High Road hit a dead end

[CunegoFan]

Rumors are flying that HTC is dead. It is a sad statement about the health of the sport when the number one team can disappear like this. Cycling might be better off with smaller teams. It has to be hard to find a sponsor to put up $15M - $20M a year. Bjarne Riis' team almost died last year.

[gdw]

Yawn. Self flagellation leaves scars and disgusts the masses.

[Dave B]

I don't run my life by sports team...well outside of the Red Sox, but it is a shame when this type of team isn't continuing and while we can scoff at the money, losing a good team sucks.

Hope those riders can find a gig.

[MattTuck]

Yep, like any sports teams, it's not the upper management or super stars that are really hurt. It's the massage therapists, mechanics, journeyman professionals that make a living wage that are the ones that suffer.

[firerescuefin]

Bob Stapleton get a huge thumbs up for the way this team has been run since its inception. They did twice as much with half the resources. To the TdF (once a year fan) they were Cav and a leadout train. To anyone that follows the sport closely they were the best team at developing young talent for the sport. Sad day in pro cycling.

[Steve in SLO]

To us in San Luis Obispo, they were our home team. Sad.

[happycampyer]

Maybe there was more to Cav's gesture than we thought...

[1happygirl]

Why? Can someone explain?

[Steve in SLO]

Reportedly current sponsors contracts have ended and no major sponsor willing to step up.
Details:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/htc-highroad-disbands-after-failed-sponsor-search

[William]

They should have sent in Renshaw to close the deal. Headbutts can do wonders to change minds. :crap:

Really, too bad. Surprising someone hasn't stepped up for a power house team. But then again, in the current economic climate a lot of companies are skipping on the icing.






William

[Walter]

I had not seen that this thread was already going when I posted the following to start a new one...

This is very sad news. HTC is one of the real hitter teams that seemed to do it all in the right way with a great measure of class.

It will interesting to see where all of the HTC talent lands.

I cannot help but place some of the blame for the sponsor crisis in cycling that is due to ever escalating budgets on the UCI and its drive to get money from every aspect of the sport. The teams have to pay big license fees in order to get into the events they want to race in and then are required by the UCI to attend a large number of other events by the UCI. Many of these events do nothing for a sponsor's target market. Many sponsors have more regional target markets and racing in far away places has no ROI for them.

The UCI then can demand big money from these other events as a "sanctioning fee" because the UCI can require the big teams to compete in the events.

The teams then need much larger teams (riders, staff and equipment) to cover these extra events.

It all drives the cost of a sponsorship sky high and reduces the available pool of sponsors who can afford to play.

Sad. ...and the UCI claims it wants to grow the sport...rubbish.

[1happygirl]

We could get together as the Serotta Forum and sponsor the team?

[Elefantino]

We already have cool team kits. A damn sight better than this year's HTC not-so-finery.

[1centaur]

If we could get a wildly optimistic 250 out of the 8,000 registered users on this Forum to share the sponsoring load, that's $80k annually each, which we'd have to assure the UCI we would provide for each of the next three years. Then we could publicly bicker about our employees' attitudes and results, not to mention steel vs. carbon for our riders' TT bikes. We might need a paying sponsor-only sub-forum to cordon off the whining from the cheap seats. It would be AWESOME!

[CunegoFan]

This is an interesting take on what might have happened. It is even more shocking. Stapleton may have never had enough sponsor money to operate the team. The team was in part living on the money received when T-Mobile pulled out of the sport.

http://inrng.com/2011/08/highroad-pro-cycling/#more-4525

[Walter]

There have been many stories about the fact that Stapleton may have put some of his own money into the team to keep it going (in addition to the Deutsche Telekom sponsorship settlement funds). Granted he may have made a huge pile from the sale of VoiceStream Wireless to DT, but still...how many times have we seen folks who got such a payday spend it like this.

If he did so, we all owe him an even bigger thank you for keeping it going at such a high level. He was also not an absentee owner who just sent in $$$. He always had his boots on the ground at the races.

I hope he stays in the sport. It needs folks of his quality and level of commitment.

[Walter]

A twitter post from Taylor Phinney on the HTC closure:

"Sad to hear about @HTCHighroad. Such a winning team shouldn’t have a problem getting a sponsor. UCI you have a bigger problem than seat tilt"

Amazing wisdom from one so young. Spot on!

[Nooch]

A twitter post from Taylor Phinney on the HTC closure:

"Sad to hear about @HTCHighroad. Such a winning team shouldn’t have a problem getting a sponsor. UCI you have a bigger problem than seat tilt"

Amazing wisdom from one so young. Spot on!

spot on indeed.

[GRAVELBIKE]

A twitter post from Taylor Phinney on the HTC closure:

"Sad to hear about @HTCHighroad. Such a winning team shouldn’t have a problem getting a sponsor. UCI you have a bigger problem than seat tilt"

Amazing wisdom from one so young. Spot on!

Bingo.

They won't have to worry about seat tilt when there are no more pro teams...

[GuyGadois]

This sucks. Our little local team has kicked ass over the last few years. But, let's not forget they didn't have a sponsor for the first year and a half. Bob Stapleton funded the team during that stint. He made a fortune (many times over)selling his company to DT a dew years ago. I hope he chooses to prop it up until a sponsor comes forward.

GG

[CunegoFan]

This sucks. Our little local team has kicked ass over the last few years. But, let's not forget they didn't have a sponsor for the first year and a half. Bob Stapleton funded the team during that stint. He made a fortune (many times over)selling his company to DT a dew years ago. I hope he chooses to prop it up until a sponsor comes forward.

If you read the link I posted says that High Road was initially funded by the huge pile of cash that T-Mobile paid to end its sponsorship, like thirty or forty million dollars. That was combined with money from the minor sponsors to keep the team afloat. Columbia paid very little. HTC, at least initially, was also given a discount rate. The team may have never been financially viable. Stapleton does not appear to have given much if anything to the team.

[soulspinner]

Maybe there was more to Cav's gesture than we thought...

:)