# What did Oakley do to Lemond? It's bad business.



## barbedwire (Dec 3, 2005)

Someone asked me on another thread about this so I think it's appropriate to write it here, since this place appears to be turning into the "I hate Greg" forum. This is about the Oakley snub of Lemond in all the new Oakley advertisements.

Oakley was a fledgling small company in the late 70s and early 80s, not even known in the sports world of fitness (running, cycling, etc) unless you were into funky outdoorsy forest stuff. Lemond's background before cycling was a freestyle skier. He had used Oakley's as a non-sponsored athlete for a while. Jim Jannard, the brainchild Oakley, had received a call one day from former skier and now up and coming cyclist, Greg LeMond about getting some sunglasses. And the rest is history.

Who was the 1st ever cyclist to wear Oakley in a pro race? Greg Lemond.
Who was the 1st ever cyclist to wear Oakley in a Tour de France and win the race? Greg Lemond.
Who was the 1st ever cyclist to wear Oakley Factory Pilots? Greg Lemond.
Who was the 1st ever cyclist to wear the Oakley M-frames to a Tour de France win? Greg Lemond.

There are tons of articles on the internet about the history of Oakley and Lemond's involvement. Seriously, a search in Google with the terms Oakley and Lemond turned up multiple pages. Greg made it cool for cyclists to wear funky sunglasses that made a fashion statement. Greg singlehandedly put Oakley on the scene as the cool sunglass manufacturer. They owe a lot of their success to him. And to see them disrespect him in all their "Oakley making history" advertisements by excluding him as a former Oakley athlete is really sad indeed. I mean, for the cycling ads that are running, they list the fomer cyclists like Viatcheslav Ekimov as a history making Oakley athlete and not even Greg.  

What is wrong with this picture below? You have to scroll to the bottom right. There are many, many worse, far worse examples on the internet running as banner ads, but I couldn't save them since they were done in Flash. I saw some on Velonews and CyclingNews, but it appears that they might not be running them any longer now. Is there a way to post images to this forum? I saved at least one online Oakley ad.

Here is another one. Scroll to the Oakley ad. When you find the ad, roll over all the years (83, 86, 89, 90) and check out the other athletes. No mention of the 1st ever Tour winner and cyclist that made their sunglasses cool. What's wrong with this? *What significant cycling historical moment happened in each of those years listed? Think about it.* 
http://boulderreport.bicycling.com/2007/05/why_did_lemond_.html


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## blackhat (Jan 2, 2003)

that just doesn't make sense to me....but I stopped wearing oakleys in like 1990.


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## ttug (May 14, 2004)

*idea*

Hey, I have an idea here. How about the fact that Lemond has not competed in over 10+ years and LAnce also has an OAKLEY contract and has the all time TDF win record and did so within the last 3 years makes LA more marletable because.....nobody really cares what Greg did on the bike right now at OAKLEY........


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## barbedwire (Dec 3, 2005)

How did you get a flash picture to post in the window? I tried doing that and it wouldn't work since it was Flash. Oh well, doesn't matter. This isn't about Oakley advertising current athletes. This is about them singling out Lemond and saying that whatever you did for us in those years that we used you as the sole Oakley athlete, we don't care and are going to disregard it all to tell people about the other lesser riders that made so-called "history" with Oakley. Look at the years they picked.

This is clearly in poor taste that Oakley is doing this. It isn't as apparent, but when you go to the link and look at the banner ad. Scroll over all these ads. None of these former cyclists introduced the sunglasses to the cycling world, with the exception of Andy Hampsten. Look at the ad. Look at the years and model sunglasses they put up there. Who made history wearing Oakley in those years? What happened in these years that Oakley has selected to highlight? You know what happened, but you have to click on the link and *SCROLL OVER YEARS OAKLEY SECLECTED* to see for yourself.

1983 -
1986 -
1989 -
1990 -

The ad is running on several sites. Here is one. This is a disgusting move by Oakley towards Greg Lemond. Even if the company president doesn't agree with Lemond agreeing to come to trial, even if the company president didn't like Lemond's comments about Armstrong & Dr. Ferrari, he should not stoop so low with these ads. This is an insult. It's really disgusting that Scott Olivet, CEO of Oakley would approve of such nastiness. Doing this to a man who singlehandedly put Oakley out there in front of TV audiences when that company was a little fish... very unpleasant.
http://boulderreport.bicycling.com/2007/05/why_did_lemond_.html


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## tricycletalent (Apr 2, 2005)

barbedwire said:


