Bro Deal said:
I am not so sure about this. I cannot speak about European countries, but the U.S.--perhaps Germany is the same--has seen a significant change in the sport over the last ten years. In the U.S. cycling used to be much like climbing. It was a fringe sport. Now it has largely changed into a sport of yuppies who ride for fitness, and they do care about the doping.
I usually ride a few organized centuries a year. I have definitely seen a change in the type of riders. A large number are now sporting their companies' MS150 jersey. The riders used to be all sorts of odd ball characters and now they are almost all people with white collar jobs, often in their thirties and forties. The MS150 has used a rather brilliant strategy of encouraging medium and large companies to form teams of employees, and I think it has skewed the makeup of the average rider in the U.S.
I have lost track of the number of people I have bumped into on rides who have sworn off following pro cycling because of the doping. It has really picked up in the last two years. Wolf will say they don't matter, they were not long time, hardcore fans anyway; but I think it makes a difference. You cannot see a storying about doping in sport without cycling being mentioned. It has entered the popular imagination that pro cycling is as dirty as it comes.
All those yuppies are the ones buying expensive gear with their credit cards and HELOCs. They are the ones who sponsors are trying to connect with. If you lose them then the big money sponsors will leave. This might very well be why Disco could not land another sponsor.
With the cat being out of the bag, I don't see that you can now sweep the doping problem under the rug and go back to the way it was. There needs to be some sort of proactive solution that convinces people that things have changed.
BD : I agree with a lot of the sentiments that you've stated above.
Anecdotally, I can tell you that a lot of my friends/collegues would have been passive fans of the sport - following each and every race featured on the TV channels.
They'd watch the Classics - some of them even scheduled part of their annual holidays to coincide with the TV coverage of the second/third week of the TDF (mountain stages).
(one Marco Pantani nut used to get his wife to tape both the live and highlights features of the Tours - so that he could get to see MP climbing).
A lot of these people have stopped following the sport - basically because of the doping that was exposed.
They don't believe what they were seeing.
I'm talking here about people who follow football (soccer), rugby too and are "men of the world" so to speak.
They've become alienated from the sport - they say it's a fraud and are not prepared to waste their time watching.
They'd rather watch sports that, on the face of it, have a lot more credibility than cycling.
Personally, I have cut back on my own viewing of the sport - I cancelled my subscription to Cycle Sport and other mags.
I've spent literally thousands on cycling literature/video's : but I'm seriously considering giving/selling this stuff.
Why?
Because the sport, for me, has definitely lost some of it's lustre.....and because I was told of some of the rather cynical stuff that the UCI engaged in after Festina to try to keep the lid on doping.
Of course, I will continue to ride my bike - nothing that is happening in the professional peloton will ever dissuade me from getting the miles in each and every week.
But as regards following the sport - I've decided to arrange my free time to suit me, rather than the TV cycling schedules.
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