Official Lance Armstrong thread

[unsheath]

That reads like it's written by a 5th grader.

I think Bob's still high from sniffing Armstrong's San Marco Flite.

 

[Hugh Januss]

By far the most accurate and honest review of this years tour so far:

Mission Impossible?
By Bob Roll

Good to see that the LAF is getting it's promotional moneys worth!

 

[williej]

It will be interesting.......

after Lance's Radio Shack announcement, to see some of the other top riders announce the Full Team Sponsors they'll be bringing to the Professional Cycling World next year. I'm sure plenty of the other top riders have the same resume, drawing power and business savvy to do what Lance just did. Don't ya think?

 

[B.Rasmussen]

By far the most inaccurate and dishonest review of this years tour so far:

Mindless drivel
By Bob Roll

williiej, are you Bob Roll or his mother? Because nobody else should like that piece of badly written junk.

 

[Anonymous]

You call what you do posting about cycling

You have no idea what I know about cycling.

Anyway, so you post here all the time, I'm so impressed. With almost 1,800 posts it looks like you should try going outside and actually getting on a bike (assuming you even own one) instead of, as you would say, shooting your mouth off.

Oh, I am sure you know a lot about the Tour de France between 1999-2005...

 

[Hugh Januss]

Oh, yeah. What about Lance and his mother.

 

[Golddigger]

Why He is racing

Here is a clue for the clueless: Sen.

LA has comeback to remove the one possible tool an opponent might use against him when he makes his bit in a completely other type of race, that to become a senator. He thought he might do better than he has, but the Radio snack announcement that he will do triathlons and marathons next year shows he knows he can't get back on a podium in cycling.

With Lance it is PR all the time:me me me

 

[broscup]

What Tour are you guys watching?

Why are the forums always loaded with haters? I've been watching the tour for years, and none have been this exciting since Lance left, not counting Floyd's comeback which ended up being for nothing.

Seriously, someone said that Johan is "holding AC back"? C'mon, the guy is 5 plus minutes ahead. If that's holding him back, I'd hate to see him let go. He won today's TT by a ton.

Also, Who is the team leader? You guys have bought into the media hype hook, line, and sinker. Who has the 21 in their team jersey? The 1 indicates the team leader.

And as far as all the Lance haters go, yeah, he's old, yeah, he doesn't have "it" any more, sure but he hasn't raced in the TdF the past 3 years, and when he did race, he didn't do all of the other smaller races and stage races like the Giro, or the ToC. He said from the get go, that it was about promoting LiveSTRONG. And so what if he is promoting it, his return has been more of a benefit to pro cycling AND LiveSTRONG than any other racer in the peloton. Oh yeah, and he's still in 3rd place over all. How does he fool all of those "random" dope testers every morning?

Man, I'm going to have to stay off of these forums, cause they just bring me down. I'll go back to enjoying the tour by myself, and riding to stay fit.

Later Haters!

 

[Anonymous]

Why are the forums always loaded with haters? I've been watching the tour for years, and none have been this exciting since Lance left, not counting Floyd's comeback which ended up being for nothing.

Seriously, someone said that Johan is "holding AC back"? C'mon, the guy is 5 plus minutes ahead. If that's holding him back, I'd hate to see him let go. He won today's TT by a ton.

Also, Who is the team leader? You guys have bought into the media hype hook, line, and sinker. Who has the 21 in their team jersey? The 1 indicates the team leader.

And as far as all the Lance haters go, yeah, he's old, yeah, he doesn't have "it" any more, sure but he hasn't raced in the TdF the past 3 years, and when he did race, he didn't do all of the other smaller races and stage races like the Giro, or the ToC. He said from the get go, that it was about promoting LiveSTRONG. And so what if he is promoting it, his return has been more of a benefit to pro cycling AND LiveSTRONG than any other racer in the peloton. Oh yeah, and he's still in 3rd place over all. How does he fool all of those "random" dope testers every morning?

Man, I'm going to have to stay off of these forums, cause they just bring me down. I'll go back to enjoying the tour by myself, and riding to stay fit.

Later Haters!

Imagine that, a fanboy who's first post was about "haters." What are the chances of that happening? There have been LITERALLY a hundred just like you. Now go away.

