USPS Spending (ESPN article)

[mwbyrd]

RR,

Doesn't this really sound like a bad business decision on the part of US Postal more than anything?

They signed up, they paid and whether or not they 'got what they wanted out of it', that's 'ADVERTISING', correct?

Better yet, why in the heck would the US POSTAL SERVICE want to gain mkt share in Europe? It's not like they are set up to battle UPS or FedEx.

As for the POSTAL service sending execs to the TDF and it not being included in the Sponsorship budget, Who's fault is that? Sounds like more CEO greed to me.

The POSTAL service has been a drain on the economy and loosing money for YEARS.

 

[PotentialPro]

I just saw this article looks like the spin has been going overtime
http://sports.yahoo.com/sc/news;_ylt=ArxdcBt8XMjBCNNpuoWG80J.grcF?slug=ap-doping-armstrong

What makes me sick is how do they set the value? they are marketing firms that supposedly did this study.
Now as u mentioned people were already using the USPS, while some dolt might believe this tripe about"value" it only exists when it has some sort of applicability in sales.
Did Postal revenues rise by this amount? How much could be directly attributable to the marketing?
ALSO and this is a big ALSO
when the USPS was marketing the team to the general public, on TV for instance, did this come out of the USPS team budget?
Extremly doubtful as air time and the cost of making commercials runs into quite a bit of money. This is my chosen profession. And it is not unusual to have to pay half a million to make a 30 second spot. Then think of all the network tv spots where time is grossly expensive.
I am sure these commercials would have eaten alive the entire team budget in short order.
So how can u claim marketing value when you used a seperate entity to market? Typical show biz diversion. Pay all the money out of one company which "loses" money, then a seperate one to show profit where it can be spread around.
Also how are they quantifying the value of said exposure? Lets say they make their USPS commercials featuring LA and part of the value is they dont pay LA any fee for appearing. Now i would imagine they could argue a similiar "celebrity" endorsement could cost them a million dollars, and it is easy to see how puffed up the "value" of the team could be.
In addition maybe LA was not paid for the commercial but in another dept maybe USPS put on a Livestrong event and funded it totally, or simply made a donation. Are these business monies subtracted from the value?
just alot of questions...

Someone should smack McCartney for plagiarism, he regurgitated the ESPN article nearly word for word in the same order.

Gee, give me a few minutes and I can post on Yahoo also and spin it the other way.

 

[Race Radio]

RR,

Doesn't this really sound like a bad business decision on the part of US Postal more than anything?

They signed up, they paid and whether or not they 'got what they wanted out of it', that's 'ADVERTISING', correct?

Better yet, why in the heck would the US POSTAL SERVICE want to gain mkt share in Europe? It's not like they are set up to battle UPS or FedEx.

As for the POSTAL service sending execs to the TDF and it not being included in the Sponsorship budget, Who's fault is that? Sounds like more CEO greed to me.

The POSTAL service has been a drain on the economy and loosing money for YEARS.

You make a good point.

In the early days Weisel over promised. He told the Postal people that he would get all his Investment bankers and Bond Salesmen to call all their customers and get them to use USPS to ship stuff to Europe. No Joke.

By the time the 2nd Tour win they were hooked. I doubt they cared about a return they just wanted to be around the action....Weisel and Gorski made sure they milked that as much as possible.

To be fair they were not the only ones. I once was flying over to the Tour in 2003 (I think) and I was on the plane with a lady from one of their secondary sponsors (HP I think). She was giddy like a 12 year old girl going to a Justin Bieber concert. I am sure some pretty irrational marketing choices by people who now feel rather foolish.

 

[BroDeal]

The POSTAL service has been a drain on the economy and loosing money for YEARS.

Jeebus! The postal service is part of the country's infrastructure. It is something that adds to overall economy, just like education, dam construction, bridge building, or anything else that allows business to operate better. Whatever "loosing money" is supposed to mean, it does not matter.. It is no different than the spending money on the highway system. No one expects the public roads to make a profit.

