Postal Service Set to Pull the Plug

Somebody passed this along to me.

Postal Service Set to Pull the Plug on $50 Million Pro-Cycling Team
Boondoggle

WASHINGTON, March 22 /PRNewswire/ -- In a major victory for consumers,
Advertising Age has reported the Postal Service (USPS) is "poised to abandon
its lead sponsorship of Lance Armstrong and the U.S. Pro Cycling Team" when
their contract expires in December. The Postal Service began the estimated
$10 million-a-year marketing initiative in 1996 and Armstrong has since led
the international cycling team to five consecutive Tour de France victories.

According to a February 2003 USPS Inspector General (OIG) report, the
objective of the sponsorship was to "increase revenue and sales of Postal
Service's products on a global basis and to increase sales in key
international markets" with a specific monetary goal of increasing [annual
international] revenue by $20 million. However, despite the cycling team's
outstanding performance and extremely high profile, revenues from USPS
international operations in 2003 were actually $12.8 million less than four-
years earlier in 1999.

"Talk about a government boondoggle, the pro-cycling sponsorship exemplifies
just how delusional postal leadership can be. They raised domestic monopoly
rates three times while forcing captive ratepayers to pay more than $50
million to sponsor a European sporting event and then, adding insult to
injury, they achieved a negative result," said PostalWatch executive
director Rick Merritt.

"This is just one more stunning example of the Postal Service indulging its
misguided obsession with pretending to be a commercial enterprise, instead
of what it really is; an accountability-challenged governmental bureaucracy
with a statutory monopoly over domestic mail delivery," said Merritt.

The OIG report also criticized the Postal Service for its accounting
procedures, lack of justification and mismanagement of sponsorships stating,
"The Postal Service has not effectively managed sponsorships. We found the

Postal Service was unable to verify sponsorships' financial performance ...
the Postal Service does not have adequate controls and measures over the
sponsorships. Therefore, it was not possible to measure the effectiveness
of the program in its current state, and in our view, it is questionable
whether the Postal Service could support a business case to retain the
sponsorships."

Controversy over Postal Service sponsorships and its inability to perform
basic cost-accounting functions is nothing new. More than a decade ago the
Government Accounting Office studied the agency's $98 million sponsorship of
the 1992 Olympic Games and concluded, "Given the lack of available data in
key revenue and cost areas, neither we nor the Service can state with
certainty whether the Olympic sponsorship had a profit or loss."

"Congress will soon consider legislation giving the Postal Service added
flexibility to set prices, negotiate special pricing for specific mailers
and offer additional work-sharing discounts. In order for these new
flexibilities to be fairly administered, the Postal Service must be able to
accurately attribute its various costs to specific functions within its
operations at a highly granular level ... a cost-accounting task for which
the agency is undeniably inept, as again demonstrated by the mismanagement
of its sporting sponsorships. Granting additional flexibility without first
fixing the agency's cost-accounting problems will only produce a more
fertile environment for abuse, market distortions and unfair practices,"
said Merritt.

"Congress has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fix the problem and compel
postal accountability. It is currently holding $78 billion of reduced
federal retirement contributions in escrow for the Postal Service. Congress
should consider holding the bulk of that money until a qualified team of
independent auditors can perform a top-to-bottom operational audit and put
in place comprehensive accounting procedures to ensure the agency can
accurately account and attribute is costs ... Accountability is the first
order of business."

PostalWatch is a non-partisan, non-profit advocacy organization committed to
a fair, efficient and accountable U.S. Postal Service. PostalWatch
maintains a website at www.postalwatch.org.

On 3/22/04 7:13 PM, in article , "Sierraman"
wrote:

Somebody passed this along to me.

Postal Service Set to Pull the Plug on $50 Million Pro-Cycling Team
Boondoggle

WASHINGTON, March 22 /PRNewswire/ -- In a major victory for consumers,
Advertising Age has reported the Postal Service (USPS) is "poised to abandon
its lead sponsorship of Lance Armstrong and the U.S. Pro Cycling Team" when
their contract expires in December. The Postal Service began the estimated
$10 million-a-year marketing initiative in 1996 and Armstrong has since led
the international cycling team to five consecutive Tour de France victories.

Crap, crap......





PostalWatch is a non-partisan, non-profit advocacy organization committed to
a fair, efficient and accountable U.S. Postal Service. PostalWatch
maintains a website at www.postalwatch.org.


Non-partisan?!?!?!?!?! BS!!!

They need to get bitch-slapped and stick something in their mouths to keep
them happy......

On 3/22/04 7:13 PM, in article , "Sierraman"
wrote:

Somebody passed this along to me.

Postal Service Set to Pull the Plug on $50 Million Pro-Cycling Team
Boondoggle

WASHINGTON, March 22 /PRNewswire/ -- In a major victory for consumers,
Advertising Age has reported the Postal Service (USPS) is "poised to abandon
its lead sponsorship of Lance Armstrong and the U.S. Pro Cycling Team" when
their contract expires in December. The Postal Service began the estimated
$10 million-a-year marketing initiative in 1996 and Armstrong has since led
the international cycling team to five consecutive Tour de France victories.

Crap, crap......