 

[gjdavis60]

Do you know if any of this is available on the internet? I'd love to take a look at it. Are LAF financials available online?

The annual tax returns (Form 990) of registered charities are publicly available on guidestar.org. Other organizations, such as charitynavigator.org use this information to analyze charities. In looking over the returns I see nothing out of the ordinary.

According to publicly available information Armstrong's relationship to the LAF (founded in 1997) appears to be as one of the organization's 16 member board of directors. He is not listed as an employee or a contractor of the organization. He apparently receives no compensation from the LAF. There is no stock and there are no shareholders.

Also, LIVESTRONG appears to be a registered trademark belonging to the LAF.

 

[Greisty]

Funny, the point you miss in all of your furor is that my name isn't "UCI" and I don't have the same burden of proof because I'm not a governing body. And by the same standard I use for Armstrong, I can say definitively say that you are in fact an idiot.

Right. You don't face the same burden of proof as the UCI, because your opinion is just that: an opinion, and no more valid than mine, or anybody else's on this forum. It's the UCI's judgment that counts. That's what I don't understand about this debate. People believe what they want to believe, and I'm just as fallible as anyone here, but that's why we (all of us) try -- and we don't ever fully succeed -- to create and hold ourselves to fair, objective standards. And by the objective standard -- whether you agree with it or not -- Lance Armstrong did not dope.

You can try to change the UCI's standard to admit evidence like heresay, but there is a reason that this type of evidence is not allowed in judicial proceedings except in, say, the former Soviet Union. It is too simple to bend this kind of evidence to serve ideological purposes.

I don't really care whether Armstrong doped. I do care that people can't recognize the difference between their opinions and the objective standards, however imperfect, we establish to govern disputes.

 

[scribe]

Just clicking in for reply 1001

 

[Azdak6]

The annual tax returns (Form 990) of registered charities are publicly available on guidestar.org. Other organizations, such as charitynavigator.org use this information to analyze charities. In looking over the returns I see nothing out of the ordinary.

According to publicly available information Armstrong's relationship to the LAF (founded in 1997) appears to be as one of the organization's 16 member board of directors. He is not listed as an employee or a contractor of the organization. He apparently receives no compensation from the LAF. There is no stock and there are no shareholders.

Also, LIVESTRONG appears to be a registered trademark belonging to the LAF.

All pertinent financial information (PDFs of the actual docs and forms) are also listed on the LAF website.

http://www.livestrong.org/site/c.khLXK1PxHmF/b.2662367/k.5D4A/Financial_Information.htm

 

[Susan Westemeyer]

Cool it with the personal comments. This is about Lance, not about you all.

Susan

 

[LaBici]

History

Blindly following tradition is for the weak.
.

??

I agree with rhubroma . And so would the Badger, The Cannibal, and Master Jacques. Lance has accomplished much. But only in the Tour. One race. The real champions won over the whole season. They didn't focus on ONE month.

Hinault said. "He would have impressed me if at the height of his career, he raced the Giro [d'Italia], the classics. He is the champion of the Tour, nothing more."

And what Lance and Johan have tried to do to Alberto is despicable.

History will be the final judge on Armstrong and where he ranks in the pantheon of the greats.

 

[auscyclefan94]

LOL - love the diarrhea part.... I still like Bob but agree he wants to sleep with Lance.

Phil, Lance and Bob could have an orgy. Wrinkly, Muscular, Wrinkly... eww

 

[whiteboytrash]

Posting crap over and over doesn't make it true.

The LAF has never been about only cancer research. It funds grants to organizations concerned with research, education, early detection, and survivorship programs.

So, let's look at facts - the foundation donated $24,000,000 to cancer PROGRAMS in 2007, not all related to research. They took in $36,000,000. They spent 5.7% of their donations on overhead, which is too high, and $5MM on fundraising.

Read their financial statements. It's all there. But that might require taking a Finance 101 course at your local community college.

Huh ? What you read the financial statements off the Livestrong site ? and thats an independent source ?

In 2006 the LAF spent more on promotion than received in donations.

