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Juice Plus Folds in the 11th Hour

By Kathie Reid
Published: Feb. 19, 2009
Juice Plus won't be lining up at anymore events this year.
Juice Plus won't be lining up at anymore events this year.
Photo: JuicePlus Cycling

No one was surprised when former NRC champion Laura Van Gilder got the call-up at the start of the Amgen Tour of California’s Women’s Criterium in Santa Rosa on Sunday.

What did come as a surprise, though, was that the 44-year-old Pennsylvania-based rider with more than 300 career wins wasn’t wearing the team kit of Juice Plus as expected, but was instead outfitted as a guest rider for the local Sugar CRM team.

Van Gilder and 2008 Twilight Athens winner Rebecca Larson are two of eight women on the now defunct Juice Plus roster who received word from team director and manager, Bill Short, just one week earlier that the team had lost crucial sponsorship.

“Last Saturday [February 7], he sent an e-mail to us saying that we were all released and the team was no longer,” Van Gilder said by phone on Monday. “We had been talking as little as two, three days before about flight plans to come out here. It came as a shock and a disappointment.”

Larson, at home in Florida, was shocked when she retrieved her e-mail, too.

“I had received e-mails from him just a few days earlier talking about team camp, and I had gotten my January paycheck,” she said by phone on Sunday. “So to go from paycheck, team camp, to ‘Oh, no! No team!?’ I was just in shell shock basically.”

Larson had not planned to race at the ATOC Women’s Criterium due to a prior commitment, but she was looking ahead to a full season with the Juice Plus team that would just this year transition to a national rather than a local calendar.

Both Van Gilder and Larson said that they signed contracts with Short in November after beginning talks with him in October.

“Bill had said that he had this great program set up … he had secured sponsorship from numerous other sponsors, especially Juice Plus, so everything seemed great,” Larson said.

Shortly after signing her contract, though, Short sent an e-mail saying he’d lost quite a bit of sponsorship from Juice Plus.

“This confused me a little,” Larson explained. “I don’t know why he would have signed riders if he hadn’t really gotten secured sponsorship.” Larson said she spoke with Short right away, asking if he would be able to honor her contract, and he assured her all was fine.

“So, November, December, January, e-mails back and forth, talking with teammates, everything’s great, and then we get this … At this point, I’m considering legal action.”

Reached by phone on Monday, Short confirmed Van Gilder and Larson’s statements about the timing of their contracts and the e-mail communicating the demise of the team.

“I kind of waited and waited with her [Van Gilder] and Rebecca Larson in getting their contracts signed because I didn’t want to be that guy who promised everything and then couldn’t follow through,” he said.

He did say, though, that he did not have agreements in writing to guarantee the sponsorships when rider contracts were signed.

“We got word from our title sponsor that everything was good … I had another sponsor, and he was all excited. Unfortunately, I never had anything signed by then. I just went on the belief that, OK, let’s move forward, everybody is super excited about it.”

Short said that just weeks after signing rider contracts, he started hearing from various sponsors about the impact of the poor economy.

“People started calling me saying that ‘We have had to re-evaluate our situation here, and we’re not able to do what we had discussed and agreed upon,’ Short said. “I did my best to try to fight as long as I could to not have to do it, to have to fold the team.”

He explained that hoped he could making something work, even if it meant footing the bill for the team himself until the economy got better. He said he didn’t say anything to the riders because he was still confident that he could pull something through.

On Friday, February 6, though, he said he “got the ‘no’ on the last three larger things” he was “trying to pull through … That was Friday about noon, and I just spent all day almost in a daze, just dumbfounded, like I don’t really have a choice. It’s like, the season’s here basically, and now I feel like the total dumbass that tried to do the right thing, and because of sponsors backing out, I just don’t know where else to go for money.”

He sent the e-mail communicating the demise of the team the next day.

Short has not spoken to Van Gilder or Larson since that e-mail, though there has been e-mail communication. Larson and Short both confirmed they’re speaking with an attorneys; along with Van Gilder, all are disappointed it has come to this.

Van Gilder said she wrote Short right after the e-mail about the folding team asking to talk to him, he texted back that he would call, but she never heard from him.

“I understand things change,” she said. “It’s not big business, but it is business. We’re all humans and we’re in this sport because we all love it. I feel it’s just a matter of respect that you’re open and honest … that’s the way I want to conduct myself.”

Short said that shortly after telling Van Gilder he’d call, he received legal advice to not communicate with either Van Gilder or Larson because they had both e-mailed him that they are speaking with attorneys. He did, though, send them an e-mail that his lawyer helped him write, explaining that a clause in the contract protects him from liability upon the demise of the team.

Larson reported that after showing her contract as well as Short’s e-mail about the contract clause to her lawyer, he advised her in an e-mail that Short is liable for the damages incurred by riders because “he has signed the contract in his name individually. Juice Plus cycling team is not a legal entity. Even if it was, it is not listed in a legal name in the body of the contract. For example, the contract does not state Juice Plus is a corporation, INC, or LLC. Even if it was, because Bill Short has signed in his individual capacity, he is individually liable.”

And as for the 2009 race season? Larson and Van Gilder are still talking with each other about possible ways they can race together.

“We’ve been discussing and just trying to figure out if we’re going to try to stay together and ride together on a local team, or just kind of where our options are,” Larson explained. “At this point, we aren’t really left with a ton of options, and both of us just want to race our bikes.”

Van Gilder said, “I know that I love racing my bike, and I want to continue to be able to do that this season. It’s just a matter of getting the word out there that I have the passion and enthusiasm to race and represent sponsors. Ride, guest ride, mentor and guest ride, as I did this weekend [with Sugar CRM] – these are all things I’m available to do … I’m going to be positive and optimistic and move forward. It’s just a shame. I don’t think any racers should be put in this position so late. It’s a reality with the economy, and it’s difficult to get sponsors, but we’re professionals, and we should conduct ourselves in that manner. I’m not through racing yet.”