HTC-Highroad fold‎



steve

Administrator
Aug 12, 2001
5,276
394
83
Its quite surprising that the most successful team in the last two years can not find a sponsor. Announcing is early at least gives the riders time to negotiate new contracts.

What are your thoughts on this? why has the team failed?

Quote:http://www.highroadsports.com World’s Most Successful Team – For two consecutive years, Team HTC - Highroad, owned and operated by High Road Sports Inc., has been the world’s most winning cycling team. Our international roster of 39 men and women is comprised of talented young cyclists and supported by a leadership group of experienced riders and management. Together, our teams achieved 285 victories in 2008 and 2009 combined, more than any other team. And in 2009, we won 132 races by 22 different athletes.


HTC-Highroad disbands after failed sponsor search
The HTC-Highroad team will end its association with professional cycling at the end of the season, drawing to an end its five-year spell in the sport. The squad has consistently been ranked as the number one team in the world, but struggled to attract a new sponsor or convince cell phone maker HTC to renew. Team owner Bob Stapleton today announced that the squad would fold at the end of the year, and encouraged riders from both the men's and women's teams to find new homes for 2012.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/htc-highroad-disbands-after-failed-sponsor-search



Mark Cavendish switch to Team Sky more likely after HTC-Highroad fold Mark Cavendish's possible move to Great Britain's Team Sky in 2012 has become more likely after confirmation of rumours that his current HTC-Highroad team will cease to exist at the end of this year, having failed to line up a new sponsor. The team head, Bob Stapleton, said that their coaches and athletes were free to pursue other options for next year. Cavendish's two key lead-out men, Bernhard Eisel and Mark Renshaw, were both still under contract with Stapleton's Highroad company until 2013, but they will now be free to join Cavendish wherever he has chosen to ride next year. There is speculation that the directeur sportif, Brian Holm, may follow him, and it appears that the new Australian squad GreenEdge may have joined Sky as a possible destination for the Manxman. http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011/aug/04/htc-highroad-mark-cavendish-sky HTC-Highroad men's team to cease The California-based HTC-Highroad cycling team, which has fielded the most successful men's and women's teams in the world the past several years, fell short in its search for a new title sponsor and will cease operating its men's team at the end of this season. Owner Bob Stapleton said Thursday that the sport's chaotic economic structure, along with continuing fallout from the still-unresolved doping case involving triple Tour de France winner Alberto Contador and the federal investigation of seven-time Tour champion Lance Armstrong and his past teams, helped doom the quest. http://espn.go.com/olympics/cycling/story/_/id/6833787/htc-highroad-cycling-operate-men-team-season
 
It's the same ol' usual crud combined with a naff economy:

Drugs - bad publicity... Contador, Armstrong cases, governing bodies that can't clear cases in a timely manner, other on going things like Ricco, Ulrich blah blah blah... Drugs are bad - but having several ruling bodies that can't organize a **** up in a brewery is as bad - if not worse.

Sponsors wondering who watches cycling anyway for the 'other' 11 months of the year?

I don't think that the current generation of retardation helps - most days highlights in the Tours first couple of weeks revolved around reviewing who crashed and when... and not so much about the racing. $5million for having your logo on a trashed shirt, sounds like a bargain...

The Izod TV commercials. If I hear that Weezer tune again I will shoot someone or pick their eyeballs out of their head with an old soup spoon that was used once to serve Al Capone lunch on Alcatraz.

But one has to factor in Cav. Did he decide to leave before, or during, the Tour and if Stapleton knew about it that may have swung things either way. You want exposure and some fancy pictures - winning on the Champs Elysees makes for a fantastic photo op.
 
Cav factor, Swampy's mentioning, is probably THE factor.

Milan - San Remo, Paris - Nice and other races are important and prestigious in cycling world, but serious sponsors, capable of investing in a team with one of the highest budgets, are interested primary in the Tour.
Without Cav, team's Tour exposure is insecure.

Too bad, this was an exciting team, and Stapleton was doing his work with huge enthusiasm.

I wonder where Tony Martin will go.
 
i tend to lean towards stapleton's belief that the amount of money required to stay at the top level of competition is drying the sponsorship pool. but honestly i figure there are many reasons for highroad not finding a sponsor, from the whole "world tour" endeavour to the focus on the doping. just a sad day when a squad like this, both men's and women's, will fold because they could not find a new sponsor.