09/12/08
Recently Lance Armstrong, the winner of 7 straight Tour De France races, announced a comeback. Lance has decided to come back for the 2009 Tour De France, but this time, without a sponsor so he can raise money for Cancer awareness. While this is a great cause, it got me thinking.
Previous to his retirement, Lance raced for the U.S. Postal Service team. This team is funded by the USPS and they sported the USPS logo on their uniforms, vans, equipment, etc. I’ve also seen the USPS advertise as a major sponsor to the Olympics, NASCAR and more.
How is it that a Goverment Agency can spend so much of OUR money advertising sporting events and competing with private delivery companies? Should we have to pay an increased amount for postage every year because the USPS blows millions of dollars a year sponsoring sporting events and trying to compete with UPS, DHL and other delivery companies. Is that even a fair to private business?
It seems the USPS would have an almost unlimited budget. All they have to do if they start running out of sponsorship or advertising money is raise the price of a stamp a few cents and just like that, instant money from a product that the public really can’t get anywhere else. You can’t decide to send a first class letter with a different company… it’s the USPS or nothing.
Somehow this seems really unfair to me and seems like we are getting ripped off at the same time. Would the price of a first class stamp be only $0.25 still if the USPS didn’t spend millions and millions of dollars advertising during sports and competing for services against private business? You would think this has to have some sort of effect on our mailing prices.
So, what can we do about this? Probably nothing. How do you stop a runaway Government from waisting your money? Should we even care? I do.
JAC
Tags: Advertising, Ripoff, Sports, USPS
September 12th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
I agree! There is so much waste in goverment and they are so big nobody can keep track. The post office service has gotten better over the years but why do they have to spend so much on sports teams? Waste of taxpayer money!
September 13th, 2008 at 1:59 am
I am going to agree with you on this one (partly). It is proven that a company does not need to advertise, but can still do well (See Costco for an example. They pay no more than to keep their website) On the other hand, advertising is important. Maybe not through multi-million dollar deals such as this, but still. Advertising builds the company ever more. But seriously, what’s a couple pennies these days.
September 13th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Great point. I never thought of that before but I remember commercials during past olympics with the Post Office in them. Seems unfair they can raise stamp prices and then use it to advertise.
September 12th, 2009 at 10:05 pm
I’ve been seeing so many ads from USPS lately and it got me thinking the same thing. I also don’t like how they are competing against private companies like UPS and FedEx. They have this new ad about a flat rate box, if it fits it ships for the same rate throughout the country. This seems like it’s a direct tactic to try to steal market share from UPS and FedEx. I didn’t think our government was supposed to be trying to steal market share from private companies?