The Official LANCE ARMSTRONG Thread 2010-2011

[Dr. Maserati]

Lance isn't making money of the LAF from their donations or visiting their website either.

And to be honest, most people understand that as well. There are a few conspiracy theorists that want to suggest he's somehow funneling donations to Demand Media (a company he owns a very small protion of)... which makes absolutely no sense and isn't backed up by any facts.


Where Lance makes money is from positive publicity due to his ASSOCIATION with the LAF. It makes him a more desireable spokesman. Did Jerry Lewis get positive press from the MDA telethons that may have led to more jobs? I don't know... but it's not hard to imagine.

A company he has 'Significant equity" in.

I don't believe anyone has suggested that "he's somehow funneling donations to Demand Media", but many are highlighting the obvious connection as Lance rides in LiveStrong apparel, not LAF apparel.

 

[kurtinsc]

Really? I don't remember seeing Jerrystrong treadmills or Jerrystrong shoes or Jerrystrong laptops or Jerrystrong bike shops named Melo Jerry's that profit from his association with MD. Lance profits from the suffring of others. He uses their pictures in ads that defend him against his past doping. He cheapens the suffring of everyone with cancer and some think him a hero? I thank the hog for his words. Armstrong is a fraud of the worst kind.

Lance doesn't make any money from livestrong product sales.

He doesn't make any money from the licensing of the livestrong brand.


Do some companies that pay the LAF for the brand also employ Lance for marketing? Yes they do. Have some companies that donated to the MDA also employed Jerry for endorsements? I'm sure they have as well. I know stations that showed the telethon also broadcast some of the shows he's been in/written/directed.

Public relations is a big reason for many celebrity charity work. And that good PR often leads to endorsement money. It's not always the main reason... but it is a pleasant side effect for those people.

 

[Race Radio]

In response to the Greg Lemond issue, Lance was basically ambushed at a press conference that was related to his comeback and the LAF. It was just dreadfully bad timing on Lemond's part, but he has an agenda fueled by jealousy, IMO.

Not exactly.

It was not an ambush. Greg talked with Armstrong press person prior to the press conference. They jointly agreed it would be good for him to attend. They saved him a seat in the front and allowed him the first question.

Greg proceeded to ask a very valid question regarding the use of power measurement as one of the ingredients of an internal monitoring program. Both Garmin and Columbia have been doing this for years.

Armstrong proceeds to belittle Greg for asking this valid question and his press people proceed to expand their spin campaign, painting Greg as an unstable man on a mission.

The end result? Greg is painted as crazy for asking a valid question and everyone forgets that Lance's much publicized internal testing program never happened.....it was a complete smoke screen for the media.

 

[ckfrancis]

conspiracy

you guys are amazing. what will you do with you lives once lance retires again. maybe you could get on the obama is a terrorist forums.

the guy is living his life, doing what he wants, and raises a good amount of money for a worthy cause. the accounting standards for 501(c)(3)s are fairly strict. If the IRS does not have problem with him, how could you?

how much money have you raised/donated for charity?

anyways you guys should get a jump on his impending retirement and look for another way to find meaning in life.

 

[Race Radio]

Lance doesn't make any money from livestrong product sales.

Nike does not pay Armstrong to endorse their product?

 

[kurtinsc]

A company he has 'Significant equity" in.

I don't believe anyone has suggested that "he's somehow funneling donations to Demand Media", but many are highlighting the obvious connection as Lance rides in LiveStrong apparel, not LAF apparel.

AND THE LAF GETS PROCEEDS FROM THAT APPAREL. THEY OWN THE FREAKING BRAND.

The LAF also recieved "significant equity" in Demand Media for the licensing of livestrong.com. Lance recieved "significant equity" for a 10 year contract to promote, market and contribute to livestrong.com.

But "significant" doesn't mean what yo think in an ownership sense. With a company with hundreds of millions in equity, 1-2% is significant. Heck, .05% is significant if the company is as big as... say... Microsoft. When the merger occurred, Demand was valued at over 1 billion dollars and had yearly revenue of 150 million dollars a year. They owned over 60 websites. Exactly how big a percentage of that do you think Lance got?

 

[kurtinsc]

Nike does not pay Armstrong to endorse their product?

Nike pays Lance a set endorsement fee. It's not related to the livestrong brand or the LAF. He had an endorsement contract with Nike prior to Nike doing anything with the LAF.

He doesn't make a percentage of sales, like the LAF used to. His involvement is totally unrelated to the licensing of Livestrong apparel. If Lance's contract ended tomorrow, Nike would continue paying the LAF. They would not be required to renew with Lance.

