Olympic panel's recommendation was no honor for Ueberroth

The U.S. Olympic Committee board last week rejected the Tagliabue committee's recommendation to stop having immediate past chairmen serve as honorary president and attend board meetings.

It was the only recommendation made by the advisory committee, chaired by former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue, that the board chose not want to implement.

Read more: "Olympic committee move not an honor for Ueberroth"

-- Philip Hersh

U.S. Olympic Network cuts to black before ever seeing light

Peter Ueberroth's legacy within the international Olympic world will remain indelible and enormously significant.

That was clearer than ever Wednesday, when many obituaries of former International Olympic Committee President Juan Antonio Samaranch -- mine included -- noted how Samaranch took Ueberroth's model for private financing of the Olympic Games and used it as the basis for the global sponsorship programs that took the IOC from pauperdom to prosperity.

The success of the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Games, which Ueberroth ran, effectively saved the Olympic movement.

That made some other news Wednesday take on an ironic dimension, chipping away even further at the legacy of Ueberroth's four-plus years as chief executive of the U.S. Olympic Committee.

That news, as first reported by SportsBusiness Daily, was the termination of a deal struck last year between the USOC and Comcast for a U.S. Olympic Network.

The network was Ueberroth's baby.  Whenever he saw USOC chief operating officer Norm Bellingham, the USOC staffer in charge of network development, Ueberroth would ask, apparently in jest, "What channel are we on, Norm?''

That was a sign of Ueberroth's impatience over what seemed an interminable gestation period for the network.  That impatience undoubtedly played into Ueberroth's insistence on going ahead with an announcement of the deal last July despite having received a crease-and-desist letter from the IOC, which warned the USOC to hold off until a large number of contractual issues were resolved.

After Comcast found out about the IOC's objections, it chose to have no representative on the media teleconference for the network announcement.  This time, the cable behemoth just walked away, possibly to rid itself of a contractual entanglement that might have given critics of its proposed merger with NBC -- the U.S. Olympic rights holder through 2012 -- more basis for their argument that the combined company would stand to control the market in too many ways.

When that USOC-IOC conflict flamed up last June, it also reignited the lingering controversy between the two parties over revenue sharing.  That wound up burning Chicago's Olympic bid, even after Larry Probst, who took over as USOC chairman in late 2008, all but begged forgiveness from IOC President Jacques Rogge and announced an indefinite hold on plans for the USOC network.

The IOC members -- and former members -- who had been most vocal about the revenue dispute used the network fiasco to remind everyone the USOC -- and, by inference, its bid city -- was the devil incarnate.

Let's make one thing clear: There was no way Chicago would have beaten Rio for the 2016 Games in last October's vote, not after the IOC  gave Rio a virtual line-by-line analysis of how to improve a bid plan that had been rated fifth among the seven candidates in June 2008. Rogge wanted his legacy as IOC president to include having been in office when South America got its first Olympics, and the IOC did everything it could to make that happen.

(Six months later, the IOC must be thinking it might have been more careful about what it wished for. What it has gotten already is:  horrible crime at this year's Carnival in the notoriously murderous city; mudslides that have killed nearly 200 and left thousands homeless; a political battle over oil revenues that threatens the 2016 organizing budget. Wait until the construction falls far behind.)

Without the network issue, though, Chicago might have avoided its humiliating first-round defeat.

In its announcement of the Comcast deal last July 8, the USOC said the network was supposed to be up and running soon after the Vancouver Winter Games. Now it is probably dead for good.

"This is just a formal acknowledgment of a decision made eight months ago, when we agreed not to pursue the network without the cooperation of the IOC," USOC spokesman Patrick Sandusky said in an e-mail Wednesday. "The timing for the network no longer made sense."

The silliest part of the whole thing was the U.S. Olympic Network never made sense no matter when or which way one looked at it -- especially financially, as it was expected to drain at least $25 million a year from USOC coffers indefinitely.

Someone -- maybe even Bellingham --  can channel that money in more useful ways.

-- Philip Hersh

USOC leaving Ueberroth years behind

On the surface, it looks like purely a sensible money-saving move.

Dig just a little, and it won't take long to unearth the other motive in the U.S. Olympic Committee's decision to close its office in Irvine, which the USOC announced Monday.

