Georgia is on the shelf. It’s been the best in North America from a pure racing standpoint, although they have had financial trouble in the past. The dismal economy obviously isn’t helping their cause, but I don’t think that’s really the problem. It’s that bike races [...]
Posted on 27. Oct, 2008 by in Bike Racing, Sports Business | No Comments
Perhaps my favorite sportswriter, Salon’s King Kaufman wrote a couple interesting pieces this week about what it means to be a fan. His point, in a nutshell, was that the idea of “hardcore” vs. “bandwagon” fans is misguided. Both groups are just consumers of sports entertainment, where a winning team is a good product. Some [...]
Posted on 25. Oct, 2008 by in Bike Racing, Sports Business | No Comments
I got an email from CSC-Saxo Bank’s list a couple days ago that this was their fourth consecutive year as the #1 team in the world. Extremely telling is that they’re referring to Cycling Quotient, a comprehensive but entirely unofficial ranking site run by a few Belgian fans. Now that we’ve got the UCI’s ProTour [...]
Posted on 30. Sep, 2008 by in Bike Racing, Sports Business | No Comments
At least for the foreseeable future, it’s over. Not surprisingly, the Grand Tours got what they wanted. Although there will still be something called the ProTour, there will also be something called the Historical Calendar including all events organized by ASO, RCS, and Unipublic. These organizers will keep full control over team selections and presumably [...]
Posted on 30. Jul, 2008 by in Sports Business | No Comments
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 [...]
Posted on 09. Jul, 2008 by in Bike Racing, ROAD Magazine, Sponsors, Sports Business | No Comments
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 [...]
Posted on 27. Jun, 2008 by in Bike Racing, Sponsors, Sports Business | No Comments
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 [...]
Posted on 18. Jun, 2008 by in Bike Racing, Sports Business | No Comments
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.
