Monday’s Mailbag: The end of fun; It’s all about the shareholders

By VeloNews.com
Published Dec. 3, 2007
Updated Nov. 4, 2009 at 12:08 AM UTC

The Mailbag is a regular department on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have read in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to webletters@insideinc.com. Please include your full name, hometown and state or nation. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Writers are encouraged to limit their submissions to one letter per month. The letters published here contain the opinions of the submitting authors and should not be viewed as reflecting the opinions, policies or positions of VeloNews.com, VeloNews magazine or our parent company, Inside Communications, Inc.

It should be fun
VeloNews,
I can’t help but to think nowadays what juniors think about pro cycling.Last year I was a junior, and although I had small dreams about goingpro, I have lost all desires. Where in other sports you can look for fameand appreciation when you reach the top level, in cycling it seems likeall you can find is negativity and stress. The best riders receive dopingaccusations left and right, so what can a young up and coming rider lookforward to?Of course you can say the Tour de France is prestigious, but when peopleare getting caught left and right, how can that be fun. Fun is what thesport is about, and that’s why I’ve gone to mountain biking, a sport aboutenjoying nature and and having fun, not about the pure competition. I wishroad biking was a little more like mountain biking, where fun was moreimportant than winning, and the location you’re riding is more importantthan the people in the race. I don’t like to compare cycling to pure Americansports like football and baseball, but sports like surfing and snowboarding.Sports where doping is not even considered, and appreciation for fun andbeauty is above the competition. The athletes held in highest regards sometimesaren’t even competitors, just people who are the best at the sport becausethe have the most fun.Athletes like Laird Hamilton and Shaun White. Road biking is missingthat fun aspect nowadays, and maybe that should be the first thing to change.
Charlie Carroll
Santa Rosa, CaliforniaThe obligation to provide a return
Dear Velo,
In his letterto the editor last week Rick Johnson has it all backward. Despite ofthe wording T-Mobile used to sugar coat its withdrawal, the fact is thatthey simply couldn’t count on the sport to provide a positive image forthe company. T-Mobile stuck by the team for years in spite of ridersnot getting the message, and when they decided the ongoing jeopardy wasnot worth risking their advertising bucks they pulled the plug. Everyoneneeds to understand some basic economics here … no sponsor bears anyobligation to support any sport just because we may happen to be disappointedif they don’t.Sponsors foot the bill for a team only as long as they think they willget something positive from it. The T-Mobile cycling team had ampleopportunity to justify the trust Deutsche Telekom granted them and theyblew it, pure and simple. I’ve been a big fan of pro cycling fora couple of decades and even I’m fed up with it, and I sure don’t thinkthis sport (or any other, for that matter) is close to being clean yet.
The German fans, which just happen to be Deutsche Telekom’s customers,have an even worse view of the sport right now than I do, so why on earthshould the company be expected to continue support in the face of that? I just don’t get how folks like Mr. Johnson think sponsorship is an openended deal.T-Mobile fired the team and the sport of cycling for not deliveringan acceptable return (in the form of image) on its investment (in the formof time and money), and the company had every right to do so and, as faras shareholders are concerned, probably even an obligation to doso.
Dave Gilbert
Sierra Vista, ArizonaA fiduciary duty
Editors,
As I look over some of the feedback on the Telekom decision, I’m amazedat the naiveté of some of the folks out there. People, here’s a clue: with very few exceptions (and I don’t really believe those), sponsors arenot idealists coughing up $18 million per year to support the sport!!! They’re investing in the advertising and promotion of their products, andare trying to link the positive image of the sport they are sponsoringwith the product they’re selling. Telekom made a sensible businessdecision, because right now the image of cycling in Germany is lower thanwhale poop.It’s not the responsibility of the sponsors to clean up cycling, it’sup to the UCI, the promoters, the teams and the racers. Until thelast year or so, the sport has been run by the very people who createdthe problem: UCI officials, team officials, and masseurs who wereactive or racing in the bad old days when this stuff was winked at. Most of those people are still in place, and are running teams (until they’recaught and canned). They have been incredibly slow at realizing thatthe world has changed, and that this stuff is no longer tolerable.Not, that is, unless they want to go back to the days when there wasessentially no TV coverage or money in the sport, the very top racers earned$50,000 in a big year, and most of the peloton slaved away for primes ofsausage and beer at ratty Belgian kermises.
Steven Ostrofsky
Delafield, WisconsinThe value of obscurity
Dear Editor,
Good for T-Mobile, I for one hope all cycling sponsors do the same.Maybe then, and only then, will cycling be drug free. Maybe, when cyclinggoes back into obscurity again, we can find a new start.
Sam Freeman
Longmont, ColoradoFirst, sue all the lawyers
Dear Velo
Based on the VN article “Courtdeclines to hear Kashechkin suit” it appears that Kashechkin may not be getting good legal advice. Perhaps he should hire a lawyer to sue his lawyer?Please don’t sue me, I am just a poor cyclist and this is not”legal” advice from a qualified attorney.
Cheers
Legal cynic
Nick Sheen
Austin, Texas

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