View full sizeBas Czerwinsky/AP 2009Lance Armstrong rides during the third stage of the 2009 Tour de France.

Lance Armstrong is worth $125 million, according to Forbes, and pulls in $20 million a year. When he first listed his Dripping Springs, Texas, vacation home in 2007, the sales price was $12.1 million. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency dossier on the cyclist's doping career frequently mentions his French villa in Nice.

And the day after Armstrong announced that he wouldn't contest the agency's conclusions, he wants us to know, donations to his LiveStrong Foundation were up 770 percent.

Armstrong might have retired from competitive cycling and blood doping, but the Tour de Lance is still paved with gold.

For Armstrong and his loyal boosters -- including Nike -- what else matters?

The USADA's "reasoned decision" frames Armstrong, in the unsparing words of The New York Times' Juliet Macur, "as an infamous cheat, a defiant liar and a bully who pushed others to cheat with him so he could succeed, or be vanquished."

It also catalogues the sneering arrogance with which he confronted anyone who challenged him or his team's drug regimen.

The report has inspired a spirited defense of Armstrong from the likes of Donald Trump, Buzz Bissinger and Rick Reilly, all of whom insist he is a national hero. It has generated outrage from those who feel personally betrayed to hear -- from 11 former teammates -- that Armstrong cheats.

I understand the apologies and the apoplexy. But both reactions are investing emotion in what has long been a financial calculation.

No, it's not about the bike. Whatever else it was in the beginning, it has long been about the cash, the millions Armstrong generated -- for himself, Nike and his foundation -- with the storyline that nothing but his unique will pushed this cancer-survivor through the Pyrenees and on to Paris.

Armstrong long ago went all-in on the fantasy that he was the lone saint in a sport stained by EPO, testosterone and other performance-enhancing drugs. The fairy tale made him famous. The bet made him rich. What possible motivation does he have to come clean?

That's why it's silly to ask Nike if it still supports the guy. Nike is a $24 billion corporation because it understands the power of myth and celebrity. Given its preeminence and connections in the world of sports, it strains credulity to argue the company is the last to know that Tiger Woods is a reckless philanderer or Lance Armstrong a blood doper.

But as long as these singular athletes and their competitiveness sustain the brand, Nike will abide their flaws. Unless, or until, the Armstrong story takes a Paterno-esque turn, Nike is part of the team running interference for the guy.

Such a turn is unlikely. Armstrong's refusal to contest the USADA's verdict is also strategic. In 2000, Italian cyclist Filippo Simeoni told a Bologna court that he used EPO and Andriol under the direction of Michele Ferrari, Armstrong's trainer.

According to the agency, Armstrong repeatedly branded Simeoni a liar -- the Italian eventually sued him for defamation -- then confronted Simeoni during the 2004 Tour de France.

"You made a mistake when you testified against Ferrari and you made a mistake when you sued me," Armstrong told Simeoni, the latter testified. "I have a lot of time and money and I can destroy you."

Time and money. Knowing he would lose those advantages at a hearing -- the arena of sworn testimony and sanctions for perjury -- Armstrong quit the fight.

Off the bike, he has a memorable fighting style. After Armstrong teammate Frankie Andreu and his wife, Betsy, testified that they heard Lance admit in 1996 to using EPO, human growth hormone and testosterone, Betsy Andreu was asked about Armstrong's reaction.

"What's the upside been going up against Lance?" Andreu told Bicycling magazine. "To be publicly and privately portrayed as ... ugly, obese, jealous, obsessed, hateful, crazed ... We've dealt firsthand with very real threats to our economic well-being because we refused to be on the lie-for-Lance train."

While that train chugs on, Armstrong has retired with his time and his money to Austin, where he and his foundation will be roundly celebrated this weekend. Armstrong is not the last of the doped-up cyclists, just the best and richest of the louts.

His millions and his villas are his insulation, his reward, his reality. So what if the world's anti-doping agencies vacate his seven Tour de France championships? They'll never strip those titles from his Twitter feed.