"Fund raising costs were 33% of related contributions. (Related contributions, which totaled $25,124,752, are donations received as a result of fund raising activities.)"

The following with help from a friend who works with tax..... ie doing an audit into LAF.
_________________

1) FUNDRAISING EFFICIENCY : According to CN, fundraising efficiency for LAF of $0.30 means that in 2006, they spent 30 cents from their pocket/revenue or whatever to raise 1 dollar. Efficiency? 25%! Pretty low and pretty poor!!

Besides, almost $8 million in fundraising expenses seems like as if more than a quarter of total expenses were going towards fundraising expenses. And with respect to CN's figure of almost 32 million in LAF's revenues, almost quarter of that could be fund raising expense.

Hmm.. I just think that givers support charities more for their programs and services, not for their ability to raise money.

2) WORKING CAPITAL RATIO : Finance 101...I'm no guru, but I have some basic understandings.

Working capital ratio = Current Assets/Current Liabilities.

LAF has a working capital ratio of 0.59. Which simply means their liabilites are more than assets. Which further means that the company only had 59 cents of current assets to pay for every 1 dollar in current liabilities in 2006.

Correct me if I'm wrong. No arrogance from my part on my understanding of the issue.

3) REVENUE REPORT DISCREPANCY : Now comes the interesting part and I don't know whom to trust. According to CN, LAF's total revenue for 2006 was $31,778,162. Total expenses on the other hand was $37,169,617. Thats a deficit of negetive $5,391,455! Thats a huge deficit so will this organization be able to keep it in line?

Now just for the revenues part, compare LAF'S reporting of $38,941,866 versus CN's figure of only $31,778,162. I may be wrong, but I think an independant agency like CN must be gathering its data directly from the IRS Forms 990 which is the informational tax returns.

The percentage difference in revenue reporting for CN from LAF is about 18%.

So why the discrepencies if both organizations are keen on only giving accurate information to the general public and whomsoever else is supporting them? What are we missing here? Wrong reporting to the IRS?



4) CEO COMPENSATION : You might enjoy this. CEO Mitchell Stoller pocketed $311,423 dollars in 2006 as compensation. For a non-profit organization, atleast in my book, that's a smokin' fat paycheck! Do even doctors these days earn that much??

For over 5000 of the prominent national charities that CN evaluated, average CEO compensation was $148,000. LAF is certainly one of the few charities paying such grossly high salaries to their CEO's. How much of the proceeds from sale of the yellow Livestrong bands go to Mitch? I don't know. I'll leave subsequent evaluations on this issue up to you. Comments welcome.



5) Hey, I'm curious. How much did chairman Lance Armstrong pocket as a percentage of total expenses? 5%? 10%? 20%?


Conclusion : Despite all the hype and media attention and umpteen publicity that this organization gets because of its 7 time Tour de France champion chairman, its ranking is only somewhat moderately good among other national charities. The efficiency in fund raising is very poor compared to similar charities such as the American-Italian Cancer Foundation which has an efficiency of 40% and Kidney Cancer Association of IL which also borders on a 39%. Besides all this, the 18% discrepancy between CN and LAF in reporting revenue information still stands (please see bullet point 3 above). At least I'm curious why this is so.

 

[Azdak6]

Huh ? What you read the financial statements off the Livestrong site ? and thats an independent source ?

In the rush to condemn everything related to Armstrong, you are making (purposely or inadvertently) the classic hateboy mistake: taking one isolated data point and distorting it to fit your desired reality.

#1 Mistake: you are using one year's financial data to try and characterize everything about the foundation. Not only that: it is outdated information. The 2006 Form 990 probably represents the worst of the foundation numbers. The 2007 report (easily available) paints a substantially different picture.

Revenue Report "Discrepancy": There is no discrepancy. I am not an expert in Form 990, but this part seems pretty straightforward: Line 12 "Total Revenue": $31,778,162. Line 54 "Total assets": $38,171,486. I don't know where you got the numbers you are citing, but perhaps your 'discrepancy" consists of trying to compare two totally different categories.

Your opening comment is perhaps the most asinine of all. The information posted on the Livestrong website consists of PDF copies of the legal reporting forms the LAF must file. The forms posted are the exact same ones that the charity monitoring websites you are referring to use to make their evaluations. To me, it's this kind of innuendo that robs you of your credibility.

