Selling the Yellow Jersey

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Selling the Yellow Jersey Page 35

by Eric Reed


  team has been emblematic of French athletic prowess and interpreted as a

  barometer of the state of France’s body politic. The team’s astounding victory

  in the 1998 World Cup fi nal seemed to herald an era of French athletic resur-

  gence and rejuvenated confi dence and unity at home. In subsequent World

  Cup tournaments, the side’s frustrating (2002), breathtaking (2006), and pa-

  thetic (2010) defeats, on the other hand, seemed to symbolize the nation’s

  athletic stagnation as well as growing social and ethnic tensions in France.

  The Tour is a success story. Its commercial power, popular appeal, and

  infl uence on the global scene expanded steadily throughout its history. These

  qualities may not be apparent in light of recent drug scandals. The reputa-

  tions of nearly every Tour de France winner since 1996 have been scarred by

  doping allegations. In 2007, long after his retirement, Danish rider Bjarne

  Riis admitted to systematic doping during his career, including during his

  1996 Tour de France victory. Legal fi ghts over doping charges dogged Marco

  Pantani after he won the 1998 Tour. Pantani died in early 2004 of a cocaine

  overdose after battling depression for several years. The UCI stripped Ameri-

  can Floyd Landis of his 2006 Tour victory and suspended him for two years

  after a positive drug test during the race. In the wake of the Landis debacle,

  important sponsors ended their involvement in cycling, German television

  stopped broadcasting the Tour, and commentators around the world called

  for the Tour to be canceled entirely. In February 2012, an international court

  confi rmed a two- year doping ban on Alberto Contador, the Tour winner in

  2007, 2009, and 2010. Offi cials detected banned steroids in Contador’s blood

  during the 2010 Tour. The court rejected the Spaniard’s claim that the illicit

  d o p i n g a n d t h e t o u r o n t h e w o r l d s t a g e 195

  substance was introduced into his body without his knowledge via tainted

  beef tenderloin or vitamins. Contador was stripped of his 2010 yellow jersey.

  The same court levied a two- year ban from competition on German racer

  Jan Ullrich for doping during the 2006 racing season. Ullrich won the Tour

  in 1997 and played the part of Lance Armstrong’s primary rival and foil dur-

  ing the American’s early Tour triumphs. The penalty was only symbolic, since

  German star Ullrich had retired in 2007.

  Lance Armstrong’s long, rearguard action against doping allegations

  reached a tipping point in 2012. The United States Anti- Doping Agency

  (USADA) released a report in October detailing systemic doping and decep-

  tion by Armstrong during his Tour victories. The report included damning

  testimony from Armstrong’s trusted lieutenants, domestiques, and staff. The USADA stripped Armstrong of his Tour victories, a decision confi rmed by

  the UCI. In early 2013, the recalcitrant champion appeared in a televised in-

  terview with Oprah Winfrey and fi nally admitted that the charges were true.

  How has the Tour been able to maintain its position as the epicenter of

  world cycling while persistent drug scandals plagued it for more than a half

  century? Part of the answer is that cycling’s ideals have always diverged from

  the sport’s unsavory realities. Scandal— athletic and otherwise — has been

  an integral part of the Tour’s culture since its founding in 1903. The legacies of many Tour stars have been shaped as much by their character fl aws and

  personal failures as by their sporting triumphs. Great champions’ falls from

  grace were frequently self- induced and often tragic, such as 1906 champion

  René Pottier’s suicide by hanging at the height of his success and the revela-

  tions of Jacques Anquetil’s drug use in the autumn of his career. Controver-

  sies have long defi ned classic Tours in the popular memory, from the 1924

  “galley slaves of the road” affair to the 1998 “Tour de Farce” doping debacles.

  Scandal added unparalleled richness to the Tour’s legend, tarnished and re-

  pugnant as it may be.

