Discovery disbands without backer
Sad news:
“Lance Armstrong’s former team Discovery is to disband at the end of the season after failing to find a new sponsor.”
$45 million over three years is a steep price in sports marketing to be associated with the most tainted sports of all. Sad, the legacy of Discovery — formerly US Postal — as the team that drove Armstrong to seven Tour de France palmares should have been as one of the preeminent franchises in any sport. Now it sputters out without a whimper like my subscription to VeloNews which expires with the current issue.
Let’s see if pro cycling’s slide in irrelevancy does two things:
1. Kill off the big surge in yuppie cyclists (self included) riding $10,000 bikes
2. Cause other sports to crack down preemptively on doping to keep their ranks clean (except pro wrestling which needs freaks as part of the draw).
Guess my new Giro Discovery helmet is destined to become a collector’s item someday.
There is no doubt the yuppie crowd, men and women, are headed for a middle age of doping themselves- HGH, Testosterone replacement, viagra, botox, wrinkle fillers and scalpels. Bikes are cool, so is youth. Yuppies hang in there and see the Alps on Colnagos.
I’ll do the Alps on a Colnago. Any day.