Category: Bidness

All the news that fits, we print (part four)

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments

It’s official — Competitor Group Inc., which owns Velo magazine and VeloNews.com, has been sold to Calera Capital.

All you’ll ever need to know about the corporate buccaneers who did for VeloNews what Bain Capital did for Ampad is contained in the press release issued today from CGI HQ in San Diego. David Moross, chairman of Falconhead Capital, which owned CGI before the sale to Calera, made sure to give credit where credit was due:

“Five years ago we set out to build a leading company in an industry that was highly fragmented, but well positioned for tremendous growth,” said Falconhead Chairman David Moross. “Competitor Group has grown dramatically during this period and realized much of the potential we originally envisioned. This success is due to the original strategy we developed to create the company, and the hard work of our very talented management team and our board of directors.”

Emphasis mine. Yes, sacking cancer victims, veteran Tour correspondents and crackerjack ad salesmen takes talent and hard work, like hitting your own thumb with a five-pound sledge, setting yourself ablaze while trying to drink a Flaming Jesus, or stepping on your dick while fleeing a raid at a Vegas whorehouse. I expect that no matter what the future holds, the boyos in Boulder will be glad to see the last of Cap’n Moross and his pirate crew. Arrr.

All the news that fits, we print (part three)

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments

While I was focused on the sale of our “local” daily newspaper to yet another out-of-town right-winger I overlooked reports that the owner of Velo magazine and VeloNews.com, Competitor Group Inc., has likewise been sold — to another venture-capital outfit, Calera Capital.

As with the sale of the Gazette to Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz, I know nothing about what this may mean for Velo/VeloNews.com’s readers and advertisers. Based on a casual glance at its website, Calera, like Anschutz, appears to have a wide range of financial interests, from banking to forest products to truck stops. Unlike Anschutz, it appears to have had no interest or involvement in media prior to this purchase.

The reports remain unconfirmed by corporate spokescreatures, save for one anonymous insider who told Bicycle Retailer and Industry News that “it’s a done deal. …”

More as (or if) I hear it.

We are all Armstrong’s domestiques

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments

Editor’s note: Today’s edition of “Friday Funnies” was written Oct. 12 for the November 2012 issue of Bicycle Retailer and Industry News.

EPO all in my veins
Lately things just don’t seem the same
Acton’ funny, but I don’t know why
‘Scuse me while I pass this guy.
— from the affidavit of Dave Zabriskie, recounting how he serenaded Johan Bruyneel on the U.S. Postal Service bus in 2002

The parting glass
A fine wine turned to vinegar.

I’VE OFTEN JOKED that in helping to cover professional bicycle racing I was aiding and abetting a felony.

Well, whaddaya know? Turns out I wasn’t joking after all.

The revelations from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency’s investigation of Lance Armstrong will be ancient history by the time you read this. Indeed, they were mostly off the front pages in less than two days, swept aside by Smokin’ Joe Biden flooring Paul “Lyin’” Ryan in their vice-presidential punch-up, the European Union winning the Nobel Peace Prize and rumors of a sexy new iPad mini on the horizon.

Ho-hum. Just another rich white guy getting away with something. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along; move along.

In the cycling media, however, it was all Lance, all the time. Nothing new there, either. Whether he was winning a Tour de France, berating an Austin doorman or boinking an Olsen twin, Armstrong was always good for the bottom line. Chamois-sniffers and haters alike dove headlong into every story and then went to war in the comments. Making money off Lance Armstrong was easier than stealing from the collection plate at a church for the blind. Continue reading “We are all Armstrong’s domestiques” →

Let them eat scenery (or bullshit)

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
Live It Up!
30 percent less suckitude than Pueblo or your money back!

Once again satire runs a very poor second to reality: Bibleburg recently pissed away $111,000 to come up with a new tagline — “Live It Up!” — along with a logo that would look right at home on a bottle of something or other.

Never mind that drunkards living it up in the Tejon Street saloon district, and then beating the shit out of/knifing/shooting each other in the streets after last call, are hardly the stuff of a solid Chamber of Commerce campaign in a town shunned by venture capitalists, where unemployment was pegged at 8.6 percent in September, slightly above the statewide average.

The new tagline is reminiscent of a similar campaign in Richard Russo’s “Nobody’s Fool,” led by a dimwitted huckster of a bank president who has the brainstorm of hanging a street banner that reads “Things Are Looking ↑ in Bath,” equating its brilliance with the fabled “I ♥ NY” campaign.

The citizenry and merchants of Bath “were not fetched by this argument,” wrote Russo. “They were waiting for something tangible. …”

As are the citizenry and merchants of Bibleburg, no doubt. Given our reputation for religious intolerance and right-wing idiocy, perhaps “Live It Down!” might have been closer to the mark.

Or how about this? “We’re Jobless, Broke and Hungry, and We Can’t Eat Scenery.” Or bullshit, either, for that matter.

Boardroom buffoonery

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments

How is it that CEOs manage to corral all the money in this country? Pulling a fatheaded stunt like this doesn’t exactly strike me as an example of top-shelf business acumen. Howard Schultz would have a tough time as a barista with an uptake this slow.

• Late update: And lest you think buffoonery is confined to the boardroom, we have this from Rep. Steve Southerland (R-Fla.), this from Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio), and this from Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.). Three very small tinfoil beanies indeed.