 

[ImmaculateKadence]

Lemond ambushed Lance at a press conference in Vegas, and dared ask him questions about testing? Are you forgetting who was sitting beside Lance at that press conference? Don Catlin, the man Lance said at the press conference, would be testing him. So Lemond was perfectly entitled to ask questions abotu testing, when it was Lance who had brought Catlin in hte first place. As for Lemond being jealous, OH MY GOD is all I can say.

Yes I have seen the press conference of kimmage in its entirety. Kimmage asked him a loaded question about DOPING. Kimmage's radio transcript where he referred to Lance as a cancer on the sport, if you read all of it, was in relation to Lance's doping and his attitude to same - bullying of riders etc. So for Lance to defend himself in relation to doping, fair enough. He has a right to do this. But he defended himself by pulling out the 'I'm doing this comeback for a noble cause, so how dare you even attempt to criticise me' attitude. How dare Lance say that the cancer community would not forgive Kimmage? Who the f*** is Lance to speak for the cancer community? Was he elected? It's a human shield. Kimmage asks a doping question. Lance launched into a diatribe about cancer awareness. WTF had the latter got to do with the previous?

You talk about the LAF getting more attention. Livestrong gets alot of attention. Not everyone though who has been drawn to it know about the .com and .org distinction, and that is something that in my view is not on. And talk about the LAF getting more funding - fine in one sense, but if so much of the budget for donations, is being taken up with PERSONAL appearance fees, this argument falls by the wayside. I somehow doubt that the Australian government donated another 2m to the LAF.

He had the right to ask a question, but not to challenge their response in the manner he did, and then challenge the Doctor. It was a blatant attempt to hijack a press conference. He was trying to turn it into an argument and Lance wanted to move on. That's what I have a problem with. If he took the their answer and moved on, that's fine, but he seemed to be argumentative.

I disagree with your assesment of Lance's attitude in the Kimmage press conference. I think it had more to do with disgust than anything, and the reason Lance started a diatribe on cancer awareness is because Kimmgae basically belittled Cancer patients and sufferers. Perhaps not intentionally, but his metaphor was in very bad taste.

Are you saying that Lance is taking donations to the LAF as appearance fees? I'm unclear.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

AND THE LAF GETS PROCEEDS FROM THAT APPAREL. THEY OWN THE FREAKING BRAND.

The LAF also recieved "significant equity" in Demand Media for the licensing of livestrong.com. Lance recieved "significant equity" for a 10 year contract to promote, market and contribute to livestrong.com.

But "significant" doesn't mean what yo think in an ownership sense. With a company with hundreds of millions in equity, 1-2% is significant. Heck, .05% is significant if the company is as big as... say... Microsoft. When the merger occurred, Demand was valued at over 1 billion dollars and had yearly revenue of 150 million dollars a year. They owned over 60 websites. Exactly how big a percentage of that do you think Lance got?

Ok, so "significant" actually means small..............cool.

What does 'insignificant' mean so?

 

[Dr. Maserati]

you guys are amazing. what will you do with you lives once lance retires again. maybe you could get on the obama is a terrorist forums.

the guy is living his life, doing what he wants, and raises a good amount of money for a worthy cause. the accounting standards for 501(c)(3)s are fairly strict. If the IRS does not have problem with him, how could you?

how much money have you raised/donated for charity?

anyways you guys should get a jump on his impending retirement and look for another way to find meaning in life.

501(3) is in relation to charities.

Livestrong.com is not a charity - it is 'for profit' and is run by Demand Media, Lance has 'significant equity' in Demand Media.

 

[ckfrancis]

so what

now the guy can't run a business?

 

[Race Radio]

Nike pays Lance a set endorsement fee. It's not related to the livestrong brand or the LAF. He had an endorsement contract with Nike prior to Nike doing anything with the LAF.

He doesn't make a percentage of sales, like the LAF used to. His involvement is totally unrelated to the licensing of Livestrong apparel. If Lance's contract ended tomorrow, Nike would continue paying the LAF. They would not be required to renew with Lance.

Do you have access to his contract with NIKE? If so please share it with us.

Nike and Armstrong benefit from their association with the Livestrong brand. This is marketing 101. To pretend they do not is disingenuous.

 

[MacRoadie]

now the guy can't run a business?

 

[Dr. Maserati]

now the guy can't run a business?

So it is a business!

He has amassed over $100 million, through other endorsements and contracts, I have no problem with that.

However, I dont see any reason why Lance should profit in any way through his association with Livestrong.

 

[Digger]

He had the right to ask a question, but not to challenge their response in the manner he did, and then challenge the Doctor. It was a blatant attempt to hijack a press conference. He was trying to turn it into an argument and Lance wanted to move on. That's what I have a problem with. If he took the their answer and moved on, that's fine, but he seemed to be argumentative.

I disagree with your assesment of Lance's attitude in the Kimmage press conference. I think it had more to do with disgust than anything, and the reason Lance started a diatribe on cancer awareness is because Kimmgae basically belittled Cancer patients and sufferers. Perhaps not intentionally, but his metaphor was in very bad taste.