 

[_yngve_]

Without the articles of incorporation, it's impossible to know where money went.

I can't recall if Tailwind was originally a Corp or an LLC, but either way, articles (of incorporation or organization, respectively) won't tell you squat.

If we're talking about a Corp, the cash flow will come down to revenues less expenses, with equity stakeholders getting their share through salary (actually or supposedly earned by the shareholder), expensed services (actually or supposedly provided by the shareholder or his/her entity) or dividends. Typically, the articles will define whether a class of stock is eligible for a divi, but it's up to the board of directors to declare it, and you'd need a listing of shareholders to track it. Otherwise, nothing in the articles will clarify the cash flow.

LLC cash flow is defined by The operating agreement. Like a shareholder in a Corp, an LLC member gets bucks either by charging expenses, drawing a salary, or takeing a distribution. Absolutely nothing in the articles will define where the money goes.

Articles (both types) are typicall readily available from the state of formation's division of corporations/dept. of commerce/secretary of state (it may cost a few bucks, but anyone can generally get a copy.

 

[DirtyWorks]

RR,

Doesn't this really sound like a bad business decision on the part of US Postal more than anything?

They signed up, they paid and whether or not they 'got what they wanted out of it', that's 'ADVERTISING', correct?

Advertising is pretty consistently derided, and yet for some reason companies keep doing it. Here's a hint, they do it because it improves sales. It really does. Accounting and Finance *love* to gut Ad budgets because one can't quantify the value of Advertising. Funny thing happens a year or two after chopping the Ad budget. Sales decline.

Better yet, why in the heck would the US POSTAL SERVICE want to gain mkt share in Europe? It's not like they are set up to battle UPS or FedEx.

Well, yeah they are. Especially for international stuff. UPS and FedEx are not good international carriers. I know I used to export goods.

There's **lots** of shipping agents/services between the U.S. and Europe. USPS is but one choice. A good one, but not popular.

The POSTAL service has been a drain on the economy and loosing money for YEARS.

Compared to other postal services, it is both cheap and reliable, a large employer and really drives logistics technology. Kind of like a DARPA for logistics. How many countries can you send an envelope 2000+ miles for $0.50? When the envelope is delivered it hasn't been opened in search of money. It will get there in about a week too.

I don't think you understand how good you have it. Until I shipped things around the world as part of my work, I had no clue how good our system is.

The USPS is an easy target for scorn. Not always deserving of the hostility either.

 

[D-Queued]

Advertising is pretty consistently derided, and yet for some reason companies keep doing it. Here's a hint, they do it because it improves sales. It really does. Accounting and Finance *love* to gut Ad budgets because one can't quantify the value of Advertising. Funny thing happens a year or two after chopping the Ad budget. Sales decline.

...

Funny thing happens when you purport to be an expert, and demonstrate that you have no clue in your self-proclaimed area of expertise.

You get fired.

Dave.

 

[DirtyWorks]

Oh, for sure. After all, the vast majority of Americans at that time had never heard of the U.S. Post Office. Everyone was using UPS or FedEx at that time.

I used all three for international shipping and USPS was the far superior service. My employer at the time just lived with how poor FedEx and UPS were. I got sick of the bad service and tried USPS. Much better! They ship *far* more places too. I always had much quicker times in/out of customs, much better information about the package and consistent tariffs billing with USPS.

There *lots* of parcel post in and out of Europe. USPS was right to pursue the niche. The execution was terrible because they did the deal with a bunch of fraudsters.

 

[DirtyWorks]

I can't recall if Tailwind was originally a Corp or an LLC, but either way, articles (of incorporation or organization, respectively) won't tell you squat.

