American IT firm banking on Riis’ leadership ability
The soon-to-be Team SunGard has just secured the yellow jersey in the Tour de France with looming questions about the destination of brothers Andy and Fränk Schleck for the 2011 season. Both riders are all but certain to move over to the new team out of Luxembourg and join Saxo Bank’s recently departed sports director Kim Andersen. With the rumors surfacing earlier this year about a new team being built around the talented brothers, it looked like team boss Bjarne Riis’ quest for a new sponsor might be impacted.
President and chief executive officer of SunGard, Cristóbal Conde, has achieved his success by looking at the big picture, and confirmed his sponsorship dollars were going to the team because of the man running it, not the talent it presently possesses.
“Our sponsorship is not based on the riders,” he told Politiken. “It is Bjarne and his leadership we wish to sponsor – his ability to create a winning team.”
Since Riis took over the Team Memory Card-Jack & Jones team in 2001 and evolved it into Team CSC, he has been known as a man that is able to extract the most of out his riders. The formation has been consistently successful and, along with the Schlecks, Carlos Sastre and Ivan Basso represent other major Grand Tour riders that have been born out of the Danish program.
“It’s not about the current stars, but about the team’s values that have allowed them continue year after year at the highest level,” he added.
Matti Breschel, Chris Anker Sørensen, Alex Rasmussen, Michael Mørkøv and Jonny Bellis are just a few of the young talents that should remain a part of the new SunGard formation, and possibly Jakob Fuglsang now that the new sponsorship agreement has been confirmed. Fabian Cancellara is also contracted to remain with the team for 2011, and his presence alone will ensure any investor in the team major exposure.
“Our experience with cycling has been good. But we like to take one step at a time, so we did not want to be the sole sponsor. This was the next step for us and now there is a good relationship to build on,” explained Conde.
The team has a co-sponsor lined up to go alongside SunGard, but the details of the company will not be released until the fall in order to align with its business plan.
With new sponsorships in question for Team Milram, Caisse d’Epargne and Bbox Bouygues Telecom, there will likely be plenty of talent on the market for the Danish team to scoop up. The budget freed up when the Schlecks go their separate way will leave a lot of options open for Riis as he looks to mold another Grand Tour contender and maintain one of cycling’s most successful teams.