Are you saying that Lance is taking donations to the LAF as appearance fees? I'm unclear.

That's complete and utter rubbish that he belittled them and you know this full well. In fact, as the quotes below show, it is Lance who is belittling these peple by using the disease as a shield. And as I say, who elected Lance to speak for these people? 'Im doing it for them'. He asked a doping question....Lance defended himself, and his attitude to doping, with cancer awareness. So if I get arrested tonight for drink driving, can I tell the policeman about the great work I did today with the elderly? Does the fact that I help the elderly mean I am exempt from being answerable to the law?
Some quotes from Lance that day with Paul:
"I'm here to fight this disease,"
"I am here so I don't have to deal with it, so you don't have to deal with it, none of us have to deal with it, my children don't have to deal with it
"I'm not sure I will ever forgive you for that statement and I'm not sure that anybody around the world who has been affected by this disease will forgive you,"
And these quotes back up in no uncertain terms that Lance uses cancer as a shield.
As for Lemond being argumentative....he saw that the testing they were doing should encorporate other areas...he challenged them on this and did not lose his temper. What exactly did he do wrong? He should've just accepted what they said, even though he knew in his heart that it wasn't right.

I'm saying that there's no need for Lance to be taking 2M in appearance fees for one week, as surely this means less money for the foundation as a result. Only so much money to go around.


David Walsh in Velocitynation (to the mods this is only an excerpt) http://velocitynation.com/content/interviews/2009/david-walsh
I can speak maybe more clearly about the stuff I was involved in. I looked at the LAF foundation, and how Lance has used cancer as a shield, in a sense, to protect him. I think he's done it very effectively, that's not to say that a lot of good hasn't come from the work of the LAF foundation. It has. The funding of survivorship programs has been very impressive. But it's also served a very important purpose for Lance in that in 1999 or whenever, when the first serious allegations came along, Lance's reply was, "After what I've been through, do you think I would use performance enhancing drugs? That I would put stuff like that in my body? After what I've been through?"

And to the lay person, it sounded like an incredibly convincing argument. But of course, the drugs that helped him to rehabilitate after his chemotherapy were drugs like EPO, anabolic steroids, and according to the doctors they weren't going to do any lasting damage, so it was ridiculous to suggest that the drugs you might take to enhance cycling performance were drugs that would seriously damage your system or your health in the short term. They weren't. They were the very drugs that helped him recover from his chemotherapy.

But that was the argument from day one. After what I've been through, would I do it? And after that, it was more subliminal. Somebody who was such an icon to the cancer community would surely never cheat. And I think that's been a huge part of the armory. I think it has worked very well as a shield. It means that the American media, for example, had a fantastic story about Lance Armstrong, because in his own country he was seen as a tremendous beacon of hope, a guy who came back from life threatening cancer. A guy who then decided that he would acknowledge the responsiblity of the cure, and do all this work for cancer. Which he did, and I don't deny a lot of great work was done.

But it wasn't just that. This also served a very useful purpose in relation to the image of Lance Armstrong. It protected him, and I've written about that. And there are some interesting points that have come up in that. I don't understand how you could have the LAF foundation, and then livestrong.org, both non-profit organizations, and they build up a tremendous following, and people believe and associate with the Livestrong brand. And then you get the creation of livestrong.com, which is a for profit organization. I don't understand how not for profit becomes for profit under the same brand. People tell me it happens in lots of charities in the US, and I'm sure it happens elsewhere as well, but I don't understand it.

My feeling is that if somebody goes to their computer and types in http://www.livestrong.com, they think they're on a charity website. And there is nothing when you type that in that says pretty clearly to them from the first moment they're there, this is a for profit operation. They aren't told that, and to me that's strange. And livestrong.com is obviously owned by a very big multimedia company, Demand Media, it's worth a lot of money, we're talking billions here. And Lance is an equity holder in that company. So I think...cancer has served in many ways, and he has served the cancer community in many ways, but it's been a mutally beneficial relationship.

 

[MacRoadie]

I'm saying that there's no need for Lance to be taking 2M in appearance fees for one week, as surely this means less money for the foundation as a result. Only so much money to go around.

Exactly.

As I see it, there are five possible options:

Don't give any money at all
Give money to livestrong.org
Give money to LA AND livestrong.org
Give money to LA and he donnates it to livestrong.org
Give money to LA and he keeps it for himself

 

[Beech Mtn]

That's complete and utter rubbish that he belittled them. And as i say, who elected Lance to speak for these people? He asked a doping question....Lance defended himself and his attitude to doping with cancer awareness. So if I get arrested tonight for drink driving, can I tell the policeman aboutthe great work I did today with the elderly? Does the fact that i help the elderly mean I am exempt from being answerable to the law?

