Lance Armstrong has been back in the news for all the wrong reasons lately, and things seem to be going from bad to worse for the former athletic legend. After being caught for cheating and covering his epic fabrication, Armstrong was stripped of all seven of his Tour de France championships. The fallout was tremendous, anything carrying Lance's LiveStrong brand was taken off shelves and moved to discount stores nationwide. Public opinion of Lance soared south, and things seemed to hit rock bottom a few weeks ago.
In the wake of all this, Armstrong decided it was finally time to come clean and admit his mistakes, since up until a week ago he had maintained innocence. However even in apologizing, Armstrong came across as an arrogant psychopath by only agreeing to offer an interview with Oprah on primetime television. Instead of coming forward in a press conference (the way these admissions are usually offered) and apologizing for cheating, lying to the world for years and relentlessly attacking anyone who tried to expose him, Armstrong tried to justify himself. He didn't view himself as cheating but as "leveling the playing field". Are you kidding!? The interview was received by the public as a joke, and Lance only dug himself further into his enormous PR hole.
I would venture to say that the consequence of this mess is the death of Nike's LiveStrong brand. The first solution in this situation would be to dissociate from the brand's sponsor, but in this case the two are too deeply intertwined. LiveStrong is Lance Armstrong, and vice versa. And as far as Armstrong goes, his legacy is forever tarnished. We can look at other fallen athletes like Michael Vick or Tiger Woods as examples of a strong personal brand recovery, but those are different situations. Both of those men redeemed themselves by admitting their wrongs in an acceptable way (not being prima donna and requesting an Oprah interview) and then moving forward in their respective sports to try and help people forgive and forget. Lance does not have this option, not only did his apology anger even more people, but he will never be able to win a Tour de France without the aid of PEDs. Perhaps he will race again, but an average or even below average performance will only remind folks of how he achieved his greatness in the first place, cheating.
LiveStrong is left with one real option; folding. Even in a forgiving country built on offering second chances, Lance's transgressions are too severe and his legacy forever tainted. For Nike, I can only hope they accept this, and bury the once powerful brand with its once powerful representative.
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