Lifting the drugs cloud could mean the world’s largest annual sporting event is no longer unappealing to sponsors

Tour set to come clean

By Peter Sharkey

Published:

For almost two years, the US housing market has had to contend with a succession of bad news, falling prices and depressing, longer-term growth forecasts.

It has been blamed for causing a global credit crunch, the effects of which are yet to completely wash through our property market. Despite a US Federal Reserve rate (our base rate equivalent) of 2%, America’s domestic housing sector is not in good shape.

A report published last weekend suggested there are tentative signs that a bottom might be forming in some US housing markets. Low interest rates cannot be thanked for this – average borrowing rates have risen over the past month – but investors and opportunists can.

Over the past year, the number of what Americans call low-end property sales has doubled with many homes being sold for less than £10,000. Some houses are so cheap purchasers have used credit cards to buy them.

While the federal authorities have endeavoured to put conditions in place to help boost the market, when it comes to conducting business, price is the determining factor.

In many respects, the Tour de France’s woes go much deeper and are considerably longer-standing than those of the US housing market. However, with the 2008 tour just a few days old, there are clear signs sponsors are finally beginning to appreciate two significant factors.

First, the organisers’ apparently determined stance on doping is beginning to have a positive impact, although more importantly, sponsors realise in monetary terms, the tour, the world’s largest annual sporting event, represents outstandingly good value.

After the Olympics and football’s World Cup, the Tour de France is the world’s third-largest sporting event, broadcast in more than 140 countries. Yet, for decades, it has been indelibly tainted by drugs’ dark spectre. It would surprise few observers were we to witness a repeat of the 2006 farce when American winner Floyd Landis tested positive for synthetic testosterone because for too long, the list of drug cheats and of systematic team doping has been on a par with that of mid 1970s East German athletes.

Yet, the race organisers and owners, Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), conscious of the enormous commercial opportunities they are missing by not having what is widely considered to be clean race, have introduced a series of measures designed to come down hard on drug users.

Foremost among these are biological passports which can determine any significant changes in a rider’s average performance. At the same time, jail terms for possession and trafficking of doping products on French soil have been increased.

Both initiatives have been welcomed by would-be sponsors whose nightmare scenario consists of having to withdraw from the tour after unintentionally harbouring and paying a drug cheat.

In marketing terms, the effect on a company’s brand of such action can be devastating and take years to repair.

At present, there is no discernable rush by sponsors to sign up for future tours but, like prospective investors eyeing up low-cost American property, a sizeable number appreciate sponsorship costs are unlikely to remain as low.

Although few are household names here, the Tour de France is not completely bereft of high-profile sponsors. Those involved pay comparative peanuts for their presence and wholesale branding at such a massive sporting event.

Were it to become widely accepted as being drugs-free, the tour’s five-year deal with French broadcasters, worth less than £19million a year, could be expected to at least double.

Accordingly, organisers are keen to attract long-term sponsors by emphasising just what good value the tour offers. There is a sense by committing now, sponsors could secure sponsorship rates which might have conceivably tripled within five years.

A quartet of companies including car manufacturer Skoda and water supplier Vittel pay around £2.3million annually to be one of the Club du Tour de France, the event’s most prestigious level of sponsorship.

In comparison with most other sports, particularly one with an aggregate global audience measured in billions, this is laughably cheap.

Organisations such as Nike and Orange pay considerably less than £800,000 to be involved as official partners, while becoming an official supplier of goods and services to the tour can cost as little as £10,000.

“This represents staggeringly good value for money,” said Helene Bonetti of Paris-based sports consultancy KANA. “In France alone, the tour receives wall-to-wall coverage every day for almost a month. Once the exposure it gets in other countries is added, the cost of reaching a global audience considerably lower than any other comparable event. The problem of course is drugs. If the organisers can rid the tour of dopers, its commercial value will soar.”

The question is, can the organisers eradicate doping altogether?

Some sponsors already consider the tour too good a marketing opportunity to miss. With the cost of sponsoring a whole cycling team having fallen below £7million a year, canny sponsors are prepared to spend a further £1million testing their own riders to ensure they’re clean.

“This is a smart move,” said Bonetti, “because it strengthens the sponsors’ investment and allows them to recoup some of their outlay by selling officially branded merchandise which most have tended to shun for fear of drugs-related repercussions.”

Cynics might say that as the tour has been tainted since the late 1960s at least when British rider Tom Simpson slowly asphyxiated on Mont Ventoux after taking a mixture of methyl-amphetamine and other stimulants.

They would also point to the number of cheats caught over the past few years as evidence drug use is widespread and growing. Yet, organisers suggest otherwise. They believe the cheats are being caught because out-of-competition testing, where the majority of cheats are discovered, is increasingly stringent.

The jury of cash-rich sponsors remains out. Like the US housing market, there is evi-dence with prices at rock bottom, commercial conditions on the Tour de France are changing. So cheap is the cost of entry to the event that several sponsors are actively contemplating some form of future involvement.

ASO, which nets an estimated £70million annually from the tour, will hope its drug-purging efforts are successful. If they are, that figure could exceed £200million by the end of the decade, although for now, no one is holding breath.