If we're talking about a Corp, the cash flow will come down to revenues less expenses, with equity stakeholders getting their share through salary (actually or supposedly earned by the shareholder), expensed services (actually or supposedly provided by the shareholder or his/her entity) or dividends. Typically, the articles will define whether a class of stock is eligible for a divi, but it's up to the board of directors to declare it, and you'd need a listing of shareholders to track it. Otherwise, nothing in the articles will clarify the cash flow.

LLC cash flow is defined by The operating agreement. Like a shareholder in a Corp, an LLC member gets bucks either by charging expenses, drawing a salary, or takeing a distribution. Absolutely nothing in the articles will define where the money goes.

Articles (both types) are typicall readily available from the state of formation's division of corporations/dept. of commerce/secretary of state (it may cost a few bucks, but anyone can generally get a copy.

All true. Especially the bolded part. I thought you said the articles won't tell me squat. Are you suggesting the articles of incorporation might be handy in figuring out who (e.g. which class) gets paid? A financial report (balance sheet/income statement) will not name names. Articles get you started. Lots of fun stuff in typically buried in articles not copied off some templates bought at Office Depot too.

 

[theswordsman]

I just signed up for ESPN Insider (got a 6 month magazine extension for $1), so I can't tell exactly which documents the rest of you are seeing. There are the main ones linked in the article, but additional ones in "The File Blog".

Everything I made bold were links to additional documents. The light blue is just because there were two links right next to each other.

What follows are additional documents that shed light on what taxpayers got for their money.

• Before Armstrong was hired in 1998, the Postal Service committed to spending a relatively modest $1 million to finance the team in 1996. Note that the contract contains no morals clause specifically mentioning drug use.

• A morals clause was finally inserted in this four-year contract, executed in late 2000, after headlines began surfacing linking team members to use of a controversial blood booster. This contract pays the team three times more in 2001 than it earned in 1998.

• In an effort to prove its worth, Tailwind offered this prospectus, attaching dollar values to the publicity it received. What, only $346,250 for a segment on "SportsCenter"?

• As this letter from a postal official shows, partying clearly was a major concern. In 2003, USPS officials decided to spend $75,000 on a "complete VIP hospitality program for selected guests of the sponsor during the Tour de France." This e-mail shows how much time officials were spending making their VIPs got face time with Armstrong.

• So many reporters wanted a piece of Lance by November 2003 that the Tailwind contract was bumped up by $200,000 so 25 members of the postal team could fly to USPS headquarters for a two-day press-op.

• In 2004, the agency spent another $100,000 for VIP trailers with catering to pro cycling events. This modification adds Aspen and L.A. to the list of places where agency officials entertained. As the document notes, a $5,000 service fee is included.

http://insider.espn.go.com/insider/blog?name=assael_shaun&id=6022155

It was interesting to me that ESPN had to fight for the documents.

The reason originally cited by USPS for denying the public records request was that "publicizing the price needed to obtain sponsorship rights [would] harm [our] ability to negotiate cost-effective sponsorships" in the future.

On the appeal, it was pointed out that the agency no longer maintains sports sponsorships, and any financial information is at least six years old.

 

[theswordsman]

Just looking over the 4 year contract with "DFP Cycling LLC" (Dissun First Partners).

The junior team money was $100,000 available January 1 of each of the 4 years. US Postal was to be the title sponsor of USA Cycling's National Development and Junior National Teams.

USA Cycling agreed to use USPS for all its mailing services during the years of the contract. The Postal Service also got "access" to all of it's members and clubs.

The Company agreed to use USPS exclusively for all its mailing services and overnight courier system for all its needs during the term of the contract.

The Company was to make the best effort to keep the composition of the team 50% +1 American.

It was a sweet deal for the five couples attending the VIP events. For the last four days of the Tour de France, they had the hotel, access to the team, team clothing, etc., a Hospitality tent on the Champs Elysees for stage 21 complete with televisions. They had the $75,000 amendment in my previous link for better parties. In 2004 they added $100,000 for catered VP trailers at races, and added Aspen and Los Angeles to the sites.

