Hoist a cold one: $18 mill taking chill out of USOC - IOC relationship

To paraphrase a famous utterance, the financial agreement announced Thursday between the U.S. Olympic Committee and the International is a small step in settling account ledgers and a giant leap in getting past the idea that this was more about settling accounts than reaching a reasonable solution.

The differences between the USOC and the IOC on financial issues had become so great and divisive over the past few years it seemed one side was from Mars, the other from Venus and both had chosen to emulate Ralph Kramden's threat when he got fed up with his wife, Alice, on the old ``Honeymooners'' sitcom:

"To the Moon, Alice."

The result of all the squabbling over games costs, the issue more easily taken out of play, and revenue sharing, which will remain much harder to solve, gave those of us who cover the Olympics some wonderfully vitriolic outbursts to report.

All that noise also gave Chicago's failed 2016 Summer Games bid a headache for which there was no medicine.  While it was not the prime reason Chicago lost to Rio, which was destined to win, it gave the IOC voters an easy excuse to humiliate the United States by eliminating a good Chicago bid in the first round a year ago.

So where does it all stand now, and how did the parties get there?

The war of words ended with the departure of Hein Verbruggen from the IOC and Peter Ueberroth as chairman of the USOC.

It took nearly another year for the USOC to overcome its internecine feud, which began when board member Stephanie Streeter engineered the ouster of USOC chief executive Jim Scherr. When Streeter, haplessly unfamiliar with the peculiarities of Olympic administration,  took Scherr's job on an acting basis, the USOC's constituents were so furious they tried to oust not only her but Peter Ueberroth's successor as chairman, Larry Probst, who had been looking at his post as a very part-time thing.

Streeter was forced out soon after the Chicago bid demise. Probst, both combative and chastened in reaction to the criticism, vowed to do the USOC work on a full-time basis and is keeping his word.   The USOC board then showed uncommon good sense in hiring Scott Blackmun as CEO, knowing his past involvement with the USOC would make Blackmun's learning curve a flat line.

From USOC's Mike Moran: A call to salute 1980 Olympians who stayed at home

Wednesday, I posted an essay from 1980 U.S. Olympian Anita DeFrantz on the pain she still feels over the 1980 Olympic boycott. (To read it, click here).

Here is a more anecdotal voice on the 1980 boycott, that of longtime U.S. Olympic Committee spokesman Mike Moran, who would like to see the International Olympic Committee formally honor athletes from the more than 60 countries -- including the United States -- who did not go to the 1980 Moscow Summer Games because their political leaders supported U.S. President Jimmy Carter's boycott.

-- Philip Hersh

Read more: "A call to honor all the world's 1980 Olympians who were forced to stay home"

Photo: Mike Moran was the chief spokesman for the United States Olympic Committee through 13 Games, 1980 to 2002. He is now a media consultant.

U.S. companies paying majority of Olympic freight again

By Philip Hersh

News and comment:

News:  U.S. Olympic Committee sponsor Proctor & Gamble will announce Wednesday it has become an International Olympic Committee global sponsor as well.

Comment:  Another plus for the USOC in its efforts to regain international favor -- especially if, as I suggested last week, it forgoes some or all of its share of the P&G and Dow Chemical deals to help resolve the longstanding revenue-sharing conflict with the IOC.

Coincidentally, with the addition of Dow two weeks ago, the majority of IOC global sponsors -- six of 11 -- will once again be U.S.-based multinationals.  So much for the irrational ranting of some European IOC members who try to minimize the significance of U.S. sponsors in the big picture.

Even more significant:  Dow and P&G both are paying for their sponsorship in cash -- some $75 to $90 million over four years.  The other four USOC sponsors also pay primarily cash, while at least two international sponsors -- Atos Origin and Omega -- give the IOC all value-in-kind, and Acer gives primarily VIK.

It's also worth noting the USOC is the only country in the handful (Germany, France and Italy among them)  with individual IOC global sponsorship revenue-sharing deals that takes some of its share in VIK.

News:  Monday, BMW and the USOC finalized a six-year sponsorship deal worth a reported $24 million in cash.  The German carmaker is the first foreign auto company to sponsor U.S. Olympians.  It also is providing substantially lesser amounts of cash in six-year deals with four U.S. sports federations - track and field, swimming, speedskating and bobsled / skeleton.  Bobsled also will get some technological assistance.

Comment:  The USOC was left in the lurch in 2007 when General Motors, which was headed for bankruptcy, decided to end after 2008 a partnership that had existed since 1984.  GM paid the USOC about $5 million a year in cash, provided vehicles and spent $100 million in advertising on Olympic telecasts, according to Sports Business Daily.   BMW will not supply vehicles but its cash is welcome for a USOC facing an uncertain financial future after 2012.

News:  USA Track & Field's volunteer board of directors is turning an annual review of its salaried CEO, Doug Logan, into a power play that could result in his being forced out after barely two years in the job, according to both media reports and Tribune sources.

Comment:  Just another example of the old axiom that the only amateurs left in the Olympics are those running them.

