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LOS ANGELES, Feb. 9 ? The Discovery Channel will drop its sponsorship next year of the professional cycling team that was formerly led by Lance Armstrong . The decision by Discovery leaves the top United States team scrambling to find a primary sponsor at a time when the sport is in turmoil because of accusations of widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs by riders.

The team will continue to ride under the Discovery Channel name this year, beginning with the Tour of California, a one-week race that begins Feb. 18 in San Francisco. But the search for a primary sponsor for 2008 comes as team officials acknowledge that some of the team’s current, lower-level sponsors have expressed doubts about their continued affiliation with the sport because of doping.

Officials from both Discovery Communications, the Maryland-based cable-television company that owns the Discovery Channel, and Tailwind Sports, the corporation that owns the cycling team, said Friday that Discovery’s decision was not related to the sport’s doping troubles.

Rather, they said, it had to do with a corporate restructuring by Discovery Communications and its chief executive, David M. Zaslav, who was hired in November. That restructuring led to the resignation of William M. Campbell III on Monday as president of Discovery’s United States-based television networks. Campbell initiated the cycling sponsorship three years ago.

“We have decided to aggressively shift our focus and resources to support our core business goals and objectives,” Discovery said in a statement.

Annie Howell, a spokeswoman for the company, said in an interview that cycling’s doping troubles “were not a part of the decision,” adding that the team had “deep respect” for Johan Bruyneel, the team’s race director, and other team officials.

Bill Stapleton, a part owner of the cycling team along with Armstrong, Bruyneel and others, said Friday in a telephone interview that the owners hoped to attract another United States company as the team’s lead sponsor. But, he said, the announcement last summer that Floyd Landis , the winner of the Tour de France, had failed a drug test during the race “took the wind out of a lot of people’s sails” around the sport.

Several of the team’s lower-level sponsors “expressed their displeasure and doubts about continuing” in the sport, he said.

“Nobody asked to be let out of their contract,” Stapleton said. “What we said to all of our sponsors was that Floyd wasn’t on our team, and we have never had a positive test. We understand it’s a suspect environment right now, but we answered all their questions.”

He said any new sponsor would have the right, as did Discovery, to withdraw its support if any of the team’s riders failed a drug test. Before Discovery began its sponsorship in 2005, the United States Postal Service sponsored the team for eight years. The team is the only one in the top cycling division that is based in the United States.

The team has already talked to several potential sponsors, Stapleton said, but having one commit to spending more than $15 million a year is not simple.

“Right now, it’s an easy ‘no’ because of everything that has gone on in the sport,” he said. “The good news is we have plenty of time. We have a number of target companies, and we’ve already talked with some of them. But I think it could be more difficult than the last time” the team searched for a new sponsor.

In 2005, Armstrong, who had already won the Tour de France six consecutive times, was still competing. Discovery made it a condition of its sponsorship that he would ride in at least one more Tour de France.

Now, Armstrong is retired, although he has continued to be a public face around the team. Its racing performance fell off drastically last year, Armstrong’s first year of retirement. At the Tour de France, the sport’s marquee event, the team failed to place a rider in the top 10, although it won one daily stage and held the leader’s yellow jersey for one day.

After the disappointing Tour de France, Discovery won the team classification at the Vuelta a Espana. George Hincapie, Armstrong’s longtime lieutenant, won the United States championship road race.

This year, team officials have expressed optimism about the Tour and other races. In the off-season, the team signed Ivan Basso, an Italian who previously finished second and third in the Tour de France.

But Basso was one of the riders excluded from last year’s Tour after his name surfaced as part of an investigation of doping among athletes in Spain. Discovery hired him after the Italian authorities cleared him of any doping involvement. The move, however, received criticism from some other cycling teams, because the Spanish authorities have not officially closed their inquiry.