USA Today reported Friday that the Discovery Channel is expected to drop its title sponsorship of the cycling team that bears its name at the end of the 2007 season.

The decision not to renew the team's contract at the end of a three-year contract comes only days after the firing of company CEO Billy Campbell, a strong advocate of the team sponsorship, on Monday of this week.

Campbell, who helped push the television network's initial co-sponsorship in 2004, also pushed the company to assume full title sponsorship in 2005, when the U.S. Postal Service ended its support for the team.

The team is operated by Tailwind sports, a management firm co-owned by seven-time Tour winner Lance Armstrong and attorney Bill Stapleton.

Campbell, CEO at Discovery for five years, was replaced by former NBC executive David Zaslav.

The firing was part of a major management shake-up at Discovery, which also saw David Abraham, head of the TLC channel; Maureen Smith, head of Animal Planet; Dawn McCall, head of the international operations; and Pandit Wright, head of human resources, terminated this week.

Campbell was also said to be a major supporter of the team's decision to hire Ivan Basso, despite ongoing questions surrounding his involvement in the Operacion Puerto doping scandal.

Zaslav immediately embarked on company-wide reorganization when he was named as Campbell's replacement on Monday. Zaslav announced Tuesday that he would consolidate all production facilities into one unit and hire new, senior business for each of Discovery's five networks.

Stapleton attributed the sponsorship decision to the changes at Discovery headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland.

"This would not have happened if Billy Campbell was still there," Stapleton told USA Today's Sal Ruibal. "This is about their change in management."

The thing is, and this makes Discovery look swarmy to the masses, is that they pretty much signed on to get the exposure from Lance winning. Unfortunately, without that high profile exposure, finding another sponsor may be a little bit tough.

Or, it could be that $15M could be better spend elsewhere. Sponsoring a cycling team (or just about anything) is unlikely to give you a healthy ROI.

Ironically, I read this after viewing "the Hard Road", which I high recommend to all you bike people.

I think Drunk Cyclist summed it up nicely with his statement of the ratio of good publicity to bad publicity right now is 7 to 1. Is that not an acceptable ratio?

Hardly. Nearly 15% of your exposure is negative, and for this your wasting $15mil of your shareholders' dollars?

Damn good thing you're not a CEO.

Absolutely, but then again, how else do you pimp a non-physical product? By putting your name out there and tying it to a physical thing, such as cycling, you are therefore increasing your exposure.

Let's not forget that Floyd Landis is not the first and far from the last doping problem for cycling. It's damn near track and field.

Right, but how is McDs getting exposure? By advertising.

The point is, Discovery obviously wouldn't have put money into the expenditure if it didn't look like they weren't getting something out of it. That something was publicity for their programming.

Or, it could be that $15M could be better spend elsewhere. Sponsoring a cycling team (or just about anything) is unlikely to give you a healthy ROI.

But for 95% of Americans he is the first and last doping in cycling. Whatever fringe fans Lance might've brought into the sport, might have been lost because of Landis.

Most Americans value their taints.

*bangs head on desk* Not exactly. The most powerful form of advertising is word of mouth from family and friends. There ain't enough ad dollars in the world to buy that sort of WOM power.*

Same with Coca-Cola. It's not the advertising that makes it #1, it's the emotional attachment with the product that makes it #1.