  More important, the Tour’s masters and other stakeholders worked con-

  sciously, consistently, and successfully to solidify the event’s global pre-

  eminence. The Tour’s founding fathers endowed the race with a uniquely

  internationalist feel and positioned the event as the unoffi cial world champi-

  onship of cycling, a status that the rest of the world freely recognized. After the Second World War, the Tour’s directors and the Amaury Group enacted

  strategies that played upon, profi ted from, and spurred globalizing trends

  in business, media, sport, and popular culture. They facilitated global me-

  dia coverage, welcomed talented cyclists from around the planet to com-

  pete, and built an international sport- business empire around the Tour and

  other sporting events that they controlled. In the process, the Tour dissemi-

  196

  a f t e r w o r d

  nated particularly French models of competition, athleticism, and business

  that the sport of cycling readily adopted and emulated. The race’s diverse

  stakeholders — European host towns and an increasingly international corps

  of sponsors, cyclists, broadcasters, and journalists — participated actively in this process as they invested their money, effort, and reputations in the Tour, all of which served to expand the event’s infl uence even more. In this way,

  the Tour constantly shored up its position at the heart of a global sport that

  remained popular, despite the ongoing scandals. The race remains world cy-

  cling’s crown jewel.

  Appendix

  t a b l e 1 . Circulation of L’Auto, 1903 – 1938.*

  Average copies

  Average copies per

  Year

  Total circulation

  per day

  day during Tour

  1903

  14,178,474

  45,299

  65,000

  1905

  18,004,484

  57,522

  1910

  37,838,282

  120,889

  300,000

  1913

  43,641,875

  139,431

  284,000

  1924

  87,640,000

  280,000

  497,000

  1925 – 1929

  Circulation did not attain 1924 levels.

  1930

  93,274,000

  298,000

  605,000

  1933

  113,932,000

  364,000

  730,000

  1934 – 1936

  Circulation decreased steadily from 1933 levels.

  1938

  64,165,000

  205,000

  *Sources: Seidler, Le sport et la presse, 55, 62, 69 – 70, 77; Calvet, Le mythe des géants de la route, 36 – 37; Bellanger et al., eds., Histoire générale de la presse française, 3:585; Augendre, L’histoire, les archives, 14.

  198

  a p p e n d i x

  t a b l e 2 . Classifi cation of Tour Sponsors, 1930s.*

  Business or product

  Number

  Percent of total

  Alcoholic beverages

  46

  20.8

  Chain or department stores

  4

  1.8

  Food

  44

  19.9

  Furniture and housewares

  13

/>   5.9

  Cleaning products

  7

  3.2

  Beauty products

  5

  2.3

  Pharmaceuticals

  8

  3.6

  Clothing

  11

  4.9

  Bicycle /auto/moto- related

  31

  14.0

  General promotion and promotion agencies

  14

  6.3

  (government agencies, consortiums, etc.)

  Electronics /radio

  5

  2.3

  Entertainment

  11

  4.9

  Tobacco, including papers

  4

  1.8

  Other or unknown

  18

  8.6

  TOTAL

  221

  100.3

  *Derived from a sampling of entities that participated in the publicity caravan, sponsored prizes for the riders, or paid sponsorship money directly to the race organizers. Augendre, L’histoire, les archives, 30; L’Auto, June 26, 1931; and July 27, 1937; Ministry of the Interior, letter to all prefects, July 6, 1936; June 25, 1937; and July 5, 1939; and “Caravane offi cielle du Tour 1935,” ADBP 4 M 102.

  a p p e n d i x

  199

  t a b l e 3 . The Tour and Television, 1960 – 2009.*

  French TV

  World TV

  Hours of TV

  TV rights fees

  TV rights fees

  audience

  audience

  coverage in

  (millions of

  as percentage

  Year

  (millions)

  (millions)

