• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, February 14, 2008

The sport known for the biggest performance-enhancing-drug problem -- European-based professional cycling -- is seemingly passing the high-profile drug baton to Major League Baseball in the U.S.  

But that may be just a drop of an oncoming spitball. The next wave may be around the corner, concerning TV network viewership and scared baseball marketers.

Just look at what the organization that runs Tour de France decided on Wednesday -- the same day that saw five hours of televised Capital Hill testimony by Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee about Clemens' alleged drug use.  The Amaury Sport Organization, which owns the Tour, announced it won't let last year's champion, Alberto Contador -- nor his new team -- defend his crown this year. That's not because of any allegedly positive drug test, but because of the new team sponsor's name -- a team that has had drug problems with its riders in the past.

Contador's new team this year, sponsored by Astana, the capital city of Kazakhstan, changed riders, management, and instituted a new drug program over the past several months -- all to get rid of its past problems.

Typically the Tour invites the strongest teams in the world. Astana is one of them.

No matter. The Tour wants to punish the newly formed team - even though no charges have been brought against it concerning its current group of riders. The team paid the price of having riders expunged from the race the last two years, as well as the team itself leaving in the middle of the race last year.

The Tour, which feels its name is still sullied, wants further punishment. And that's how it goes in cycling.  If sponsors are leery of getting involved in the cycling, you know why. The ruling body, the Union Cycliste Internationale, makes rules -- and changes rules -- in an instant, making for plenty of uncertainty.

What will this do to cycling on TV in the U.S. and in France? In France, it could hurt viewership - unless a Frenchmen miraculously finds himself vying for the win in the last week of the race.

For the U.S. network, Comcast Corp's Versus, which airs the three-week race, it's another flat tire before the big sprint. The network has been struggling to recover big Tour ratings lost after the  years when Lance Armstrong routinely won the race with the same ease "American Idol" wins as the top-rated TV show year after year.

Imagine if Roger Clemens, Mark McGuire, Jose Canseco, or Barry Bonds' old teams weren't allowed to compete --not because of suspected drug use, but because teammates, in years past, admitted their use of performance-enhancing drugs.  

Imagine if Major League Baseball wouldn't let the New York Yankees compete in the World Series next year because of Andy Pettitte's recent admission he did illegal drugs in 2002 and 2004.

Would this have any effect on Fox or the YES Network, which airs Yankee games? It would most definitely affect Yankee viewers -- and perhaps baseball on TV as well.

Now the two biggest baseball players of their generation are the poster boys for alleged drug use -- Roger Clemens, the game's most dominant pitcher, and Barry Bonds, the game's most dominant hitter.

If baseball and other networks are following in the wrong footsteps of other drug-aligned sports -- if there are, say, hundreds of baseball players found to be doing drugs -- it's only a matter of time before sports TV networks will be affected. That goes for baseball marketers as well .