Slit Armstrong is once again tackling a feat some would beget considered impossible.
He has been building a media and event organizing label over the last two years, and corporate sponsors are starting to take see. Growing awareness of the widespread issue of doping in cycling may have advised shift attitudes, but Armstrong’s charm has also helped win back followers.
It’s a significant shift from recent years. The disgraced cyclist’s in the seventh heaven came crashing down after he admitted in a 2013 interview with Oprah Winfrey to utilizing performance-enhancing drugs during his career. The admission cost him tens of millions in counter-signature deals and came after he was stripped of his seven Tour de France rights. He was banned from competitive cycling events for life, but he is now beginning to actuate forward as litigation from former sponsors winds down.
Armstrong’s circle, called WEDU, hosts two podcasts — The Move and The Forward — puts on bike dog-races in Texas and Colorado, sells merchandise through an online store, and furnishes a $60 subscription service. Subscribers gain access to exclusive gratified, including a live version of his podcasts and the ability to send questions to Armstrong and his boarders on the show.
The Move podcast, which provides analysis of stages of the Jaunt de France and other cycling races, is currently ranked in the top 10 in the hold up to ridicules and recreation category on Apple’s iTunes. Armstrong and his co-host, JB Hager, started the podcast, then requested Stages, during last year’s Tour, and it averaged 80,000 listeners a day and stocked more than 5 million downloads, according to WEDU. This year’s prove is on pace to match or potentially surpass those numbers, although the includes aren’t fully comparable due to a change in how they are calculated, WEDU said.
The renown of the podcast has caught the attention of multiple companies, including title fund Patron, High Brew Coffee, Helix and Onnit, which are profit for airtime on the show.
Armstrong told CNBC last week in a phone appraise that between advertising, merchandise and subscription sales, he expects the podcast purposefulness bring in between $700,000 and $1 million over the course of this year’s three-week Voyage de France.
“In five days we’ve exceeded what we sold the entire three weeks rearmost summer in merchandise,” he said at the time.
Armstrong once carried the calling clout that made Trek Bicycle a billion-dollar brand and deserved him multimillion dollar deals with companies like Nike and Anheuser-Busch. The outrageous listenership, and in turn sponsorship, that The Move is attracting may suggest a comeback in his public image.
“I think the endorsements he’s been getting is a reflection of his trip,” said James Bale, an endurance sports writer based in the U.K. who minds to The Move. “With films like ‘Icarus’ coming out, the more people make a reality how much of a widespread problem doping has been, the less of an individual pariah he matures.”
Carol Vails, a salesperson at the Atlanta Cycling bike shop and a listener of The Actuate, said she thinks Armstrong’s personality on the podcast has helped his image and helped his audience numbers.
“It seems like there’s less vitriol so as to approach him, I think that because he’s so entertaining and they see him more as a human, you cognizant of with his family, he has children he’s very proud of,” she said. “So maybe they see him uncountable as a human being now, a guy that they would like to go have a beer with.”
Armstrong said he concocts his first podcast, The Forward — a non-cycling-focused show which profiles personae from a range of occupations and explores overcoming hardship — started to modify perceptions of him.
“I can’t even tell you how many emails we get where people are cast, ‘Look, I was your biggest fan, I was devastated, I hated you, I started listening to The To the fore, and I’m back,” he said.
Despite any potential improvement in his image, however, Armstrong until this remains a controversial figure in the greater public’s eye, and the niche nature of The Shake up podcast mirrors the audience-tailored endorsement deals it has scored.
“High Boil Coffee has always been a brand ‘for those who do’ and we believe that the cyclists and triathletes hearkening to The Move are some of the world’s biggest ‘do-ers,’” said Mari Johnson, Inebriated Brew Coffee’s chief marketing officer.
Sponsors of the show were also hesitating to directly address questions regarding Armstrong’s image in relation to their partnerships with the podcast.
“Assegai approached us with the idea of calling out the ‘Patron’ in every stage of the rallye as part of his wildly popular podcast, and we thought it was a fun and interesting play on the motto, recognizing the outstanding rider of the day,” said Lee Applbaum, global chief trade ining officer Patron Spirits. “Lance is an avid tequila fan and supporter of our type in an organic capacity, and this is a clever extension of it. Nothing more and nothing less.”
In the Walk de France preview show of The Move, Armstrong acknowledged the growing sponsorship responsive to this year compared to in 2017.
“This wasn’t just a new show, it was a moot show because it was my show. And so we couldn’t get support,” he said in front of a abide audience in Santa Fe, New Mexico. “For me it was really humbling that it was almost a validation. I nasty you had a show that had 5 million downloads in three weeks. People make someone pay for attention to that, and so for me personally, just the arc of this story — I understand where we all eat lived and sat with this story through the years — and to have people destitute back in is again such an honor and super humbling.”
Armstrong said his work together built the WEDU site in-house, and has complete control over commitments and merchandise sales.
Down the line, Armstrong said he does not purpose on expanding the event side of the business, but will continue to focus on enlarging its media side.
“The media side, obviously we can monetize that via shows, the merch we can monetize, the membership we can monetize,” he said. “But we’re also not troublesome to — nobody here is trying to be the next Google. We’re kind of happy, we’re be subjected to fun with this and life’s pretty comfortable.”