As for Lemond being argumentative....he saw that the testing they were doing should encorporate other areas...he challenged them on this and did not lose his temper. What exactly did he do wrong? He should've just accepted what they said, eventhough he knew in his heart that it wasn't right.

I'm saying that there's no need for Lance to be taking 2M in appearance fees for one week, as surely this means less money for the foundation as a result. Only so much money to go around.

I agree. How dare Greg Lemond actually expect LA to answer questions at a press conference?! What does he think press conferences are for anyway?

 

[Bag_O_Wallet]

David Walsh in Velocitynation (to the mods this is only an excerpt) http://velocitynation.com/content/interviews/2009/david-walsh
Lance's reply was, "After what I've been through, do you think I would use performance enhancing drugs? That I would put stuff like that in my body? After what I've been through?"

Are the drugs more dangerous than bike racing? Are they more dangerous than hauling a$$ down an open mountain road in the wrong lane?

As a group, we bike racers tend to either enjoy risk or we manage to ignore it.

 

[ckfrancis]

understood. i don't think that elected officials in the usa should take money from special interest groups. they do and every once and a while they do some good.

not a perfect world.

 

[Publicus]

Lance isn't making money of the LAF from their donations or visiting their website either.

And to be honest, most people understand that as well. There are a few conspiracy theorists that want to suggest he's somehow funneling donations to Demand Media (a company he owns a very small protion of)... which makes absolutely no sense and isn't backed up by any facts.


Where Lance makes money is from positive publicity due to his ASSOCIATION with the LAF. It makes him a more desireable spokesman. Did Jerry Lewis get positive press from the MDA telethons that may have led to more jobs? I don't know... but it's not hard to imagine.

Here is where you are being cute. First, I didn't say he made money driving folks to LAF. He makes money by driving them to ".com" site because he is an owner of a private held company that has ambitions to go public. His stake has been characterized as anything but small (in the press release announcing it), so I don't know where you draw that conclusion. How he makes money from that is pretty straightforward (ad revenue minus costs equal profits (he shares in those)).

Jerry Lewis was famous LONG BEFORE the MDA. His claim to fame isn't having survived MD. He's not a stockholder in MDA. He doesn't have side deals with company's that donate with or partner with MDA. The MDA doesn't use his name as part of its name. The bulk of Jerry's money is in residuals for his comedic career (movies, etc.). His fame and fortune does not rise or fall with his role as spokesman for the MDA.

LAF exists ONLY because of Lance. The LiveStrong brand exists ONLY because of Lance. It only has value because of what he did as a cyclist and his unretirement has been financially beneficial to both. LAF is not bigger than Lance. It is wholly dependent on him for its existence.

Trying to draw an analogy between the two is simply wrong IMO.

 

[ImmaculateKadence]

I'm saying that there's no need for Lance to be taking 2M in appearance fees for one week, as surely this means less money for the foundation as a result. Only so much money to go around.

We obviously have different interpretations of what happened with Kimmage and Lemond and won't agree on it, so moving on....

I agree with you here. That's why I believe Lance should have taken about 25% (if not more) of that fee and put it toward the LAF. There is no way to determine how much his racing at the TDU made for the LAF, but his taking money for an "appearance" after saying "this one is on the house" or however he put it is slightly contradictory and hypocritical.

 

[Digger]

We obviously have different interpretations of what happened with Kimmage and Lemond and won't agree on it, so moving on....

I agree with you here. That's why I believe Lance should have taken about 25% (if not more) of that fee and put it toward the LAF. There is no way to determine how much his racing at the TDU made for the LAF, but his taking money for an "appearance" after saying "this one is on the house" or however he put it is slightly contradictory and hypocritical.

That's a fair enough post. I don't agree with alot of what you say, but fair engouh at the same time.

 

[kurtinsc]

Ok, so "significant" actually means small..............cool.

What does 'insignificant' mean so?

A "significant" steak in a company can refer to percentage or dollar value.

Would you say 10 million dollars is "significant"?

Because that would be the approximate value of 1% ownership of Demand Media a the time the deal was made, based on estimates of the company value at that time.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

A "significant" steak in a company can refer to percentage or dollar value.

Would you say 10 million dollars is "significant"?

Because that would be the approximate value of 1% ownership of Demand Media a the time the deal was made, based on estimates of the company value at that time.

Lance should not make a cent from his association with Livestrong.

$10 million dollars is 'significant money' - it is not a 'significant stake' in a company that was valued at $1 billion at the time.

I am sure the cancer community would say that $10 million is 'significant'.

 

[euphrades]

i really am surprised how much i am begining to dislike the noise i hear from the Lance lovers and the Lance haters.

Both sides seem to know way TOOO much and devote way too much time to him.