  France

  francs)

  of Tour budget

  1960

  9.3

  4.0

  1.5

  1970

  28.4

  1980

  20.0

  50.0

  1983

  153.0

  1986

  1,000.0

  38.3

  1992

  32.0

  26.0

  1995

  110.0

  50.0

  20.0

  1997

  1,000.0

  152.0

  1998

  85.0

  34.0

  2001

  3.5

  50.0

  2005

  3.4

  15.0

  2009

  44.0

  * Télé 7 Jours, June 25, July 2, 9, 16, 1960; June 27, July, 4, 11, and 18, 1970; Jacques Goddet, interview by Jacques Marchand, Cyclisme Magazine 5, April 1960; Intermarco- Conseil, memorandum, January 1981, CL 58 AH 23; Bernard Normand, memorandum, March 9, 1981, CL 58 AH 23; Andreff and Nys, Le sport et la télévision, 144; Vélo Magazine, February 1987; Bourg and Gouguet, Analyse économique du sport, 264; Le Monde, April 10 and June 26, 1995, July 14, 1997, and August 3, 1998; Stratégies 1064, July 10, 1998; Desbordes and Marcille, “Les entreprises et le marketing du Tour de France,” 264 – 65; New York Times, July 25, 2007; Initiative Futures Sport, ViewerTrack Most Watched TV Sporting Events of 2005, 17; Kevin Alavy (head of analytics, Initiative Futures Sport), e- mail communication with author, December 9, 2009; Initiative Futures Sport + Entertainment, ViewerTrack Most Watched TV Sporting Events of 2009, 17.

  Notes

  Introduction

  1. Vigarello, “Le Tour de France,” 885.

  2. Scholars often argue that the Tour did not become a global phenomenon until the 1980s, with the advent of regular international television coverage and the beginning of concerted efforts by the Tour’s organizers to “globalize” the event and its participant profi le. Lagrue, Le Tour de France, 166 – 76; Marks, Se faire naturaliser cycliste, 217– 24; Cronin and Holt, “Globalisation of Sport,” 26.

  3. On contemporary business globalization, see Jones, Multinationals and Global Capitalism.

  4. Debord, La société du spectacle; Kuisel, Seducing the French, 37– 69; Belk, “Hyperreality and Globalization”; Portes, “L’Horizon Américain.” On cinema’s place in such discourses, see de Grazia, “Mass Culture and Sovereignty”; Jarvie, “Free Trade as Cultural Threat”; Montebello,

  “Hollywood Films in a French Working Class Milieu.” In their analysis of world’s fairs, circuses, and fi lm, Robert Rydell and Rob Kroes argue that the “Americanization” of global culture began as early as the mid- nineteenth century. Rydell and Kroes, Buffalo Bill in Bologne.

  5. The term “long twentieth century” has even been applied by sociologist Giovanni Arrighi to encapsulate the entire 700- year period of state and capital formation, dating to the late medieval period. Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century. Scholte, Globalization, 62 – 63. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 2 – 3, 19. Michael B. Miller locates this sea change in the development of modern global shipping in the late nineteenth century. Miller, Europe and the Maritime World.

  6. Works that look at transnational business and cultural relationships between France and America address this theme. See in particular Endy, Cold War Holidays; de Grazia, Irresistible Empire; Schwartz, It’s So French! .

  7. Richard Holt and Georges Vigarello were instrumental in making the Tour de France a subject of academic inquiry and delved into the early history and cultural signifi cance of the event. Holt, Sport and Society in Modern France; Vigarello, “Le Tour de France.” The centenary of the Tour’s founding sparked renewed interest in the Tour, including two notable collections of essays contributed by scholars in history, media studies, sociology, and geography. Dauncey and Hare, eds., The Tour de France, 1903 – 2003; Porte and Vila, eds., Maillot jaune. Christopher Thompson has written the best and most complete treatment to date of the Tour’s history in the French cultural context, especially in the pre – Second World War period. Thompson, The Tour de France.

  202

  n o t e s t o p a g e s 3 – 8

  8. Benedict Anderson’s seminal work on the development of “imagined” national political consciousness in the modern era informs this concept. Anderson, Imagined Communities.

  Charles S. Maier employs the term “waning of territoriality” to characterize the continuing structural challenges posed by the forces of globalization to the traditional nation- state as a framework for identity since the mid- nineteenth century. Maier argues that nations continued to matter despite the “waning of territoriality,” since states continued to be prime actors in the process of negotiating and renegotiating boundaries — spatial, cultural, economic, and political.

