Maybe Lance Armstrong will become a cycling martyr after all.
Critics blasted the disgraced cyclist for portraying himself as a victim as he fought doping allegations — but after giving up the fight for his own reputation this week, Armstrong may give a boost to the charity he founded.
The charity may need the help.
Last year, the charity, Livestrong, saw revenues slip 2.6 percent to $48.6 million.
The decline was tied to a drop in funds raised at special events — whose past successes had hinged on appearances by Armstrong.
“Having your integrity questioned as an athlete is never a good thing,” says Carreen Winters, executive vice president of reputation management at MMW, a New York public-relations firm. “But he’s taking pressure off the organization, and you could say he’s saving the foundation by sacrificing himself.”
Yet despite headlines last year about a now-defunct federal case against Armstrong, contributions to Livestrong actually increased, to $15.9 million from $14.4 million, according to the foundation’s annual report.
Livestrong is the cancer care and education charity that has raised nearly $500 million since Armstrong founded it 15 years ago.
Livestrong will “hit some bumps in the road,” says Leslie Lenkowsky, a professor at Indiana University’s Center on Philanthropy. “But the bumps aren’t going to be nearly as big as the ones Tiger Woods and his charity have felt.”
A key reason, according to Lenkowsky: Livestrong is better developed, better organized — and better differentiated from its founder.
“For the past couple of years, Livestrong has clearly been distancing itself from Lance Armstrong,” Lenkowsky says. It’s practically a secret, he notes, that Livestrong’s official name is still the Lance Armstrong Foundation.
Last year, the foundation’s royalties and licensing fees soared 22 percent to $15.8 million despite a sluggish year for charitable donations overall.
This year, Livestrong says the number of donations is up 20 percent from the past two years, averaging $75 versus $72 in 2010.
Despite the news this week that Armstrong would no longer contest the doping allegations by the US Anti-Doping Agency, high-profile sponsors including Nike and Anheuser-Busch are sticking with him.
Trek bicycles, another key sponsor, said it was pondering the news. RadioShack didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Of course, dropping efforts to defend himself against the charges he used performance-enhancing drugs means the seven-time Tour de France winner will be forced to surrender all of the medals and prizes he has won since 1998.
Still, experts see Livestrong coming out of the debacle better than Tiger Woods’ foundation survived his character assault.
The Tiger Woods Foundation’s contributions plunged to $7 million from $12.9 million a year earlier in the wake of a lurid sex scandal that broke up the golfer’s marriage.