I guess he doesn't like sharing the spotlight 
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2009/may09/may04news2
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2009/may09/may04news2
Armstrong wants his own team
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I think he has realized the only way to get his name on top of a podium is to have it attached to another rider.
Contador, of Team Armstrong, for the win!
With Astana holding payments for nearly a month just recently, I'd be uncertain as to whether they continue to roll on. The Euro crowd has continued to get tagged enough I think you'll see big sponsors pulling out as they did last year.
agreed
Uhh, hasn't he already owned, or at least partially owned, a team once before?
I believe he was part owner of Discovery
I make believe a lot....its fun
see here is the deal,
when talking to yates, lance was a bonus for the year, and PR torch if you will. nothing more. the agreement in the beginning was lance would be happy to just piggyback the team and be supported and get back into shape and produce a race record for the season.
lance has no patience, he wants it all and cant use astana to do it
johan is not going to throw his team under the bus for one man when time is invested into what has been built allready.
so by contract lance has to see the rest of the year out as a media magnet for the team.
lance just thought he would be able to squeeze in and he couldnt.
when talking to yates, lance was a bonus for the year, and PR torch if you will. nothing more. the agreement in the beginning was lance would be happy to just piggyback the team and be supported and get back into shape and produce a race record for the season.
lance has no patience, he wants it all and cant use astana to do it
johan is not going to throw his team under the bus for one man when time is invested into what has been built allready.
so by contract lance has to see the rest of the year out as a media magnet for the team.
lance just thought he would be able to squeeze in and he couldnt.
maybe his new team can have mirrors attached to their asses so when LA is racing he can check himself out when he feels neglected. i'm getting real tired of him.
There might be a lot of hub-bub about LA's secret desires, but I think the bottom line is come next year, there won't be a lot of of sponsorship $$$, and anyone who can get the cash, will run a team.
I think Armstrong will bring in more dough than Bruyneel/Contrador.
I think Armstrong will bring in more dough than Bruyneel/Contrador.
that may be true but it will only depend on who he gets for the rest of the team. not alot of people want to ride with him right now.
he needs to be more personable and build some relationships while he rides this season out.
I don't follow LA too much but he seems like smart enough a business man. If he can pull together good sponsors why would he then not be able to pull together good riders?
This may be a way for Lance to get Contador to ride for him this year in the Tour, so he can ride for Team Lance next year (maybe)
because he has alot of enemies (for a lack of better words)
alot of poeple that were bitter in the ride of lances sucess were tossed aside and stepped on during the process. now those people are in political/governing roles of the sport wich produces all kinds of problems for riders who may ride for lance.
not sur eif you know the history or not but there wass some pretty good turmoil just for lance to get his race card this year because of frankie andreu (past team mate and testified against lance) who is now the guy for usac/uci lisences and a governing body for the sport. ther eare many more examples but you get the point.
just a bunch of drama and bitterness
This reminds me of Michael Jordan. There was an incident in practice where he clocked Steve Kerr for defending him too hard. He never apologized and it never made the press. Even if it did get published, do you think anyone would care that a bench player got smacked?
Lance is certainly the cycling equivalent of Jordan. He is on a first name basis with two Presidents, the top sponsored Nike athlete not named Lebron or Tiger, and the second most famous cyclist with non-cyclists is Floyd Landis.
They are a lot of people who want to see Lance fail, but until enough of them hold the purse strings, expect to see the top American cyclists racing under the Mellow Johnnie's banner next year.
Mark your calendar folks. Loco might have actually been right about something. I guess a broken clock is still right twice a day, unless it is digital I guess.
Will the Giro be Astana's last race?
http://bicycling.com/blogs/boulderreport/
Thank you for getting me up to speed. Sounds like I have not miss out on anything though.
Damn, that doesn't look good. Wonder why I haven't seen that on velonews or cyclingnews.
Because they just regurgitate press releases and publish letters from roadies with OCD. Joe Lindsey rules. His stuff that gets published in the magazine is the same old watered down crap but his blog is the best piece of cycling journalism out theere, at least in English.
Fun reading for sure.
Hmmm, I would think it would be Livestrong team rather than Mellow Johnnie's but who knows.
I think the team name should be, "Suck it Lemond"....
He would have to get corporate sponsors. Lance is rich but he isn't going to shell out $20mil/year for a bike team. His name can probably pull in some good corporate sponsors.
I thought Pro Team costs were still under 10 mil, including salaries.
There is a laundry list of possible sponsors, but remember that hanging your hat on one team is foolish. I don't see Oakley, Giro, Nike or even Trek alienating other opportunities for a "Lance" team. I can't help but think that Bruyneel will be along for whatever happens. I watch who's active in cycling and can't think there is some magic connection for it all.
Livestrong doesn't seem like the slightest of options. Being an awareness non-profit, you'd see a meltdown of interests. As cyclists we can't help but think it would be cool, but from an advocacy standpoint it would be suicide. I foresee a meltdown in professional cycling. It's sad, but I see it coming.
btw - yay me for my Pitsteelers like prediction of Astana.
Livestrong doesn't seem like the slightest of options. Being an awareness non-profit, you'd see a meltdown of interests. As cyclists we can't help but think it would be cool, but from an advocacy standpoint it would be suicide. I foresee a meltdown in professional cycling. It's sad, but I see it coming.
btw - yay me for my Pitsteelers like prediction of Astana.