You've seen the bonuses given to Lance and Tyler for the one race. In 2001, the contract called for a bonus pool for the riders not to exceed $100,000 - that money to be invoiced after rider's earned bonuses based on their contracts. The other three years had bonus pools not to exceed $150,000. So where did Lance's Tour de France bonus come from? He bragged in his books that the Tour de France winnings were distributed to the team, as per custom, and that he gave each of the guys "Lance bonuses".

 

[mwbyrd]

Compared to other postal services, it is both cheap and reliable, a large employer and really drives logistics technology. Kind of like a DARPA for logistics. How many countries can you send an envelope 2000+ miles for $0.50? When the envelope is delivered it hasn't been opened in search of money. It will get there in about a week too.

I don't think you understand how good you have it. Until I shipped things around the world as part of my work, I had no clue how good our system is.

The USPS is an easy target for scorn. Not always deserving of the hostility either.

I never meant to say that the USPS wasn't a good service, I'm always amazed that they can deliver like they do.

My opinion is based on the rising cost of postage over the last several years, discussing not delivering on Sat, the media's financial spin on the USPS, and talking to the owner of a Mailboxes etc. and him telling me that USPS is on the verge of bankruptcy.

And I didn't know that USPS had any international exposure.

I still think the USPS sponsorship is 'someone' looking for a scoop. I mean, why don't people research Auto Insurance companies and find out how much they spend on Advertising and then consistently raise rates....or how much the auto makers spend on Advertising. I still think the USPS budget was peanuts.

 

[AussieGoddess]

Yes, Lance is greedy lol.

Greedy in a sport with crappy pay lol again.

But c'mon - the winner of the TdF should be paid more than the rider making the minimum wage. A lot more. Duh.

And again, $1.47mil is a relatively small bonus for winning the TdF.
Heck, Lance has been getting paid $2mil a year just to show up at the TdU.

BTW, the US Government received mucho benefit from their investment in the USPS Team:

actually I agree with Polish here eek: I know)

Anyway - that $1.47m was for Winning the overall TdF, winning 5 stages and keeping the leaders jersey for quite a number of days. I would expect it to be pretty substantial.

If thats his contract - thats it. I dont have an issue with it at all.

As far as USPS - they are a pretty big organisation with a pretty big budget. They obviously felt they were getting their money's worth or they would not have kept re-signing, or signed a 4 year deal after only doing 1 yr ones ....

Crying now because their winner was cheating better than the other cheaters is a bit rich really.

 

[Juicy McDrip]

I never meant to say that the USPS wasn't a good service, I'm always amazed that they can deliver like they do.

My opinion is based on the rising cost of postage over the last several years, discussing not delivering on Sat, the media's financial spin on the USPS, and talking to the owner of a Mailboxes etc. and him telling me that USPS is on the verge of bankruptcy.

And I didn't know that USPS had any international exposure.

I still think the USPS sponsorship is 'someone' looking for a scoop. I mean, why don't people research Auto Insurance companies and find out how much they spend on Advertising and then consistently raise rates....or how much the auto makers spend on Advertising. I still think the USPS budget was peanuts.

Of course the USPS should be able to deliver better than any private company. It's not amazing...Because they can lose money doing it!

In theory, USPS could undercut competitor's prices or increase service levels to almost any degree. Because US taxpayers will always bear the burden to subsidize this money-losing operation. The increase in postage stamp costs is the only public measurement of increased USPS costs...the real costs are buried in the taxpayer increases. USPS spends whatever it takes to keep their make-work operation going and appear to be the best. How much of US taxpayer increases have been allocated to the awesome USPS? Can't tell...that's the game with any US government money-losing operation. It's blended together through a myriad of taxes.

The USPS is a fake business that acts as if they are competetive with the likes of UPS, fedex, dhl and the real businesses that try to make a profit. Please stop the comparisons to private companies such as Auto Insurers or other delivery services.

