When Lance goes...



I was having this conversation with my brother the other day. I do think there will be a drop because there are a lot of people with cancer connections who simply follow Lance. I think there are others who started following Lance but now follow the sport and will continue to. A big help to keeping some of these fans in the USA would be an American (Landis, Danielson, etc.) winning one of the Grand Tours. There will definately be a drop off just as there was when LeMond started going downhill.
 
Lance has been to cycling what Bobby Fischer was to chess in terms of popularity in the US. If that's any indication of the American public's attention span for activities held dear to the rest of the world but overlooked here then, yes we wil se a decline in enthusiasm for the sport. Then again, Julich and Hincapie among others seem to be carrying quite a torch for US cycling now so there may be carry over interest into other riders/ the sport in general due to that.

And hey, at least the elitists among you got to invent a cool term like "99er" to make you feel special.

NW
 
If there is a drop in US viewer interest, then the dropped people were never cycling enthusiasts to begin with. Their being dropped wouldn't be such a bad thing, although it could put pressure of coverage quality and quantity. But who needs people who are here only because LA is cycling? ;)