It marks a further break with the Peter Ueberroth era and the international relations team he assembled, one that could not prevent a repeat of the bid city debacle that originally had led Ueberroth's USOC to engage the services of Bob Ctvrtlik and Robert Fasulo after New York's bid for the 2012 Winter Olympics finished next-to-last among five finalists in 2005.

(And let there be no doubt about it: In his four years as board chairman, it wasUeberroth's USOC.)

Ueberroth brought in Fasulo as international relations chief right after the 2006 Winter Olympics. Ctvrtlik became USOC vice president for international relations a couple months later.

At first, they worked in space provided by Ueberroth's Newport Beach-based company, The Contrarian Group. Later, as the staff grew to five (including Chris Duplanty, who made $281,000 in 2008 for a Ueberroth-created post supposed to be an unpaid, volunteer position), the USOC began renting space in Irvine that likely cost some $30,000 a year -- not an enormous expense.

And then the Chicago 2016 bid failed even more miserably that New York's had. While Rio de Janeiro clearly was not going to lose last October, no matter who did what (short of the handsome bribes that presumably ended after the Salt Lake bid scandal), some blamed Ctvrtlik and Fasulo for not doing a better job of locking in enough votes to avoid having President Obama travel to Copenhagen to promote a bid that made a humiliating first-round exit in a field of four.

Ctvrtlik had resigned his USOC post early last year to become a paid member of the Chicago 2016 staff.  When the USOC decided to close the Irvine office, it offered the staff there a chance to relocate to Colorado Springs, Colo., (where international relations staff will not pay for rent in the USOC headquarters), an offer it knew Fasulo was guaranteed to refuse. The USOC announced Monday that Fasulo will leave his post Aug. 31.

Ueberroth had a role in Chicago's bid until bid chairman Patrick Ryan told the USOC chairman last spring his services weren't needed.  That move owed to the animosity Ueberroth's hard-line stance on revenue sharing had created among International Olympic Committee members demanding that the USOC rewrite existing contracts and take a smaller share of the global revenue pie.

(Full disclosure: As readers of this blog may remember, I frequently backed the rationale for Ueberroth's stance on revenue sharing, which was based on how large a percentage of that money came from U.S. companies and TV rights.  But the issue turned into a shouting match between Ueberroth and some IOC members, and I said at that point the USOC had to at least lower the decibels to avoid damaging Chicago's bid. That happened a few months after Larry Probst became USOC chairman in late 2008, but by then the issue had become toxic to Chicago.)

The USOC recently has engaged with the IOC in quiet negotiations on revenue sharing, some of which took place during the Vancouver Winter Olympics. Maybe the closing of the Irvine office is a symbolic part of those negotiations, showing the IOC that the new USOC regime -- Probst and Chief Executive Scott Blackmun, who took over in January -- really does have a different approach to international relations than the one that left the New York and Chicago bids with embarrassing defeats.

*On a related subject: Ten days ago, the USOC announced the recommendations of an independent advisory commission on its governance chaired by former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue. I didn't feel compelled to write about it then because I already had outlined in blogs a couple months earlier what became the two most significant recommendations -- extending the chairman's term beyond four years and expanding the USOC board.

 My Nov. 9, 2009 blog was headlined, "To gain long term clout, USOC needs longer term for Olympic committee boss.''  Its opening sentence was, "Larry Probst needs to be the U.S. Olympic Committee  

for at least eight years.'' Later, I said, "How much relationship-building could Probst do in less than three years, anyway?''

The Tagliabue commission report said the board should "consider extending the term limits for the chairman of the board in order to allow increased ability for international relationship building.''

In a Dec. 10, 2009 blog based on an interview with Tagliabue, I wrote, "Tagliabue clearly seems inclined to recommend a larger USOC board than the current one, which now includes just eight voting members, two of whom (the U.S. members of the International Olympic Committee) share one vote.  He just returned from chairing a meeting of the Georgetown University board, which has 45 members, a size he called workable.

" 'In the NFL, we had a 32-member board, and that was workable,' '' he said.

The Tagliabue commission report recommended the board be increased from 11 to 15 members.

Among the other Tagliabue commission recommendations, which the board will take up in June, were ones recommending elimination of the positions of board liaison and first vice president, international relations.

One job was Duplanty's. The other was Ctvrtlik's.

At this rate, it soon will take more than a little digging to find traces of the Ueberroth years.

