Brent Soderberg

Last week was arguably the biggest cycling race in the United States in a long time. The Amgen Tour of California was an eight-day stage race from the Bay Area to L.A. and it involved some of the biggest names in the sport (minus the retired Lance Armstrong), and attracted 8 of the top cycling teams from Europe. As a cycling fan this was validation of how far this sport has come in America. From watching the television coverage on ESPN2 and reading about the race, it looked like the crowds were huge. Tour organizers estimated 1.3 million spectators for the week.

It was also clear how far cycling still has to go before the mainstream sports media pays attention. It can be pretty frustrating to be a cycling fan and also work at the “worldwide leader in sports.” Even thought the race had nightly recaps on ESPN2 (evidently the ToC paid for the air time), I mentioned the race to some of the editorial staff at ESPN.com, and they didn’t know anything about the race, and pretty much blew off a suggestion that it deserved some attention.

Sure enough, no headlines about the race ever made it to the front page of ESPN.com, but there was plenty of attention given to the Bassmaster fishing tournament, and a lost dog from the Westminister dog show made headline news. News that Lance Armstrong would be hosting the ESPY’s made the front page headlines, so I guess news about a retired cyclist hosting an awards show is appearantly bigger news than anything about his sport’s biggest event in the United States. On ESPN.com cycling is burried on the site in an automated news wire, which probably wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t set it up.

Surely USA Today, America’s newspaper would devote some coverage to this event. After all they do a nice job with the Tour de France. Nope! There was one paragraph buried in the back of the sports section after the final stage.

A search of Google News showed that this event got mostly regional coverage from California Newspaper web sites, but there were a couple of good articles on the New York Times by long time cycling columnist and author Samuel Abt. Of the mainstream sports sites, I didn’t see anything about the race on FoxSports.com (and they are run out of L.A.), but SI.com had it right (Tour of California proves cycling is gaining U.S. fans).

For the mainstream sports media, Lance Armstrong is still the face of cycling in this country, and beyond his story of cancer survivor turned Tour de France champion they will never be any more interested in learning anything more about the sport. I’m sure there are many sports columnists that are glad to see Lance retire so the can ignore the Tour de France.

The good news is that this year’s Tour of California is a start, and the buzz around this race can only grow based on the success of the first year. If Floyd Landis, Levi Leipheimer, or one of the other talented Americans can pull off a great result in the Tour de France, maybe the race will gain more national attention next year. I’d curious to see what the TV ratings were, and if the powers that be at ESPN are interested airing any more cycling coverage.

That leads me to another point. I know a lot of cycling fans love Bob Roll, and Paul Sherwin, but I don’t think a spaztic like Roll and the curious British-centric comments from Sherwin help bring in any new American fans. Surely there has to be better American TV personalies to cover cycling. Sherwin continually misidentifies riders. Saul Raisin was off the front, and Sherwin was identifying him as some french guy. Raisin is one of the upcoming American stars who is pretty easy to identify because of his hunchback style on the bike. For as many races as these guys cover it is just surprising at how much they miss.

I guess if I really cared about what the mainstream sports media thought, I wouldn’t follow cycling in the first place, but this is a great sport, and it is exciting that races like the Tour of California and Tour de Georgia give American fans a chance to see some of the greatest names in the sport racing in America.