'rolled over' ?? Hardly.
They put in a huge amount of effort, lots of meetings and presentations, lots of airmiles around the globe, even took a team to Qinghai Lakes, but despite everything they still couldn't find a sponsor.
It was widely reported that they wanted a huge amount of money ($15M over 3 years IIRC) and the sort of sponsor willing to put that in was put-off by cycling's drug-associated bad PR, particularly with a team which was making very little anti-drugs effort.
Bruyneel came-out with some face-saving tripe about not wanting to continue, it being time to bow-out of cycling, then the next thing we know he's popped-up at Astana !