Andrew Leonard finds
a great piece of microeconomic analysis in
the sports pages, of all places, from the NYT’s Edward Wyatt:
It should not be surprising then, that the racers’ strategies and their
sponsors’ goals may coincide. While every sponsor wants to see one of
its riders cross the finish line first, there can only be one winner of each
stage. But there is another, relatively simple way for a sponsor to get hours
of television time: the breakaway…
Most often, a breakaway can look like an exercise in futility — a few
cyclists riding alone for hours, only to be caught by the pack within a mile
or two of the finish. Even when the group makes it alone to the end of the
stage, the charge to the finish inevitably brings disappointment for all but
one of the riders — disappointment that would appear to outweigh the
effort.
Not for the sponsors, however.
“It’s just a great advertising board,” said Bradley Wiggins,
a British rider who went on a solo breakaway of 118 miles in the sixth stage.
Wiggins’s effort was particularly appreciated at the offices of his
team’s sponsor, Cofidis, a French company that provides consumer loans.
And there you were, thinking breakaways were just an attempt to win the stage.
How naive. Leonard is not so unhappy, however.
This news is at once enlightening and disconcerting. I’m not sure I wanted
to know the crass motivations underlying the valiant breakaway. Instead of
"win a stage for the Gipper," it’s "stay in front a few hours
before you lose for the Discovery Channel!" Woo hoo!
But upon reflection, I am satisfied by this even deeper truth about
existence. The motivations that drive us are invariably more complex than
a surface glance reveals: every stab for glory provides for cover for less
glittery incentives.
What’s interesting to me is the viewership figures: apparently half of France’s
television audience is tuned in to the Tour. I guess the absence of stars and
the ubiquity of doping scandals has done nothing to dampen the sport’s popularity
in its spiritual home.