garner points out that corporations are dropping sponsorship to usa cycling.
One of the tangible benefits of being a USA Cycling member has been United Airline's voucher exempting members from paying extra to fly with their bikes - saving US$80 in baggage charges each way. However, that benefit will not be renewed as United ends its sponsorships of individual sports.
"United decided to discontinue all of their sponsorships of national governing bodies, so it's across the board, not just with USA Cycling," USA Cycling's Andy Lee told Cyclingnews. "They will still be associated [with the] US Olympic Committee - they were a partner with us for sixteen years which was pretty amazing."
The loss of the voucher programme will undoubtedly affect those members who normally count on the savings, but Lee says USAC is looking at similar sponsorships for the future; "That is our goal right now. We know there are members who would pay a little more to fly on United in order to save money on their bike. We are starting to research some other companies that can step in and fulfill that role. The United deal and voucher deal was very valuable to our members, but that was only beneficial to members who travelled and lived in markets served by United. Now we can go out and try to find a sponsorships that could benefit a larger number."
United Airlines did not return requests for comment.
what garner should have pointed out is that a major us corporation is now whole-heartedly endorsing the union ethos. in
several recent posts, we have tried to show that the movement and momentum is coming our way. people have implied that we are tilting at windmills. their scurrilous rhetorical attacks are shown to be so much wind, and a complete absence of substence. stop and look plainly at the evidence. sponsorship is clearly not working from the corporate point of view. they are reverting to a simpler model and streamling their business. good for them for making a decision that frankly doesn't sound like it was all that hard.
look for more american corporations to make this kind of move in the near future. and when that happens, we'll be waiting with open arms and consolation. for some of you, the reponse will be
grief. for others, your relationship to sponsorship dollars, and the sense of entitlement it produces, is akin to
addiction and well need to help you work through the likely
consequences. it won't be easy, but if you can handle lactate threshold intervals, you can work through this.
as a concluding aside, i personally always found that deal to be ridiculous anyway. anytime i needed to fly with a bike, i could find two to three flights which had a cheaper ticket even after paying the luggage fee. it looked like a cozy deal for the airline and i can only assume that their own bureaucratic ineptitude forced the internal processing costs to be so high as to make it seem expensive.
my personal experience is that no eurpoean carriers charge extra fees for bikes. granted, they lose luggage a heck of a lot more often (including dear leader's race rig) but they don't make a big fuss about it. there's no drama. so you have a bike, no big deal. contrast that with flying a bike here in the states. i could tell you horror stories about trying to get a bike through security checks at dulles. it's a nightmare. and i've heard stories worse than mine as well. the nails in this coffin were long overdue.
- - - posted by scott