  Maier, “Consigning the Twentieth Century to History.” Anthony Giddens points to the creation of standardized global time in the mid- nineteenth century as a key moment when local experiences became separated from place on a global scale. Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 17– 18. A continuing debate among globalization theorists involves the timing of the emergence of “globalized” society. Most agree that the post – Second World War period heralded the emergence of globalized culture, but that the trend had antecedents stretching back generations or even centuries. Scholte, Globalization, 16 – 19.

  9. See esp. Kuisel, Seducing the French. Victoria de Grazia identifi es the interwar years as the key moment when the French began to adopt new, American- style regimes of consumerism, business, and marketing. De Grazia, Irresistible Empire. Jacques Portes argues that French ambivalence toward “American” lifestyles and consumerism can be traced back to the early Third Republic. Portes, Fascination and Misgivings.

  10. Trubek, Haute Cuisine; Schwartz, It’s So French!

  11. Guyer and Bright, “World History in a Global Age,” 1052 – 53; Appadurai, Modernity at Large, 7– 19; Scholte, Globalization, 135 – 36; Osterhammel and Petersson, Globalization, 80 – 89.

  12. On these seemingly paradoxical tendencies, see Meyer and Geschiere, eds., Globalization and Identity; Guyer and Bright, “World History in
a Global Age”; Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World. Jessica Gienow- Hecht’s history of Die Neue Zeitung, the infl uential German- language Munich daily brought into existence by the American occupation government and run by a hybrid German and American staff, argues that the German public winnowed out aspects of American press propaganda that did not fi t with its tastes and viewpoints. Gienow- Hecht, Transmission Impossible. Matthew Jordan makes a similar argument in his analysis of how the French assimilated jazz into their cultural identity between 1918 and the Liberation. Jordan, Le Jazz. Bor-derlands studies scholarship offers compelling interpretive models that demonstrate the agency of the local /peripheral in the ongoing process of negotiating and renegotiating cultural, political, and economic relationships and identities. Sahlins, Boundaries; Ford, Creating the Nation in Provincial France; Rogers, Shaping Modern Times in Rural France; Cole, “France as Periphery?”

  13. Thompson, Tour de France; Dauncey, French Cycling, 143 – 50, 166 – 73, 252 – 54.

  14. Philip Dine employs this term to encompass the uniquely French metaphorical linkages between sport and identity. Dine, Sport and Identity in France, 5 – 8.

  Chapter One

  1. Wiley, Dans la foule, 84.

  2. Jacques Goddet (Tour director from 1947 to 1987), interview by author, tape recording, Issy- les- Moulineaux, France, July 2, 1999; Luc Derieux (Director of sports sponsorship, Crédit Lyonnais Bank), interview by author, tape recording, Paris, November 12, 1998.

  3. Dominique Kalifa claims that while 100,000 spectators watched the 1903 Tour’s fi nal stage in person, L’Auto sold more than 130,000 copies of its special fi nal- stage edition in less than two hours. Kalifa, La culture de masse en France, 52.

  n o t e s t o p a g e s 8 – 1 5

  203

  4. Tour de France offi cial website, http:// www .letour .fr /2005 /presentationus /chiffres .html, accessed December 5, 2009.

  5. On the emergence of modern commercialized sports and leisure practices, see Cross, A Social History of Leisure since 1600, esp. chap. 10. On the importance of tourism and travel in disseminating sports within and across national boundaries, see Dine, French Rugby Football.

  6. Henry Chadwick is credited with inventing the baseball “box score,” which he modeled on cricket statistical models. On Chadwick, box scores, and the communities of baseball readers in the nineteenth century, see Schiff, The Father of Baseball; Tygiel, Past Time, 15 – 22.

  7. The importance of printed material in fostering community and a new “public sphere”

  of interaction and discourse had antecedents in preindustrial society. Habermas, “The Public Sphere”; Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France, 189 – 226.

 

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