T-Mobile, the professional cycling team that began this year with the sport’s largest budget and an ambitious plan to reform the sport’s drug problem, lost its sponsor yesterday because of continuing doping controversies.
The team will continue, just not as T-Mobile. That's two major sponsors (Discovery being the other) who have left the sport and teams have not been able to replace either. Adidas also dropped its sponsorship of the ex-T-Mobile team today.
Astana, a.k.a. "Team Syringe" is having difficulty getting off the ground. You'll remember that's where Johan Bruneel went after deciding that this wasn't the right time to bring a new sponsor into cycling to take over the Discovery team. He took Contador, Levi, and some other Disco boys with him.
Well, it seems that the Astana license is being held up, something about the former managers not paying their riders - go figure. Right now, it's unclear how and when the situation will be cleared up. I'd assume that Astana will get their new licence in time for next year, but hey, you never know.
Should be an interesting spring.
More updates later this week on the US scene.
2 comments:
Interesting point:
T-Mobile will continue as an N.B.A. sponsor and the sponsor of Bayern Munich, Germany’s leading soccer team. Althoff acknowledged that because of that, the company was still at risk of becoming enmeshed in doping scandals.
“I won’t say there is no doping in soccer; in every sport you will find some doping,” Althoff said. “But it is different. The name of the cycling team was Deutsche Telekom or T-Mobile. But with soccer sponsorship, it’s not Telekom Munich, it’s Bayern Munich.”
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