Riders Ready: Move the Tour of Missouri to Michigan?

Support the Tour of Missouri

Jamie Smith writes in the Riders Ready blog:

While any expense that isn't a direct and vital function of a government should be scrutinized, an expense that yields such fruit as the ToM should be, I feel, left alone. Scrutinize it, you'll understand what I mean.

The economic impact of the 2009 version of the Tour of Missouri was $38.1 million. It was $29.8 million in 2008 and $26.2 million in 2007. The sales tax on the money spent to generate that economic impact offsets the cost of the event itself. It pays for itself. . . .  

In 2007, I pitched the idea of a Tour of Michigan to the Governor's Office. I had a private meeting with her staff members in her Detroit office. I spent two hours showing them all that an event like this can do. They were very excited. I would almost say "breathlessly excited". The only drawback is finding sponsorship money in this economy. Well, if Missouri falls off the calendar, then I'll have to renew my efforts. Missouri has done all of my field research for me, and if they let it go fallow, there'll be a hole to fill in the American cycling scene.