Hell...any Government agency can look awesome and sponsor teams and be a hero...losing big dough along the way. The US Treasury or Homeland Security the IRS or any Government department could claim they need the exposure and get great ROI from it. USPS was where Weisel's connections were..so they got the chance.

And yes...if the USPS had to compete for market-share and profitability, then they would cut sponsorships, deliver mail 2x/week, radically increase prices and cut staff. Then how awesome would they be in your opinion?

 

[theswordsman]

In case it got buried in my two posts about the documents, the contract said the total bonus pool for riders the year Lance got the $1.47 million could be no more than $100,000 - that's for the whole team to cover contract incentives for the year.

The ESPN documents included a thirty page audit of sponsorships from March 31, 2003. I cherry picked the cycling team stuff

While we found no significant exceptions with sponsorship expenditures, the audit disclosed that the Postal Service has not effectively managed its sponsorships. Specifically, the Postal Service was unable to track or verify revenue associated with sponsorships, lacked goals and objectives for some sponsorships, and did not manage tickets and invitations appropriately. As a result, the Postal Service could not determine return on investments, measure the effectiveness of its sponsorships, and take advantage of networking opportunities to generate revenue.

The Postal Service was unable to fully validate over $130 million in revenue claimed from two5 sponsorships. Based on interviews with sales representatives and national account managers, combined with financial analyses, we verified only $698,000 of the $18 million claimed by the Postal Service over a 4-year period as revenue generated as a result of the Pro-Cycling team sponsorship. In addition, the Postal Service was not able to validate the $112 million claimed in 1999 as revenue from sponsorship of the New York Yankees. Postal Service managers stated this new revenue would have been attained regardless of the sponsorship, and it would be difficult to link the revenue to the New York Yankees’
sponsorship because so many other factors contribute to increased revenue. As a result, claims of monetary benefits are unsubstantiated and future business decisions that were made based on those claims may result in a waste of funds.

The Pro-Cycling team sponsorship had goals and objectives; however, they were not always measured to determine achievement.

We were also told that during the renewal of the Pro-Cycling team sponsorship those responsible for administering the initiative awarded the sponsorship without following the sponsorship event manual.
As a result, for ten of the sponsorships and the first 5 years of the Pro-Cycling team sponsorship,8 the Postal Service had not measured and/or quantified benefits or return on investment of these initiatives. Consequently, there is only a limited basis on which to build a business case that warrants the initiation or continuation of sponsorships.

We did find, however, that the Postal Service had an evaluation performed to determine the exposure value of the Pro-Cycling team for the year 2001. The study concluded that the value of domestic exposure was three times its contract cost for that year. The analysis arrived at this figure by assigning a value to the exposure, media coverage, promotional activities, and intangible benefits that are included in the sponsorship. However, according to best practices, media exposure can be a distraction to what really matters, which is how the sponsorship impacted sales, shareholder value, and return on investment. Furthermore, the study did not cover the specific fiscal year 2001 monetary goal of increasing revenue by $20 million.

While the Postal Service tracked 301 tickets and invitations for Pro-Cycling team sponsorship events, it did not provide distribution information on 500 invitations for one event.

Why would the Postal Service sponsor the Pro-Cycling team whose major event is the Tour de France when the primary job of the Postal Service is to deliver mail domestically?

6. The Postal Service was not provided with 500 tickets to any cycling event. (For the full management comment - see Appendix A, page 18, paragraph 2.)
OIG’s Response: The OIG statement in the report is accurate. A sales support/account management specialist working on the Pro-Cycling team sponsorship at the time and a sales and business manager with Threshold Sports, LLC, provided this information. They informed us that one of the Pro-Cycling team events had 500 invitations/tickets. The Postal Service could not provide a distribution listing of tickets for this event.

http://www.uspsoig.gov/FOIA_files/OE-AR-03-003.pdf

 

[miloman]

Postal gets money back? What about me?