PostalWatch is a non-partisan, non-profit advocacy organization committed to
a fair, efficient and accountable U.S. Postal Service. PostalWatch
maintains a website at www.postalwatch.org.


Non-partisan?!?!?!?!?! BS!!!

They need to get bitch-slapped and stick something in their mouths to keep
them happy......

Steve wrote:
On 3/22/04 7:13 PM, in article , "Sierraman"
wrote:


Somebody passed this along to me.

Postal Service Set to Pull the Plug on $50 Million Pro-Cycling Team
Boondoggle

WASHINGTON, March 22 /PRNewswire/ -- In a major victory for consumers,


A major victory for consumers would be if they started charging a fair value
for mail-spam.

Dan

Steve wrote:
On 3/22/04 7:13 PM, in article , "Sierraman"
wrote:


Somebody passed this along to me.

Postal Service Set to Pull the Plug on $50 Million Pro-Cycling Team
Boondoggle

WASHINGTON, March 22 /PRNewswire/ -- In a major victory for consumers,


A major victory for consumers would be if they started charging a fair value
for mail-spam.

Dan

The end of their sponsership was bound to happen, all the big names do it
some day. I still miss the Renult and Fiat sponsered Teams myself.

My dream is for UPS or FedEx to pick up the spot by USPS and make a UPS
Berry Floor team. That would so kick ass, the team trucks would be just
special UPS trucks and they could make marketing gold out of the UPS takes
over from the USPS.


"Dan Connelly" wrote in message
om...
Steve wrote:
On 3/22/04 7:13 PM, in article ,
"Sierraman"
wrote:


Somebody passed this along to me.

Postal Service Set to Pull the Plug on $50 Million Pro-Cycling Team
Boondoggle

WASHINGTON, March 22 /PRNewswire/ -- In a major victory for consumers,


A major victory for consumers would be if they started charging a fair
value
for mail-spam.

Dan

The end of their sponsership was bound to happen, all the big names do it
some day. I still miss the Renult and Fiat sponsered Teams myself.

My dream is for UPS or FedEx to pick up the spot by USPS and make a UPS
Berry Floor team. That would so kick ass, the team trucks would be just
special UPS trucks and they could make marketing gold out of the UPS takes
over from the USPS.


"Dan Connelly" wrote in message
om...
Steve wrote:
On 3/22/04 7:13 PM, in article ,
"Sierraman"
wrote:


Somebody passed this along to me.

Postal Service Set to Pull the Plug on $50 Million Pro-Cycling Team
Boondoggle

WASHINGTON, March 22 /PRNewswire/ -- In a major victory for consumers,


A major victory for consumers would be if they started charging a fair
value
for mail-spam.

Dan

"Raymo853" wrote in message
...
The end of their sponsership was bound to happen, all the big names do it
some day. I still miss the Renult and Fiat sponsered Teams myself.

My dream is for UPS or FedEx to pick up the spot by USPS and make a UPS
Berry Floor team. That would so kick ass, the team trucks would be just
special UPS trucks and they could make marketing gold out of the UPS takes
over from the USPS.

The key to such sponsorships is building brand awareness and increasing
market share. This is what Motorola did with their Euro cycling involvement
and they got out when the result had been achieved. Do FedEx and UPS need
to build brand awarenes in Europe? I don't have any idea. I doubt that
such a cycling team would fit into a US based marketing strategy--at least
not at the dollar amount that USPS was committed to. More likely that
another European centered company will step in, although the focus of the
team may well shift to classics and other, possibly shorter, stage races,
particularly if Armstrong either retires or has a bad 2004 TdF and rides in
2005 with far different goals.

"Raymo853" wrote in message
...
The end of their sponsership was bound to happen, all the big names do it
some day. I still miss the Renult and Fiat sponsered Teams myself.

My dream is for UPS or FedEx to pick up the spot by USPS and make a UPS
Berry Floor team. That would so kick ass, the team trucks would be just
special UPS trucks and they could make marketing gold out of the UPS takes
over from the USPS.

The key to such sponsorships is building brand awareness and increasing
market share. This is what Motorola did with their Euro cycling involvement
and they got out when the result had been achieved. Do FedEx and UPS need
to build brand awarenes in Europe? I don't have any idea. I doubt that
such a cycling team would fit into a US based marketing strategy--at least
not at the dollar amount that USPS was committed to. More likely that
another European centered company will step in, although the focus of the
team may well shift to classics and other, possibly shorter, stage races,
particularly if Armstrong either retires or has a bad 2004 TdF and rides in
2005 with far different goals.

Sierraman wrote:
Somebody passed this along to me.

Postal Service Set to Pull the Plug on $50 Million Pro-Cycling Team
Boondoggle

WASHINGTON, March 22 /PRNewswire/ -- In a major victory for consumers,
Advertising Age has reported the Postal Service (USPS) is "poised to
abandon its lead sponsorship of Lance Armstrong and the U.S. Pro
Cycling Team" when their contract expires in December. The Postal
Service began the estimated $10 million-a-year marketing initiative
in 1996 and Armstrong has since led the international cycling team to
five consecutive Tour de France victories.

I suppose this means that Lance will have to ride the Giro this year,
instead of some other "before I retire" time.