Obviously because Armstrong will not be there.
The competition will be great.
It will be a more open race.
There are a lot of new faces.
The course is a classic course.
And for diehard cycling fans--a small number relative to US football fans, Euopean soccer fans etc-- for all the above reasons, it will be just fine, perhaps even better with Lance gone.
But for worldwide media coverage, there is no big story like Lance was--first the comeback, then the dominance, then tying, then breaking the record. Each year there was a big story.
From a media and news perspective, this year...no story, except the marginal now-theres-no-Lance-what-happens-story.
So, without big media, and less TV and radio, which means less advertising dollars, less revenue, less tourism, less of an "event" or a happening.
He defined the race to this generation.
Now it is up to the organizers and riders to see what they can do to keep the race as prominent as he has made it. Lots of luck, because otherwise it becomes another small sideshow in the media conglomerate and advert dollars race, and will probably recede.
If the stupid organizers keep the doping angle front and center, pretending they are taking the high road and will be the purifying agents, they will kill the sport. The way it is now, the average Joe has only heard of the race because of Lance and because of the drug scandals. If only Jean Marie were one tenth as smart as some of the media/PR people working with Lance...lets see who came up with, oh yeah, the yellow bracelets...etc etc
LA is so much bigger than the race and those idiots cant see it
tant pis...