Team sponsorship is not based around popularity in the cycling world. Rather, it is advertising.There is a laundry list of possible sponsors, but remember that hanging your hat on one team is foolish. I don't see Oakley, Giro, Nike or even Trek alienating other opportunities for a "Lance" team. I can't help but think that Bruyneel will be along for whatever happens. I watch who's active in cycling and can't think there is some magic connection for it all.
Livestrong doesn't seem like the slightest of options. Being an awareness non-profit, you'd see a meltdown of interests. As cyclists we can't help but think it would be cool, but from an advocacy standpoint it would be suicide. I foresee a meltdown in professional cycling. It's sad, but I see it coming.
btw - yay me for my Pitsteelers like prediction of Astana.
Let's say Lance and Johan Bruyneel split up. Trek could sponsor both teams, like Specialized did with Gerosteiner and Quick-Step.
Nike's involvement with cycling is trickling away (again), so I know they will go with their main man. As for Oakley, it is hard to imagine they would become a primary sponsor, but even if they did, does that mean Hincapie is going to throw away his Racing Jackets and his Oakley paycheck?
The bottom line with cycling teams, particularly American teams, is the diminishing sponsorship dollar. No team can feel confident about receiving sponsorship, so if Lance has the drawing power to get the sponsors, well, first, I would think Bruyneel and every American rider would be ecstatic, and two, the rest of the cycling world could complain, but who would listen?
Think anyone cares about Frankie Andreu? After he made EPO allegations, he was fired from his team director job.
Astana had to put $2 million in escrow to cover salaries. So their salary cost is about $8million. Throw in travel, equipment costs, license fees etc and I am sure it is well over 10 mil. That is not including free schwag from gear sponsors.
Ha, he will be at EVERY single press conference the new team ever holds.
Still talking about the buckshot in his ass as well as his uncle touchy.
Yeah, I didn't realize it was $10 mil for salaries and extra for equipment & expenses.
Yeah he'll need corporate sponsors - I think in the press conference he even said the team would be named after a main sponsor. But given Lance's desire for wider publicity and his leverage, I'd be surprised if Livestrong is not at least a co-sponsor. In any case I don't see him pumping $10 - 20M into a team to advertise his bike shop.
I disagree that it would be a "meltdown of interests". Non-profits spend plenty of money on advertising each year - which is what a sponsorship is - and it would be for the Livestrong board to decide if it's a worthy investment. Lance would probably not be able to take much of a salary but I suspect he's not too worried about that.
And pro cycling will go on, regardless. People sound the death knell all the time and still it keeps going. Lots of people would kill to ride the big races, even if it was for free.
I disagree that it would be a "meltdown of interests". Non-profits spend plenty of money on advertising each year - which is what a sponsorship is - and it would be for the Livestrong board to decide if it's a worthy investment. Lance would probably not be able to take much of a salary but I suspect he's not too worried about that.
And pro cycling will go on, regardless. People sound the death knell all the time and still it keeps going. Lots of people would kill to ride the big races, even if it was for free.
I don't think Armstrong gets a salary from Astana now. He certainly doesn't need it.
In any case, things don't look good. More info: http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2009/may09/may06news
"A week ago, even the reserve account of the Astana team, which the UCI law states must contain an untouched sum of two million dollars, was emptied," Proskurin [Kazakh cycling VP] stated. "These funds are a guarantee of participation for any professional team in the ProTour racing series. In order to prevent the seizure of the license of the Astana team, we have to replace this amount within a month [of it being emptied]. That means that we still have about three weeks."
He said that the cycling federation president [and country's defence minister] Daniyal Akhmetov was negotiating at the highest governmental level to try to save the team. However he admitted that he was pessimistic. "Personally I am almost sure that it won't be possible to rescue the team," he said.
"Even if the team will be at the start of Giro d'Italia under its own name, in the future Astana will still be disbanded," he added. "Because the debt will only snowball, and there's nowhere to get the money."
Specialized wrote some MAJOR checks to get QS on their bikes, like stupid money that a bike company shouldn't be able to afford. I don't see Trek doing that at this point, not in this economy, they'll follow Lance, that's for sure, but I can't see Lance and Johan breaking up.
Edit: Lance speaks:
"I don't have any concrete answers, but I suspect we can find some funding that would get us from June to the end of the year," Armstrong told the Associated Press. "It could be a combination of people that have a shared interest in Livestrong and want to see Livestrong promoted around the world and believe in what we're doing."
"Maybe the situation gets resolved, and the guys start getting their dough," continued Armstrong. "Otherwise, I think the license ought to be transferred to [team director] Johan [Bruyneel], and we try and start a team in the middle of the season."
From http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2009/may09/may07news
Lets start the rumors!
wow, now thats one hell of a rumor, lol
hey...you were the one fondling his bike's chode patch...pot, kettle...
:biggrin:
Stop your gay rumors!
It is a fact that Matt Mcconaughey is his guy on the side:
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,26334,1547724,00.htmlLance Armstrong & Matthew McConaughey: We're Gay
Lance Armstrong and Matthew McConaughey are laughing off questions about their sexuality and rumors that they're anything more than just f**k buddies.
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