You are right - professional sport is reaching a tipping point... sponsors in are thinking twice about what they are aligning and associating themselves with, not just in cycling., and not just at the elite level.
Look at the 'sponsorship' deal that Coca Cola had with American high schools. At the time of signing the schools nation wide where cock a hoop at the the fact the biggest name in soft drinks was giving significant sums of money, in return for unfetter access... 10 plus years latter and with major dietary issues the topic of daily conversation, the State of California effectively directly interviews to end this association. A deal seen as heaven sent was now as sour as fresh squeezed lemon juice...
The risk to health was to great, the association to negative. Now that's soft drink and kids with diabetes.... here in the professional sports arena you have Marion Jones in jail, Tim Montgomery doing time for Heroin smuggling, the FBI investigating the Balco case.... and you think getting out as BW and SD have done is premature and unjust - that they got their brand exposure but are turning tail and running at the first sign of trouble.....
I've tried to make an articulate counter argument to your riposte... Understand that you are not the only 'professional' on the hub, that your view is interesting, but that snide comments do nothing to enhance the debit, and that 'wake up and smell the coffee' was constructive, as you are clearly reading from a different page than most observers of sport and it's associated ills in the modern arena.
