Can Tour de Georgia bike race be saved?

By Jim Tharpe

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Tour de Georgia might not be dead, but it’s on life support and could be gone for good if a major sponsor is not found for the 2011 version of the annual cycling race.

The Tour, one of the nation’s top professional cycling events held in the spring, had a stellar six-year run in Georgia before falling prey to a faltering economy. The 2009 race was canceled because a primary sponsor could not be found. This past week, Tour officials announced the 2010 race is also a no-go.

There is a very real danger the race, which is estimated to pump $30 million-plus annually into the state economy, could vanish if it is not soon revived, Tour and national cycling officials agree.

“There certainly is danger of that when you have a gap in the continuity,” said Tom Saddlemire, a board member for the Tour de Georgia Foundation Inc. “There is a risk with a two-year gap that you can’t get the momentum going again.”

Saddlemire, a former executive with GE Energy, said the Tour board will redouble its efforts to secure a sponsor for the 2011 race. But he added: “If, after that attempt, it still doesn’t come together, then it certainly won’t be a good situation.”

A former Vinings resident who now lives in Colorado, Saddlemire said the race needs to attract a “core sponsor” willing to pony up $500,000 to $1 million. That, he said, would almost certainly attract a long line of secondary sponsors who would contribute about $150,000 each. It costs about $3.5 million to put on the six-day, 600-mile race.

“Putting together a tour at a world-class level takes some pretty significant sponsor money,” he said. “That kind of money behind something like cycling, where you can’t sell tickets, is not for every sponsor in every kind of economy.”

‘It’s a big deal’

Andrea Smith, spokeswoman for USA Cycling, said the Georgia race is widely considered a warm-up event for the annual Tour de France, the World Series of cycling. Her organization is the official governing body for competitive cycling in the U.S.

“It’s a big deal, not just in Georgia but on the national scene,” she said. “We certainly hope it comes back. There are a lot of people in the cycling world rooting for it to come back.”

The Georgia Tour, along with similar races in California and Missouri, is considered one of the top three races in the nation, Smith said. Biking great Lance Armstrong won Georgia’s race in 2004, competed again in 2005 and has praised the event. Several hundred thousand spectators have viewed some part of the race each year it has been run.

Chrysler and AT&T had sponsored the Georgia race in the past, and the state’s Department of Economic Development had kicked in some seed money. AT&T was the title sponsor for the 2007 race, kicking in about $500,000.

The biotech firm Amgen sponsors the California race. In Missouri, the state and four “gold sponsors” — Drury Hotels, Edward Jones investments, the Missouri Farm Bureau and Wind Capital — underwrite that race, along with a long list of supporting sponsors.

Core sponsor a key

Alison Tyrer, an economic development spokeswoman, said she did not know if there were any conversations this year about the state helping to finance the race. Tyrer said the state has never been a primary financial sponsor of the event.

Saddlemire added: “The state has its own challenges in terms of how to balance the budget.”

He said that for long-term stability, race officials need a longer development time and more up-front money.

“If you get the seed money and a core sponsor, then everyone else falls in line when they see it is a go,” Saddlemire said.

He also said the board has a long hill to climb to get the event’s finances in order.

“I would say we pretty much ran pretty tight, wire to wire, on the 2008 race,” Saddlemire said. “We have pocket change in the account right now.”