To help prove its case against Lance Armstrong, the federal government is seeking information from Nike that shows the company wouldn’t have sponsored him if it knew he was using performance-enhancing drugs.
It’s a big issue in the government’s civil fraud lawsuit against the former cyclist – the theory that Armstrong concealed his doping for years in order to keep getting rich off of sponsorships.
But another issue involving Nike looms just as large in Armstrong’s defense: Didn’t those sponsors get their money’s worth while sponsoring him at the height of his success?
Armstrong says they did.