End of an Era

Discovery is no More.

Tailwind Sports the owner of the Discovery Channel Cycling Team has announced the team will disband after the 2007 season. Even though the team has had significant success winning eight out of the last nine Tours de France in the current climate in cycling it is not surprising that the team elected to disband. Although team officials had announced that they felt they were close to having signed a prime sponsor for 2008 to replace Discovery Channel, the fact that they had not announced anything at the Tour lead some to believe that the team's demise was imminent. Historically, new sponsors have always been announced and attached to teams during the Tour.

Discovery has been one of the largest and best funded teams in the peleton. As discussed in previous issues, however, it is not unusual for most riders to be on short term contracts of one to two years. The period following the Tour de France is typically the time that teams and riders begin to announce their line ups for the next season. While the loss of major sponsors does result in riders losing their jobs, invariably another team steps into the void.

When Motorola met a similar demise in the mid 1990's, it was a dark period in American cycling as it was the end of the 7-Eleven/Motorola legacy as the first American team in Europe. Jim Ochowitz found himself unable to find a replacement sponsor for the team and it too disbanded leaving many young American riders scrambling for rides elsewhere. Although 3-4 riders signed with the new French team Cofidis, including Lance Armstrong, it was the small American team Subaru-Montgomery Securities that filled the vaccum created by the demise of Motorola. The team had signed USPostal Service and had began to look to expand its presence in Europe. Many former Motorola riders ended up at US Postal Service which after a couple of years of growth became a mainstay of the peleton.

The demand for top talent, including American talent is always present even in an environment that is as toxic as the current sponsorship environment in cycling. Teams are always hiring riders. It is just that some teams do not have the budget that other teams have. Some teams look to move up by hiring top talent, i.e. Slipstream, which has already announced the signing of David Millar, Dave Zabriskie and Magnus Backstead. Other teams hire riders based upon the marketing goals of its sponsors. Prior to the doping announcement regarding T-Mobile's activities in the mid 1990's there had been some speculation that T-Mobile was going to become less German and more American. George Hincapie had previously been linked to a move to T-Mobile although that has yet to be confirmed. Discovery's Belgian national champion was sure to move to either Predictor Lotto or Quik.Step this year as both teams are willing to pay a premium to have the national champion wearing their jersey for the first part of the season.

In reality Discovery Channel had largely ceased to be an American team as Americans were in the minority of its riders and Discovery did not even contest the races that make up Philly week in June. Levi Leipheimer should have no difficult finding a ride for next season. Alberto Contador will likely have some difficulty unless and until Operacion Puerto is finally resolved.

Teams fold and teams are born each year. It is a difficult process and it is sad to see a team with the history of Discovery Channel calling it quits. Just like it was sad to see Mapei and ONCE disappear. The key to the ongoing viability of the sport, however, is long term sponsor support and that is jeopardized by a culture that still does not seem to understand the long term damage that doping in pursuit of short term gain causes. As Lance Armstrong noted in announcing Discovery's demise, the ASO's threat to return the Tour de France to national teams makes the search for sponsors difficult as sponsors want quantifiable return on their investment. They want to make sure that the team has significant exposure and that the team does not undermine its core marketing goals or injure its brand. Right now in cycling, that is difficult if not impossible to guarantee.

So What Happens Next Year?

At the end of the day, all cycling is driven by sponsorship. Sponsorship is driven by marketing. Marketing is driven by the desire to get products and brands as much positive recognition as possible in a cost effective manner. The UCI needs a top level team with strong ties to the United States. The ASO needs a top American team committed to racing clean. I would therefore expect that Jonathon Vaughter's Team Slipstream will not only be lining up for next year's Tour start but that it will be invited to join the ProTour in Discovery's absence.

There are other teams which will potentially fold this off season but there will be others to replace them. At the end of the day, the UCI's real difficulty is its desire to have a 20 team ProTour paying 20 licensing fees to it for entry into all the top races, the Grand Tour organizers really only want to have to invite 15-18 teams to their races and want freedom to invite more domestic teams. The Vuelta has long shown that the Italian teams do not take it seriously. There really are only about 15 teams that have the wherewithal to actually compete at the level the ProTour demands.

The loss of Discovery, the impending suspension of Astana, and questions around the ongoing sponsorship of Unibet.com, Cofidis, Credit Agricole, and Gerolsteiner all make it likely that this could be the end of the ProTour as the UCI has desired. The UCI formed the ProTour to ensure that sponsors got value for their commitment. The problem is that finding sponsors who want to run the risk of the baggage that comes with cycling is diminishing. Having a Tour de France contested by national teams may not be the worst thing that could happen.