Professional cycling team Astana is the Los Angeles Lakers of professional cycling. With arguably the best rider in the world right now, Alberto Contador, supported by Levi Leipheimer and Lance Armstrong—both potential big tour winners—and a strong group of other riders, Astana can expect to be fighting for wins in every big race it enters.

Unlike the Lakers, Astana might not exist come July (and the Tour). The team is having financial difficulties and is rumored to be struggling to meet payroll. Pro cycling leaders are heading to Kazakhistan to discuss the situation with the sponsors and the Kazakh cycling federation.

The Lakers could not find themselves in a similar situation. Professional sports in the U.S. are socialist organizations where even the inept are propped up for the greater good of the league. While the NFL is the most extreme (and manages to have the most parity), the NBA and MLB have profit sharing and other tools to help ensure the profitability of their franchisees. And if you own a franchise team, you run no risk of ever losing that status. Even if you run the Los Angeles Clippers, Detroit Lions or Chicago Cubs and fail year after year to win a title (or games)

Contrast that to European sports. In professional football (aka, soccer) teams move up and down categories based on their success. Were NFL's Detroit Lions a Premier League team last season, when they went winless, they wouldn't be this year. They'd be dumped down to a lower league and a successful lower league team would be promoted. The competition isn't just for winning titles: teams compete for the right to compete at the highest levels. 

In cycling, teams exist at the mercy of their sponsors* and come and go with regularity. Success usually creates continuity, but not always. There are no constraints on what a sponsor can spend and who they can hire. Salary cap limits would make Astana impossible to field in the NBA and NFL: they're too loaded with talent. In cycling, the limiting factor is sponsorship funds and how well top riders can work together.

Why do our sporting institutions so thoroughly fail to reflect our national economic character? Why do American's so often vote to tax themselves to underwrite the profitability of local professional sports teams, but won't tax themselves to support the homeless, schools or other things that would appear to be far more pressing?

Why do European countries with strong traditions of social welfare have such a brutal professional athletic situation?

* Teams are technically organized outside of the name sponsor, so the great 7/11 Team changed sponsors to become Motorola and then US Postal and finally Discover Channel, but retained the same management.