Ever met someone who always blames someone else for his problems? After a while, the complaining gets to be insufferable. It may take a while, but eventually you figured out that the person was doing things that were, shall we say, a tad self-defeating. At some point you just want to grab the person by his throat, throttle him and yell, “Dude! Wake up! You want to know who’s to blame?! Take a look in the f@$king mirror!”
One thing’s for sure, it takes a lot of ego to think that it’s always someone else’s fault. Coincidentally, it takes a lot of ego to start a fashion company that takes your run-of-the-mill blue jeans and sells them in boutiques and other fancy-shmancy stores at something like $400 a pop. Which brings me to Michael Ball, the person behind Rock and Republic jeans and erstwhile owner and head honcho of the Rock Racing (formerly professional) cycling team.
Ball’s experiment in cycling team ownership has been interesting, to say the least. He seems to be a mercurial character, making statements that sound very egalitarian, while behind the scenes doing things that are, perhaps, a bit less so. From the outset, Rock Racing has been something like the outlaw bike racing team. When Ball expressed the belief that cyclists accused of doping and who’ve served their time deserve a second chance, he bucked the system. Not just once, but a number of times. The powers that be don’t like someone thumbing his nose at them, or worse yet, giving them the proverbial middle finger.
The drama around the team, at times, made soap operas look rather humdrum. Any publicity is good publicity, I guess. Then again, maybe not. Directeurs sportif came and went. Sometimes after having been undercut by Ball’s management style. Riders came and went. Sometimes for greener pastures. Sometimes because of doping allegations/suspensions. And there were times that riders weren’t paid regularly. Or, at least, so the rumors go.
A year or two ago, Ball thought his team would be licensed as a Pro Continental squad. But then an underling apparently submitted the wrong paperwork, and the team was licensed as a UCI Continental squad, instead. Which meant no trips over to Europe to race in the bigger events, or even the medium events on the other side of the pond.
He tried again this year, and got smacked down by the UCI. Whatever the reasons were, the UCI didn’t release any statements with the gory details. Rock Racing tried to get a Continental license. Again, the application didn’t fly. So now, according to an article at CyclingNews.com, they’re going to be an amateur team.
“We won’t race as a professional team, that’s for sure,” he said. “We’ll be racing as an amateur team. We still want to race. Unfortunately this rules us out of being at races like Tour of California which will be one that we’ll miss.”
I can just imagine the team meeting after the UCI Continental license was denied. “Guys, I have some good news and some bad news. First, the good news. We’re going to get out there and race this year. Now, the bad news. We’re going to be racing as an amateur squad. So you won’t get paid — beyond whatever you win at the races.” I’m sure that went over real well.
Rather than looking at the totality of his actions as a possible cause, Ball seems to focus on one particular individual.
Ball speculated that hiring Floyd Landis may have had something to do with the UCI’s decision to deny the team a license. “I considered it and it was in the news but I think it harmed our chances with getting a pro continental license and a license in general for that matter,” said Michael Ball. “It is what it is and the UCI runs the sport and there comes a time when you have to give it up and understand the powers that be.
“I’m sure there are a lot reasons why they didn’t give it to us,” he added. “Probably one of the mistakes I made was to consider Landis on the team. That really hurt our chances more than anything. I’ve learned more about this sport and that there are a lot of politics and hopefully we’ll be able to get things right.”
I’m sure that Floyd Landis isn’t the most popular person in certain places within the sport. And I’m sure there are sponsors and others who would steer clear of a team he’s on, because of some irrational fear of negative publicity. And those sponsors, I say this: Newsflash! The guy served his time. He’s been back in action for a year. Last year wasn’t exactly filled with stellar results, but there were no new doping scandals tainting Landis, either. And, in the races he’s participated in this year, Landis seems to be coming into form quite nicely.
If Floyd Landis was so radioactive as to cause a UCI Continental license to be dropped, how come the OUCH (now United Healthcare) team was able to get a license in 2009? If that was the reason, it would have happened already. It’s not like the honchos at the UCI didn’t know Landis was going to be on the OUCH team when they issued the license. Quite the contrary, I’m sure they knew, or at least knew of the possibility.
Is Floyd also responsible for global warming, the financial crisis, and everything else that’s gone wrong in the last four years, Mr. Ball? C’mon. Man up and take a look in the mirror, for once. Maybe one of the reasons you didn’t get a license is the turmoil that has surrounded your squad. Maybe it’s the outlaw image and the Jolly Roger-like logo. Maybe, just maybe, politics played only a minor role in the whole debacle — if at all.
Pat McQuaid, of all people, stood up for Landis — kind of. According to CyclingNews’ article the UCI president “vigorously denied” Ball’s assertions that politics had a role in determining the fate of Rock Racing’s license applications.
“I don’t know the details but I would say that’s pure bullshit,” McQuaid said. “I wasn’t involved in the decision but that wouldn’t be a reason. That’s all bullshit.”
Maybe, for once, Pat McQuaid is right.