I don't see much point in commenting on each specific issue you raise, since they all refer to one year's operation, rather than operations of the foundation as a whole. I have no idea why costs for 2006 were so high (and neither do you). I do know from looking at the combined financial statement for 2006 that the LAF spent $10 million on consulting fees, which represents most of that deficit. Why that is so is not itemized in the report. Were they reorganizing operations? Setting up new programs? Now that would be a legitimate question. There are $0 in consulting fees listed in the 2007 report. In 2007, administrative costs as a percentage of total revenue were 5.7% which compared very well with a number of comparable charities I looked at. Fundraising costs were 18%, which was a little higher than average from what I saw. The CEO you name is not listed in 2007 at all, and the salary of the CEO is listed as $199,296.

Armstrong receives $0 from the foundation. Like all charitable entities started by individuals, I would expect that the LAF had a mixture of "motivations"--genuine desire to further a personal cause, PR benefit, and tax benefits. The same as any other similar charitable foundation started in the US--whether it be by the Rockefellers, Tiger Woods, Lance Armstrong, et al.

Obviously the LAF is not immune from either analysis or criticism, if warranted. Personally, other than maybe $30 I spent on some Livestrong bracelets in 2004 that I handed out at a trade show booth, I have never given a penny to the LAF, nor would I give them or any other charity $$ without a greater understanding of how they do business.

 

[Anonymous]

If you retards would put 1/3rd the effort into something constructive that you put towards your hyper analysis of everything Armstrong, the world might actually be a better place.

Seriously, have you NOTHING better to do than roam the phukking internet about efficiencies of charities?

Pathetic.

 

[TRDean]

If you retards would put 1/3rd the effort into something constructive that you put towards your hyper analysis of everything Armstrong, the world might actually be a better place.

Seriously, have you NOTHING better to do than roam the phukking internet about efficiencies of charities?

Pathetic.

Actually you should always research any charity that you may donate too.

 

[BroDeal]

If you retards would put 1/3rd the effort into something constructive that you put towards your hyper analysis of everything Armstrong, the world might actually be a better place.

Seriously, have you NOTHING better to do than roam the phukking internet about efficiencies of charities?

Pathetic.

Not half as pathetic as someone who spends his time complaining about how other people spend theirs.

 

[Anonymous]

Not half as pathetic as some dillweed who spends his time complaining about how other people spend theirs.

They never get the irony do they?

 

[Cobber]

5) Hey, I'm curious. How much did chairman Lance Armstrong pocket as a percentage of total expenses? 5%? 10%? 20%?

I was kind of wondering the same. I wonder if the reason LAF's fundraising costs are so high is because of "appearance fees" they have to pay out?

 

[fulcrum]

The annual tax returns (Form 990) of registered charities are publicly available on guidestar.org. Other organizations, such as charitynavigator.org use this information to analyze charities. In looking over the returns I see nothing out of the ordinary.

According to publicly available information Armstrong's relationship to the LAF (founded in 1997) appears to be as one of the organization's 16 member board of directors. He is not listed as an employee or a contractor of the organization. He apparently receives no compensation from the LAF. There is no stock and there are no shareholders.

Also, LIVESTRONG appears to be a registered trademark belonging to the LAF.

Thanks for the info. I'll take a look.

 

[colwildcat]

I was kind of wondering the same. I wonder if the reason LAF's fundraising costs are so high is because of "appearance fees" they have to pay out?

$0 - if they're covering anything, maybe they're covering his transportation costs for lobbying trips, etc. But, I have never found any record that he collects any fees. And yes, I've done plenty of research as I research where my money goes before I donate. In fact, in 2007, he was listed as the single largest donor to his own foundation. I'm pretty sure his $50MM endorsement income holds him over just fine.

Their fundraising costs are high because it costs a lot of money to logistically stage the Livestrong Challenge Rides, to host the Cancer Summits, etc. You're talking about convention centers, paying local police to close and man a 100 mile cycling route, pre-planning, permits, logistics, etc.

They're not just holding bake sales to raise $40MM per year.