> How did you get a flash picture to post in the window? I tried doing that and it wouldn't work since it was Flash. Oh well, doesn't matter. This isn't about Oakley advertising current athletes. This is about them singling out Lemond and saying that whatever you did for us in those years that we used you as the sole Oakley athlete, we don't care and are going to disregard it all to tell people about the other lesser riders that made so-called "history" with Oakley. Look at the years they picked.
> 
> This is clearly in poor taste that Oakley is doing this. It isn't as apparent, but when you go to the link and look at the banner ad. Scroll over all these ads. None of these former cyclists introduced the sunglasses to the cycling world, with the exception of Andy Hampsten. Look at the ad. Look at the years and model sunglasses they put up there. Who made history wearing Oakley in those years? What happened in these years that Oakley has selected to highlight? You know what happened, but you have to click on the link and *SCROLL OVER YEARS OAKLEY SECLECTED* to see for yourself.
> 
> ...



Yeah, folks, remember this. Should you ever get a contract with OAKLEY, shut the hell up and be a nice and popular guy- if you wanna avoid the retouching. Nice observation. 

You should notice some press about this. More soap opera to write about, and more people would get aware of oakley's business strategy.


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## chuckice (Aug 25, 2004)

ttug said:


> Hey, I have an idea here. How about the fact that Lemond has not competed in over 10+ years and LAnce also has an OAKLEY contract and has the all time TDF win record and did so within the last 3 years makes LA more marletable because.....nobody really cares what Greg did on the bike right now at OAKLEY........


Exactly...he doesn't butter their bread anymore. And he generally brings bad press nowadays...regardless of what he does for the sport he's more known lately for speaking out against one of Oakley's main athletes.


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## Len J (Jan 28, 2004)

Yawn........

I suspect that Greg's "Approval rating" & Recognition rating" is pretty low, especially in the general market.....they are a business, they market what will positivly reflect on their product and sell more product.......agree or not, Greg wouldn't help sell their sunglasses.

It's not all about Greg.

Len


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## rodster (Jun 29, 2006)

The Lemond/Landis bomb got a mention on a motocross message board that I peruse. I'd post the link to the thread but you have to register to view it.

A user with the screen name "Imagesports" posted this little ditty:

*flarider wrote:
I've been told by people who know or have met Lemond, that he's an a**hole

It's true, very true. I got hired to be Lemond's teammate when he was racing USFF2000 in the late 90's. Gregg supposedly had a great sponsor who was going to pay the bills and take us to the next level. All I had to do was keep riding my bikes, pay the crash deposit, buy my own flights, and work with Greg to get him up to speed. That a**hole raced almost the entire season on his name and the promise that the "check was coming". I showed up for the first half the season, only got in a car during 2 tests, never got to race, and lost my crash deposit because Greg skipped out on $300k. There are people in the auto racing industry that wouldn't piss on him if he were on fire. I have a bin full of signed GL s**t in the garage, including a yelloe jersey, if anyone wants it. *

Makes you go "hmmmmmmmmmm" doesn't it?


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## Keeping up with Junior (Feb 27, 2003)

*Snubber vs. Snubbee*



barbedwire said:


> ...This is about the Oakley snub of Lemond in all the new Oakley advertisements...


Is it possible that Greg did not give Oakley permission to use his image in their advertising? Perhaps Greg wanted more money than Oakley though his endorsement was worth? Remember that the winners get to write history from their viewpoint and the way Greg has been acting lately hardly makes him look like a winner.


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## blackhat (Jan 2, 2003)

Len J said:


> I suspect that Greg's "Approval rating" & Recognition rating" is pretty low



I don't know, Im not in the image business. my sense as someone who watches and reads a lot of non cycling sports related programs is that after last week lemond <a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/sports/ci_5956994">looks</a> a bit <a href="http://www.startribune.com/10073/story/1198012.html">better</a> having been <a href="http://sports.yahoo.com/sc/news;_ylt=AozYfVV6AEnWh5JOCxa0K305nYcB?slug=dw-landis052107&prov=yhoo&type=lgns">shivved</a> by landis. that and the context of the ads was oakleys in cycling history. it's an obvious omission, I mean eki's got a spot... eki?


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## rodster (Jun 29, 2006)

Keeping up with Junior said:


> Is it possible that Greg did not give Oakley permission to use his image in their advertising? Perhaps Greg wanted more money than Oakley though his endorsement was worth? Remember that the winners get to write history from their viewpoint and the way Greg has been acting lately hardly makes him look like a winner.