Imagine that, thinking Patty McQuaid is right, for once! 🙂
str
Classify that under “Strange, But True.” Ol’ Mr. McQuaid can’t be wrong all the time … can he? 😉
I’m speechless.
My best guess, and it’s only a guess, is that Michael Ball combined with his ability to address the process by which he might be able to obtain the desired license was much more radioactive, as measured by the UCI’s geiger counter, than even Floyd f&$kin Landis could be.
Ball has made some promises he couldn’t keep and more than a few riders have suffered for it. I’m not sure why the riders would trust him? He doesn’t seem trustworthy. YMMV. Money, and more specifically, spending money on being a sponsor for a race like the ToC might get you in the door and forgive a few sins, but once the money stops flowing……….
Insofar as obtaining a Professional Continental License, it appears Michael Ball couldn’t organize a booze up at a brewery, even if everyone brought their own glass.
It’s really not a surprise that he couldn’t get a license. We’ve seen this consistently with teams that have financial issues. I’m also sure they (UCI) were all too happy to keep Floyd off of a team. So Floyd was a straw (or probably a whole bundle), but the camels back was already broken.
Floyd doesn’t get enough credit for bringing OUCH to Momentum Sports. A major U.S. domestic team was having trouble finding a sponsor, and Floyd helped them out.
It just really sucks that his thanks is that he is now teamless. I have no doubt that one of the problems is short-sighted sponsors.
tom
Don’t forget, Mr. Ball also associated with Maurice Suh. And Paul Scott. Two other guys that are hated by the cycling powers that be. Of course, these two guys are hated in large part because of their association with Landis.
Me thinks that Mr. Ball has done enough in his own right to be hated by the cycling powers that be, regardless of whom he has associated with in the past.
I’m going to backpedal a bit on my previous post. I’m not a big fan of Mr. Ball or the marketing machine that pushed his clothing line to increase his bank account. I’ll freely admit that I don’t understand the allure of distressed jeans @ ~$400 a pop. I’m also not a fan of the seeming absence of getting a straight story from him about the various attempts to license his team at a level, or more, above the tier the actual license was eventually granted. Nor am I a fan of how the resulting fallout affected the riders.
On the other hand, he employed riders other teams declined to employ. He employed them within the regulations and took a stab at keeping the McCarthy-esque anti-doping machine and the UCI just a tad more honest. For that, he should get at least a short round of applause.
I can’t believe the SOB used Floyd as an excuse!!
Jeff,
I agree that employing riders who wouldn’t otherwise get a second chance was a good thing to do. Anyone trying to keep the ADAs and the UCI honest deserves some props, to be sure.
For my part, I think it wasn’t so much the riders he employed, but the other stuff surrounding the team that doomed his license applications. The UCI doesn’t like having to pay riders out of the money teams put up in case of financial problems. They’d like to keep that money earning interest in whatever Swiss bank accounts the cash is squirreled away. I’d guess that Ball ran afoul of some of the requirements. And I’d guess that’s easy to do for someone without the connections to know exactly what all is needed for a successful application.
Maybe someday Rock Racing will be back in the pro ranks. But it won’t be the choice of riders that will cinch the application — it will be Ball’s ability to do the paperwork game.
I rather doubt that the rumors that Landis was going to get a position on RR had anything at all to do with Ball’s inability to secure a license, although I wouldn’t be surprised that UCI/WADA might be secretly pleased that some are drawing that conclusion. After all, it doesn’t seem that OUCH had any problems with Landis’ position a known fact.
My guess this is a pretty mundane thing: either Ball failed to submit the proper paperwork in a timely manner or he accumulated too many demerits for failure to pay riders, too many riders caught doping, etc. It may be a combination of the two. Ball’s attitude probably didn’t help either, if he’d been more low-key and not thumbed his nose at the powers that be, they might have been more forgiving.
But Landis makes a convenient excuse. Hell, he probable caused the recession, national debt, global warming, and the Toyota problems too.
Neil Browne has an interview with Michael Ball over at velonation.com
It is amazing.
http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/3340/Michael-Ball-Interview-No-apologies-no-regrets.aspx
Yes it is. Read both parts. Ball certainly has no apologies or regrets.
Mr. Ball has a lot to say. I’m not sure I believe most of his claims, but he seems to have a point about the UCI bank guarantees. While I’m skeptical about the amount being a half million, I have little doubt the UCI is holding whatever amount Ball actually sent. I have not seen a credible report about how the UCI dispersed bank guarantee funds to the riders left out in the cold when the Mercury Team folded.
It’s quite a dilemma…..trying to figure where the specs of truth lie, when confronted with the large piles of bs served up by both the UCI and Ball.
Actually, if I recall correctly, Ball probably would have been required to put up something like a half million bank guarantee to get the Pro Continental license. I read through the rules for both the Pro Conti and Pro Tour licenses a couple of years back, and that seems to be about right. (Pro Tour teams have to put up on the order of 2 million euros, IIRC.)
Not sure if the bank guarantee has to be paid in full before the license is issued, though. So whether or not Ball actually forked over 500K to the UCI, I don’t know.