The medium is the message is a phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan meaning that the form of a medium embeds itself in the message, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived. The fact of the matter is the USPS advertised their product by sponsoring a successful cycling team. They won some of the biggest races on the UCI calendar. The goal was to gain market share and heighten awareness to United States Postal Service products and differentiate it in the market place in the era of FedEx, UPS, etc. For me, and I would argue many others, it worked! I consciously started using USPS for some of my shipping needs that otherwise was filled by UPS and FedEx. Why do so many have a problem with this sponsorship? The USPS is a quasi-government agency. Amtrak advertises. The Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines pay for sponsorships and advertise regularly. I don’t see a lot of difference. Does the Army ask for a refund when the networks run a story derogatory of the armed forces? What about when they televise a movie or original series that is unflattering. The whole USPS thing is a red hearing in my opinion. It doesn’t matter who sponsored what and when. If they (management and riders) broke laws and it can be proved, then they should be punished. But this absurd notion that the USPS is due compensation should anyone from Tailwind be found guilty, is laughable. They got what they wanted and I for one believe it was money well spent. If they, the Postal Service, receive compensation, I invite you to join me in a class action suit to recoup the money we spent from 1999 – 2004. I made a conscious decision to use the USPS over other, sometimes more affordable alternatives because of their sponsorship of cycling. If they believe they were cheated, then we were cheated! If we all did this, I would bet whatever they hope to collect would be a drop in the bucket. The idea that the federal government is due compensation makes no sense.

 

[Ferminal]

The medium is the message is a phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan meaning that the form of a medium embeds itself in the message, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived. The fact of the matter is the USPS advertised their product by sponsoring a successful cycling team. They won some of the biggest races on the UCI calendar. The goal was to gain market share and heighten awareness to United States Postal Service products and differentiate it in the market place in the era of FedEx, UPS, etc. For me, and I would argue many others, it worked! I consciously started using USPS for some of my shipping needs that otherwise was filled by UPS and FedEx. Why do so many have a problem with this sponsorship? The USPS is a quasi-government agency. Amtrak advertises. The Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines pay for sponsorships and advertise regularly. I don’t see a lot of difference. Does the Army ask for a refund when the networks run a story derogatory of the armed forces? What about when they televise a movie or original series that is unflattering. The whole USPS thing is a red hearing in my opinion. It doesn’t matter who sponsored what and when. If they (management and riders) broke laws and it can be proved, then they should be punished. But this absurd notion that the USPS is due compensation should anyone from Tailwind be found guilty, is laughable. They got what they wanted and I for one believe it was money well spent. If they, the Postal Service, receive compensation, I invite you to join me in a class action suit to recoup the money we spent from 1999 – 2004. I made a conscious decision to use the USPS over other, sometimes more affordable alternatives because of their sponsorship of cycling. If they believe they were cheated, then we were cheated! If we all did this, I would bet whatever they hope to collect would be a drop in the bucket. The idea that the federal government is due compensation makes no sense.

I thought it was more to do with a breach of contract rather than some sort of mission to get back sponsorship money.

 

[Anonymous]

I thought it was more to do with a breach of contract rather than some sort of mission to get back sponsorship money.

Milo has doping to apologize for, don't present facts to him.

 

[_yngve_]

All true. Especially the bolded part. I thought you said the articles won't tell me squat. Are you suggesting the articles of incorporation might be handy in figuring out who (e.g. which class) gets paid? A financial report (balance sheet/income statement) will not name names. Articles get you started. Lots of fun stuff in typically buried in articles not copied off some templates bought at Office Depot too.

Yes, but 1) articles don't tell you who holds those classes of stock; and 2) in situations like this, the *real* money has flown the coop long before divvies get declared.

 

[Boeing]

anyone with the gonads to include the word 'neat' in a thread title deserves a sticky.