-- Philip Hersh

Robert Fasulo, foreground, and Bob Ctvrtlik, formerly the top two USOC international relations officials, in a November 2006 photo. Fasulo will step down Aug. 31;  Ctvrtlik left his post last year; a commission recommended 10 days ago the job be eliminated. AP file photo / Chris Carlson.

USOC, British Olympic Assn. to share resources, expertise

The U.S. Olympic Committee has signed an bilateral agreement with Britain's Olympic Assn. to share resources and expertise in preparation of the 2012 and 2014 Olympic Games.

USOC Chairman Larry Probst and British Olympic Assn. Chairman Colin Moynihan signed the agreement in San Francisco this week.

The agreement allows the organizations to discuss matters "of mutual interest" ahead of the next two Olympic Games. It also paves the way for the formation of a British skiing and snowboarding governing body after the financial collapse of Snowsport GB before the Vancouver Games.

The contract "represents an invaluable opportunity," Moynihan said.

The agreement could help bolster Britain's effort at the Sochi Games after winning just one medal (gold in women's skeleton) in Vancouver. Britain finished fourth overall with 47 medals at the 2008 Beijing Games and is looking for an even stronger showing on home soil in two years.

-- Austin Knoblauch

The Associated Press was used in compiling this report.

USOC boss vows transparency. Maybe even in CEO search?

There were two noteworthy aspects to the United States Olympic Committee's announcement Thursday of the nine-member search and selection committee charged with finding a new USOC chief executive by the end of the year.

One is the committee, as previously promised by USOC board Chairman Larry Probst, includes representatives of every USOC constituent group, including two members of the Athletes Advisory Committee.

The other is that it does not include any of the U.S. sports federation (NGB) leaders who have been publicly critical of the current USOC leadership --  Probst and acting CEO Stephanie Streeter.

But there are valid reasons for not having the two most outspoken NGB leaders, Steve Penny (gymnastics) and Skip Gilbert (triathlon).

Since Penny's name has been bandied about as a candidate for CEO, it makes sense that he would not be on a search committee.  Gilbert was not interested in the role. And the NGBs backed the choice of USA Hockey boss Dave Ogrean -- a former USOC deputy marketing director -- as their representative in the search process, for which the USOC announced Thursday it has hired Spencer Stuart as its search firm.

And the search committee does include the one USOC board member, Mike Plant, willing to be loyal opposition -- both to the previous chairman, Peter Ueberroth, whose ideas had been essentially rubber-stamped by a board full of Ueberroth appointees, as well as to Probst.

Penny and Gilbert were, however, among several NGB leaders who met with Probst on Tuesday at his office near San Francisco. Probst also had a private meeting with Gilbert, who recently had called for him to resign as chairman. The feeling that emerged, sources said, is that Probst does not bear grudges.

During the general meeting,  Probst let all the NBG leaders candidly air their grievances and suggestions. A key one was that the new CEO needs real familiarity with the world of sports (and preferably the Olympic movement) to avoid a long learning curve. Whether Probst agrees remains to be seen.

Streeter and two of her three immediate CEO predecessors, Lloyd Ward and Norm Blake, all came from corporate backgrounds, were unsuited for the USOC post and spent little time in the job.

Maybe that is why the USOC won't a) pay the search firm until 18 months after the CEO is in place and b) retained the right to set the amount of the payment.  If the result is another short-term stiff, the USOC should stiff Spencer Stuart, selected from nine search firm candidates.

The search committee can recommend one or more CEO candidates to the board.

Probst reiterated to the NGB leaders what he had told the media when Streeter announced Oct. 7 she did not want to be considered for the permanent post:  That he now is willing to devote full time to the chairman's job and that he is in it for the long haul, which presumably means his four-year term that ends after the 2012 Summer Olympics. 

The most significant promise Probst made at the Tuesday meeting was for more transparency in the USOC board's activities, a move NGB leaders have been advocating for the last three years.  That will include having NGB leaders among  outside observers at the board meetings and publishing minutes of the meetings.

Now everyone interested can only hope the board doesn't sidestep that scrutiny by going into executive session to discuss everything.  I want to know what they ordered for lunch.

--Philip Hersh

Olympic all-around champions Mary Lou Retton (left) and Carly Patterson, with USA Gymnastics Chief Executive Steve Penny, a potential candidate to lead the USOC.  Photo: USA Gymnastics.