Still no team for Jaksche and Sinkewitz: "Watch out for your license."



cyclingheroes

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Still no team for Jaksche and Sinkewitz: "Watch out for your license."


03.01.2008/ Jörg Jaksche and Patrick Sinkewitz are still looking for a team. Both riders are represented by attorney Michael Lehner. Lehner suspects the UCI is threatening teams who want to sign the crown witnesses.

Read more at:

http://www.cyclingheroes.info/id1060.html
 
Very interesting. UCI need to "find" dopers but they need to control the process. Jaksche's confession was a huge risk for the UCI. If it is true that they are applying "Don Corleone" style pressure on teams, it would seem they want to make an example of him to other riders...

"Tell the truth about what's going on publicly and we will castrate your hopes to ever ride again."
 
Maybe it's time to began a fund for a team made from confessed riders...
 
poulidor said:
Maybe it's time to began a fund for a team made from confessed riders...
That will still not change the "no ProTour license" threat of UCI potentially leading to some riders to retire similar to what happened to Heras - unless the whole protour concept is rehauled.
 
Jaksche is no good matematic. €100,000 from Spiegel is smaller any contratt potential..
 
poulidor said:
They don't need a UCI licence to race ASO events! :D
Yeah, I thought about that, but do you think ASO will invite a team of ex-dopers to its races (unless all of them pull a Millar of course)?
 
TheDarkLord said:
That will still not change the "no ProTour license" threat of UCI potentially leading to some riders to retire similar to what happened to Heras - unless the whole protour concept is rehauled.
Will the ProTour survive this next season? It's major benefit, guaranteed entry to the grand tours, is gone; and now you have McQuaid forcing the teams to race in Australia with the promise of being forced to race in China promised for the future.
 
Bro Deal said:
Will the ProTour survive this next season? It's major benefit, guaranteed entry to the grand tours, is gone; and now you have McQuaid forcing the teams to race in Australia with the promise of being forced to race in China promised for the future.
The problem with UCI twisting the arms of sponsors is that they don't have much leverage to twist with at the moment. Sponsors will just give them the middle finger and pull out if they push too hard.
 
Bro Deal said:
Will the ProTour survive this next season? It's major benefit, guaranteed entry to the grand tours, is gone; and now you have McQuaid forcing the teams to race in Australia with the promise of being forced to race in China promised for the future.
I guess it depends what the sponsors want. Do they want to advertise to China and Australia or are most sponsors focused in Europe and maybe America?
 
earth_dweller said:
I guess it depends what the sponsors want. Do they want to advertise to China and Australia or are most sponsors focused in Europe and maybe America?

This is simple. Do the sponsors sell products in these countries? T mobile (a German company) has huge presence in the US, but I have no clue about their Australian or Chinese operations (not that T mobile matters any more). What about Rabobank? Do they have any operations outside of the Netherlands? CSC outside of whatever they're doing? I don't think so. For a global pro tour, I believe one would need sponsors with global name recognition (think Team Coca Cola or Team Heineken etc.).
 
Cobblestones said:
This is simple. Do the sponsors sell products in these countries? T mobile (a German company) has huge presence in the US, but I have no clue about their Australian or Chinese operations (not that T mobile matters any more). What about Rabobank? Do they have any operations outside of the Netherlands? CSC outside of whatever they're doing? I don't think so. For a global pro tour, I believe one would need sponsors with global name recognition (think Team Coca Cola or Team Heineken etc.).
exactly. a true world-wide conglomerate/business that is willing to sponsor a bicycle team is well pretty rare if it does exist. So I don't think the Protour will exist in 2010, maybe even disappear next year.
 
Cobblestones said:
This is simple. Do the sponsors sell products in these countries? T mobile (a German company) has huge presence in the US, but I have no clue about their Australian or Chinese operations (not that T mobile matters any more). What about Rabobank? Do they have any operations outside of the Netherlands? CSC outside of whatever they're doing? I don't think so. For a global pro tour, I believe one would need sponsors with global name recognition (think Team Coca Cola or Team Heineken etc.).
I don't think the expanding protour is about servicing current sponsors. I think it is about widening the net of potential sponsors and spreading cycling around the world (and out of its primarily Euro-centric past).
 
What role does UCI play outside the ProTour? In other words, if ProTour goes, will that pull out the fangs of UCI?
 
TheDarkLord said:
What role does UCI play outside the ProTour? In other words, if ProTour goes, will that pull out the fangs of UCI?
Well they do control the classification of UCI races and calendar (not just proTour but continental races).

What is the relationship between the UCI and the Olympic Committee?
 
Crankyfeet said:
I don't think the expanding protour is about servicing current sponsors. I think it is about widening the net of potential sponsors and spreading cycling around the world (and out of its primarily Euro-centric past).
But the question is whether there would be any new sponsors just because there is one race in the operating zone of the company.
 
Crankyfeet said:
I don't think the expanding protour is about servicing current sponsors. I think it is about widening the net of potential sponsors and spreading cycling around the world (and out of its primarily Euro-centric past).

Maybe that's the thought, but it's not well thought out IMHO. A better way would be to first attract 'global' sponsors (which would admittedly have exposure only to the European market in the beginning) with the promise to expand the pro tour globally within 3-5 years. A smart UCI would work together with the sponsors on such a project.

If what you're saying is correct, the UCI will first ******** the current (local) sponsors with their expansion to a more and more expensive global (=useless for advertising) pro tour and then somehow try to attract new sponsors? That's not going to work. If what you're saying is true, the UCI seems hell bent on self destruction. The problem right now isn't exactly to get rid of the old sponsors to make way for new ones. The market for sponsors isn't all that crowded.
 
Well maybe I was a little off track with the emphasis I was putting on team sponsors as a major component of the equation for UCI. The big money down the road in starting up and owning any event is the TV rights. The event sponsors and TV sponsors don't have to have anything to do with the team sponsors, but the team sponsors can get in the way of attracting other sponsors (eg. It would be hard to get HSBC as a major sponsor of a China event if Rabobank was a leading team presence).

An event in China could have a huge value in TV rights very quickly...compared to starting a new event in the saturated European market. Though notwithstanding the risks for the UCI in starting anything new...one of their biggest risks is obviously getting the teams to play ball on their "show" plans.
 
Here is another thought: to what extent are the sponsors aware of the doping going on in the team? Wouldn't the team management try to keep things hidden from the sponsors themselves? Also, one would assume that the UCI pressure to not sign up riders is applied to the team management, while the sponsor itself may not be aware of what is going on. So, the UCI action to cover up their butt by intimidating busted dopers to not spill beans would work as long as there are no cyclists who start talking. After all, it is in the team management's interest to keep the sponsor thinking that everything is clean, and so they would probably comply with UCI to prevent their riders from getting busted. So, what gives? Unless someone clearly exposes UCI's hand in the doping situation, will the current situation will continue?
 

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