 

[miloman]

I thought it was more to do with a breach of contract rather than some sort of mission to get back sponsorship money.

What contract did they break? The team raced, won, brought publicity to USPS and while sponsored was relatively free from controversy. By that I mean no doping positives. Why should they get their money back? It seems they got their money’s worth. Just like I got my money’s worth when I shipped packages by USPS. The packages got where they were supposed to go, probably not as efficiently as if I used someone else, but we both honored our ends of the deal. -- so did Tailwind. Now, if they broke laws, they should pay the measured penalty for their crimes. I think Postal Service deserves squat. They knew the risks, rolled the dice and came up winners from 1999 to 2004. I am sure there are a lot of sponsors who would have traded places with them at the time. It would be like the people who made a lot of money from investing with Bernie Madoff crying foul because others, later on got taken. How did they get hurt?

 

[D-Queued]

... They knew the risks...

They did?

They knew that Lance is a liar? They knew he was working with Ferrari? They knew his samples contained EPO? They knew that he would remove the anti-doping clause from the SCA contract?

What did they know?

As for other sponsors taking their place - like who Phonak, Wurth, Saunier Duval, Liberty Seguros and T-Mobile? You know, the guys that ran as soon as any doping controversy showed up?

Oh, I know, you are talking about Rock Racing jumping in. Or should I say, butting into the coke line?

Dave.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

What contract did they break? The team raced, won, brought publicity to USPS and while sponsored was relatively free from controversy. By that I mean no doping positives. Why should they get their money back? It seems they got their money’s worth. Just like I got my money’s worth when I shipped packages by USPS. The packages got where they were supposed to go, probably not as efficiently as if I used someone else, but we both honored our ends of the deal. -- so did Tailwind. Now, if they broke laws, they should pay the measured penalty for their crimes. I think Postal Service deserves squat. They knew the risks, rolled the dice and came up winners from 1999 to 2004. I am sure there are a lot of sponsors who would have traded places with them at the time. It would be like the people who made a lot of money from investing with Bernie Madoff crying foul because others, later on got taken. How did they get hurt?

Well, thats quite an amazing difference in your opinion in comparisson to your view on Floyd and people who contributed to the FFF.

 

[miloman]

Well, thats quite an amazing difference in your opinion in comparisson to your view on Floyd and people who contributed to the FFF.

An apples and oranges comparison. The Postal Service got what they wanted from their advertising and moved on. Are you going to tell me that the Postal Serviced didn't benefit from their sponsorship? Would the postal service image and likeness grace the covers and pages of newspapers and magazines around the world if it weren't for Lance and the team? They bought advertising through sponsorship of a pro cycling team and hoped to rebuild a brand image that had been on the ropes since the 1970's. They didn't shell out money to defend a self admitted liar and cheat who hoped to beat the system. The comparison does not hold up. I only contributed to USPS by purchasing shipping solutions; I didn't donate to a defense fund or charity. I got something for my money and so did Postal.

 

[miloman]

D-Queued

Are you suggesting that they didn’t do their due diligence before signing on the dotted line? They had never heard of Festina or any of the other allegations in the early ‘90’s? If you are right then Heaven really does protect fools and children, because they sure got lucky! And just because someone is a liar rarely stops people from jumping on board. Look at Tiger Woods. As we find out now, sponsors had an inkling years ago what was going on, but stayed the course so long as it didn’t explode in their face. It was mutually beneficial.

And in response to your supposition that sponsors wouldn’t want to take their place, prove I am wrong. You cite Phonak as one. I bet they would have traded places with Postal in a heartbeat. No doping positives and 7 TDF titles vs. two disgraced Americans and zero titles. Don’t forget that BMC bikes and Phonak share common ownership. And T-Mobile still hung around even after Zabel, Riis, Ullrich and others soiled the nest. And finally, what coke line are you talking about? I have never heard anyone accusing Postal riders of doing coke. Do you have inside information?