I have always wondered if sponsorship really worked in the sport of cycling. Sponsorship of athletes is really just a way of advertising. Does the money that companies put into the sport actually increase sales? It hard to say.

I’ve had the opportunity to represent a lot of different companies throughout the years. A pretty diverse group of things. Wheaties breakfast cereal, Mountain Dew soda, Isuzu automobiles, etc, plus all the cycling related stuff.

It is really hard, as an individual, to quantify the impact that one person makes on the sales of the products of the sponsors that are on a jersey. I can honestly say that I very much doubt I contributed to the sale of one can of Mountain Dew soda. But, it was, and is, important for Mountain Dew to be involved in the sports it feels represents their message, so at the time, it was nearly mandatory for them to be involved in the sport of MTB racing.

I remember when Motorola took over sponsorship of the 7-11 team. There was nearly a zero percent recognition of the name Motorola in Europe, but after the Tour de France the first year, something like 75% of Europeans knew that Motorola made cell phones. That is a pretty phenomenal penetration rate after only one year. It shows you how popular the Tour is over there.

I’ve driven a bunch of cars around the country that were part of a sponsorship package. I believe that this actually works. If only 1 out of 1000 people that came up to me and asked me about the Isuzu Trooper, or Subaru Outback I was driving bought one, then I sold lots and lots of these cars. Nearly everytime I got out of either of these vehicles at a grocery store, gas station, or where ever, a person would come over and ask me what I thought about the car. The key was that the cars I was driving were all decal-ed with race team logos, so people thought it was fine to come over and talk. It was one on one advertising and I think it works.

But, bike sponsorship is a different deal. Riding for Schwinn for example. I’m pretty positive that all the money I received from Schwinn personally, was way more money that the company could have made as a profit from sending me around the world racing my bicycle. But, now riding for Kent Eriksen bicycles, it is a much different situation. I talk to a lot of people, one on one about what I think the advantages are of riding a Eriksen titanium frame. It seems because the company is much smaller and unique, the sponsorship seems to work better. It’s hard to say.

I know one sponsorship deal I had that did work. When I first started racing MTB, I rode Scott shock forks for the first couple years. Rock Shox was a way more advanced product and much more popular nationally, than a Scott fork. I came back to Kansas and raced a big race down in Sedalia Kansas. Every other fork was a Scott fork. 10 X as many people were riding them than what I’d experienced racing throughout the country. This had to been because of me riding them. It seemed strange at the time, but in reality, that is what sponsorship is all about.

I’ve always wondered about the return of capitol for these sponsorship deals. Is there a chance that Coke sells $3,000,000 more of Coke products after they run a commercial during the Superbowl? They could sponsor the best funded domestic Pro Cycling Team or run a 30 second ad on the Superbowl. It doesn’t seem right.

Whatever the answer is for all this, sponsorship is how our sport survives. There wouldn’t be many races, televised especially, and the professional circuit would be non-existent without sponsorship. Hopefully, we can get our house back in order enough so that our sport is attractive again for sponsors to want to support us, whether it works or not.

This is an advertisement that Ford Motor Company produced in India. Can you believe it, after all the trouble they have had over there with the abuse of women? I very much doubt this could sell cars, but you never know. Heres a link to the article about the ad.

I just saw the video below. It is of the Tampa NCC Criterium. I explained my issues with the way the “Pro” teams ride criteriums nowadays. Sometimes during a stage race, it is the whole race, but when it is a one day race, they tend to only do it the last 10 laps or so at most. If you skip forward to 7:30 minutes into the video, you’ll see the start of the stupidness and resulting crash. This tactic needs to be addressed by the USAC. It is going to hard to make a rule that addresses it in all circumstances, but it is total bullshit. I’ve experienced it many time now.

What the United Healthcare team is doing isn’t unique to them. All the teams, that have the ability, do it. They go to the front of the field at a designated time and start setting tempo. They set an intentional slow tempo and ride the inside of the course. Notice the way that when you get to the 7:30 mark, they are riding up the inside of the start finish stretch. Right before the get to the first corner, they swing across the front of the field that has fanned out because of the slow speed. The UHC guys chop the field and it causes chaos behind them, resulting in the riders behind crashing. I know some of you are going to say that they didn’t crash the field. Not directly, but when the field is fanning out and braking before each and every corner, then crashes result. And it keeps going like this lap after lap, corner after corner. They ride slow tempo at the front and cause the following riders into a complete interval session of braking and sprinting before and after each corner. This isn’t a super great example, but it good enough to understand the practice.

Finally, the last lap they wind it up like a real leadout and string the field out. By that time the field is toasted or have crashed. Notice in the final sprint that no one is riding on the inside fence. Hilton wins in the right lane of the finish stretch, the natural line of the race.

I’ve been complaining to officials about this stupidness for years. It is illegal for one thing. Chopping the field on purpose, multiple times a lap is against the rules. Doing it just once is illegal. But no one does anything about it. Criteriums now have more crashes than ever before. Lots of guys falling, mainly at once. The reason that no one calls anyone on this is because not many people in authority understand the issue.

I think that the only way to control or better yet, just down right stop this tactic is to limit the number of riders any team can put into a criterium at 6 max. Better yet, 5, but I don’t think that will fly. It would still happen every once in a while, but not nearly as often.

All you guys in Colorado Springs that read this blog maybe consider address this problem soon. It’s been going on for way too long. Long enough that there are many good bike racers that have never raced any other way. It is normal race tactics to them. It is just bad bike racing, nothing else. Lazy bad bike racing. Dangerous bike racing. It needs to stop.