You might be on to something there. After GL's 1983 World's win, component suppliers to Gitane (the brand of bike his trade team rode) published ads using GL's likeness in rainbow stripes. F'rinstance:










It was standard practice in the day but GL raised a ruckus over it and eventually the pratice stopped.


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## bonkmiester (Sep 23, 2005)

rodster said:


>


...his saddle is tilted......noob...

[just kidding, it struck me as funny]


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## bigpinkt (Jul 20, 2006)

rodster said:


> The Lemond/Landis bomb got a mention on a motocross message board that I peruse. I'd post the link to the thread but you have to register to view it.
> 
> A user with the screen name "Imagesports" posted this little ditty:
> 
> ...


You can point the finger at Warren G on that deal


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## stig (Sep 13, 2005)

How many other previous sponsors use GL's image? 

Is his image used to sell Look Pedals? Avocet computers? Giro helmets? Brancale shoes? Scott handlebars?

I would bet the Oakley "snub" is tied directly to his financial demands.


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## CoLiKe20 (Jan 30, 2006)

barbedwire said:


> How did you get a flash picture to post in the window? I tried doing that and it wouldn't work since it was Flash. Oh well, doesn't matter. This isn't about Oakley advertising current athletes. This is about them singling out Lemond and saying that whatever you did for us in those years that we used you as the sole Oakley athlete, we don't care and are going to disregard it all to tell people about the other lesser riders that made so-called "history" with Oakley. Look at the years they picked.
> 
> This is clearly in poor taste that Oakley is doing this. It isn't as apparent, but when you go to the link and look at the banner ad. Scroll over all these ads. None of these former cyclists introduced the sunglasses to the cycling world, with the exception of Andy Hampsten. Look at the ad. Look at the years and model sunglasses they put up there. Who made history wearing Oakley in those years? What happened in these years that Oakley has selected to highlight? You know what happened, but you have to click on the link and *SCROLL OVER YEARS OAKLEY SECLECTED* to see for yourself.
> 
> ...




OJ Simpson used to be a pretty popular endorser until the 90's when every company dropped him like a hot potato.
similar for Kobe Bryant to a lesser degree a couple of years ago.
Lemond looks bad in a lot of folks eyes at this time. Right or wrong, he still looks bad - therefore Oakley may not want to be associated with him.


or...maybe Lemond asked Oakley not to use his image?


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## barbedwire (Dec 3, 2005)

*1983, 1986, 1989, 1990 - Why did Oakley select these years in their history ads?*

Did Lemond ask Oakley not to use his image? No. That is not what happened. What happened is that Oakley decided to do a "making history" marketing campaign involving all sports (baseball, running, football even). The athletes in those other sports actually did make history with Oakley sunglasses during the years they advertised in the other sports. Not so with their bad cycling ads.

It's clear to me that there are a lot of new cycling fans supporting the current crop of cycling stars. There is a definite significance for Oakley selecting these years and claiming that history was made AND omitting the one person who made history and significant contributions to their company, royalty free. It's clear from the Lemond critics above, to me at least, how young they may be since they didn't even know what happened historically in those years, yet continue to bash Lemond over irrelevant things.

1983
1986
1989
1990

Hey Oakley, why did you pick these years?


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## Pablo (Jul 7, 2004)

Maybe they were just hoping to gloss over the ski goggle era.


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## ultimobici (Jul 16, 2005)

It is interesting that there is NO mention of him on Oakley's site that I could find. Their History section mentions Factory Pilots being worn by "Pros like Phil Anderson & Andy Hampsten" and Blades "Allowing John Tomac & Juliana Furtado" to adapt to changing light conditions". But not a whisper about Lemond, inspite of some of the most iconic TdF images to English speaking cycling fans of the last 25 years. The one from 86 above, all through the 89 Tour with the vilest neon Razors, and the Mumbos in 1990. 

Having said that if you google Lemond images theis comes up on the first page *www.habervision.com/<wbr>Testimonials.aspx 

*maybe that's why!


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## djg714 (Oct 24, 2005)

Oakley sucks. Use Rudy's.....


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## dagger (Jul 22, 2004)

*Ok Greg*



djg714 said:


> Oakley sucks. Use Rudy's.....


 whatever you say.


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## Fredke (Dec 10, 2004)

Len J said:


> I suspect that Greg's "Approval rating" & Recognition rating" is pretty low, especially in the general market


Compared to Andy Hampsten and Phil Anderson???


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## Len J (Jan 28, 2004)

*Lemond is percieived.....*



Fredke said:


> Compared to Andy Hampsten and Phil Anderson???


as a whiner by many......Andy Hampsten is not known.. In mkt better an unknown than a negative.

Len


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