Michael Ball

Ball is completely wrong on everything.

The problem with the sport is self governing, it kept everything in house, self-regulation only works in the most unique of circumstances and professions.

Pro sport is one place where self regulation will become dysfunctional prior to any regulation ever occurring. The guy is a fool.

He talks in cliches. <Period>

Overall, I think Michael Ball is good for cycling. Here's my reasoning:

On the negative side, the guy is an egotist and is duplicitous. He is against the Slipstream model and sounds like a doping apologist when it comes to protecting his tainted riders.

But here are my thoughts on his positives:

First of all he can help to change cycling's image to "cool" which will especially help raise the public and media profile of cycling (as long as his riders aren't testing positive).

Second of all, I don't believe things are going to change in cycling because all the owners/DS's/riders get together and say that they promise to be clean. It only takes one team to be dirty on the honor system, and the whole house of cards tumbles (and human nature suggests that people will dishonor and exploit agreements for self gain). Cycling is only going to clean up IMHO when controls make doping too risky. If doping becomes too risky, guys like Ball are going to have to play by the rules in any case.

Thirdly, he is against the current powers in cycling that have progressively helped to wreck the sport through weak and corrupt governance.

Fourthly, he is behind the creation of a rider's union which I think is needed to protect the rights of riders against ineptitude and corruption from the powers that hold all the cards at present, and who don't seem to mind burning a few sacrificial lambs for the evils of the many.

Fifthly, the guy is prepared to invest significantly in the sport and take a personal interest, and contribute more than the average sponsor, like a Credit Agricole for instance, which possibly has a Commercial Director who is into cycling and has convinced the company bosses to sponsor a team.

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There's a thin line between being cool and being a tool.

More smokin' hot honeys at cycling events cannot hurt, though.

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"You are like the wind and I like the lion. You form the tempest. The sand stings my eyes and the ground is parched. I roar in defiance but you do not hear. But between us there is a difference. I, like the lion, must remain in my place. While you like the wind will never know yours." -- Mulay Hamid El Raisuli, Lord of the Riff, Sultan to the Berbers, Last of the Barbary Pirates

your first assumption's premise is that adding cool will bring new possibilities of participants and change the natural order. I tend to think that is limited, and that it will just cannibalise some of the current cycling adherents.

second, doping is an externality and the ultimate example of a market failure. Here you have a sport, which could quite conceivably have twice the revenue if it was clean. Clean cycling economy = 2x current economy. You need to alter the incentive structure to ride clean. I think it is incorrect to use the current model of deterrence and penalty.

third he is against the duplicity, but maintains a duplicity, and wants doping to go underground. Doping cannot even be put completely underground since it became more than uppers and amphetamines. The policing authorities will do the job the UCI refuses to do, and Ball wishes it returned to, the pre-98 MO.

4th. There is a union. And there is the union you saw in 1999 in the Tour. There is a peloton. That is a union, one needs to realise that is in itself a union. The union that blackbanned Christophe Bassons.

So, you have a union which exists to protect the status quo of doping, and buttress the barriers to entry. The patrone spoke. Believe in miracles.

Ball is great insofar as it is a conservative sport, with little innovation. He offers up the possibilities.

Dont need the BS tho

Can you explain any ideas you have of how this could be achieved?

I don't think the "peloton" is a formal union to protect the rights of cyclists. It's informal nature allows it to be abused to protect the rights of the senior "few". Not to say that unions can't be corrupted in any case.

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there is a union. Moser and Voigt. The reason it sucks, is because it is fractured and dysfunctional because of doping. Doping undermines the whole operation.

I hear your point, and I think his idea of "cool" is pretty immature for someone his age... but hey...that might be why he is so successful selling to 25 year olds.

I just have a hunch that he will encourage more media attention and television coverage than the average "plain vanilla" sponsor, and as long as he doesn't have his riders doping all over the shop, then it will be good for expanding cycling's profile.

We should remember: in the end he has to play by the rules... he doesn't make the rules.

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you need a new business model.

One that can pay a rider for performances they do not get.

The market is predicated on results and publicity. You get paid for results.

See Casar, might win the Tour if doped. He is almost a nobody clean. You have to pay him for that. You still have to invert the red queen effect. So you still have to get the top riders clean, that is the major predicament. You can do that, if there is a transparency.

I was watching the ToC on TV and there was a pretty cool commercial for Rock Racing...if I didn't know all the "behind the scenes" kind of garbage I know about cycling I would have thought it was really cool, probably.

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This stuff is just crap...Hitchy

On what planet??

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This stuff is just crap...Hitchy

How do you type with a straitjacket on thunder?...

I didn't mean to be disrespectful. I can see the logic behind your thinking. I can't see the practicality of it though. How are you going to reward being clean if its not based on performance? Guys won't have to try.

Also, if you can tell someone is clean, then by definition, you can tell if they're dirty. You don't need to reward clean if you have a surefire way of determining if a rider is dirty.

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Nope, it's a weak organization and always has been. There are lots of issues that could have been tackled that have nothing to do with doping. It took the ProTour to set standards for minimum salaries, insurance, and such.

I think that even regarding doping, an effective rider union could set standards for the time that doping cases take. It's ridiculuous that FLandis won't get a final ruling from CAS until his suspension is 75% over. There is no consistency whether a suspension starts when the athlete stops racing or months afterward. The UCI has been blackballing riders like Hamilton. The whole situation is a cluster**** that motivated leadership for the riders could solve.

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"You are like the wind and I like the lion. You form the tempest. The sand stings my eyes and the ground is parched. I roar in defiance but you do not hear. But between us there is a difference. I, like the lion, must remain in my place. While you like the wind will never know yours." -- Mulay Hamid El Raisuli, Lord of the Riff, Sultan to the Berbers, Last of the Barbary Pirates

straitjacket I believe. No "gh" in the straight.

I know.

But there still is a union.

Mcewen has to freelance with the UCI and get the race finish chutes passing OH&S standards.

The insurance case, what a **** up, Ryan Cox had to borrow money from Hunter and ended up dying because of insufficient recuperative care.