The USATF board has apparently given Logan about a month to respond to criticism in three areas, including sponsorships, athlete relations and expenditures.  His answers may determine his future.

Dumping Logan without just cause likely would not sit too well with the USOC, which spent several years hectoring USA Track & Field to reform its governance -- that reform occurred in December, 2008 -- and telling the board to stop meddling in the federation's day-to-day affairs.

It should be noted this is the third time in the past six years the USATF board has gone after the CEO.  It happened to Craig Masback in 2004 and 2007 -- and he resigned to join Nike in January, 2008.  That is the sort of meddling at issue.

And imagine how financially reckless it would be in these economic times for the board to fire Logan willy-nilly with an estimated $1 million -- and a severance fee -- left on a contract that expires in 2013.

When I spoke with him Monday, Logan referred any comment on his situation to USATF President Stephanie Hightower, an Ohio State grad who is the most decorated high hurdler in collegiate history.  When I reached her, Hightower declined to comment on a personnel matter.

News:  Star-crossed 2008 Olympian Alicia Sacramone made her post-Beijing return to competition in last Saturday's CoverGirl Classic at the UIC Pavilion. ( For my story on her comeback, click here.)

Comment:  Sacramone's return was a success, with victories in both events she entered, the beam and vault.  ``Now that it's over, it feels great,'' she said.   Sacramone will try to regain a spot on the national team at next month's U.S. Championship.

Photos: (Above) --  Olympic speedskating champion Apolo Anton Ohno on a BMW motorcycle during Monday's announcement of the German carmaker's sponsorship deal with the USOC and four U.S. sports federations (Associated Press / Evan Agostini); (Below) - Back on the beam:  Alicia Sacramone winning the event Saturday in her return to gymnastics competition after a two-year absence.  (courtesy USA Gymnastics / John Cheng)

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

Dow deal could improve chemistry between U.S. and International Olympic committees

The announcement coming Friday in New York about the newest International Olympic Committee global sponsor should be a big part of helping the U.S. Olympic Committee resolve its ongoing problems with the IOC over global sponsorship money.

The new sponsor is Dow Chemical, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.

And the USOC apparently will forgo its contractual share -- some $20 million -- of the Dow deal as a peace offering to the IOC.

Read more: Dow deal could improve chemistry between U.S. and International Olympic committees

-- Philip Hersh, reporting for the Chicago Tribune

Philip Hersh: Can USOC avoid stain from new deal with BP?

The U.S. Olympic Committee is caught between a oil-covered rock and a dried tar hard place in its relationship with BP.

In an economic climate where sponsorships are hard to find, the Olympic committee can't afford to thumb its nose at the British company that signed on as a major USOC sponsor in February.

In an emotional climate where BP looks more and more villainous to the U.S. public, the USOC may find that its relationship with BP is toxic, a four-year deal worth an estimated $10 million to $15 million notwithstanding.

Fortunately for the USOC, the sponsorship has not been activated in any visible way, so you don't see the athletes likely to be stars of the 2012 Olympic team pitching for BP.  And it's unlikely any U.S. athlete would want to be publicly associated with the company for the foreseeable future.

I mean, can't you see the cartoons and fake videos of swimmer Michael Phelps losing a gold medal because he is trapped in an oil slick?

A month ago, USOC chief executive Scott Blackmun told the Associated Press he did not believe the deal with BP was in jeopardy.

Since then, BP's reputation has looked more and more like the tar balls hitting beaches as the oil reaches them.

The USOC clearly has chosen to await the outcome of the crisis before deciding how best to proceed in its relationship with BP.

"BP is in the middle of a crisis that everyone is interested in resolving as soon as possible,'' USOC spokesman Patrick Sandusky said in an e-mail Thursday.

"Based on our discussions with them, it appears that they are doing everything they can to stop the spill and to mitigate its effects. They have agreed to take full responsibility for all of the cleanup costs.

"This is a terrible accident that has affected an untold number of people as well as our environment, and we trust that BP will continue to act aggressively to stop the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, to address the damage that has been done and to ensure that this tragedy is not repeated.''

Should BP do what the USOC -- not to mention the U.S. government and public -- expects of it by making good on all promises and properly compensating victims, there may be a way for both parties to benefit.

Many U.S. Olympic athletes and Olympic hopefuls need part-time jobs.  BP undoubtedly will have to hire hundreds (thousands?) of people to clean up the mess its mishandling of the drilling platform disaster is leaving.  While priority for such jobs should go to anyone whose livelihood has been and will be affected by the oil pollution, maybe BP could also hire some athletes who are training for the 2012 and 2014 Games.

In the meantime, as Sports Business Journal first reported this week, the USOC has landed another foreign sponsor, BMW, to replace General Motors, which did not renew its USOC deal when it expired in 2007.

While the USOC will not confirm the deal, sources have indicated the particulars of the SBJ report ($24 million, six years) are accurate.   It's all cash, so don't expect Blackmun to be tooling around Colorado Springs in a new Z4.

Of course, the way things are going for the USOC, he would be getting a BMW recall notice any day.

-- Philip Hersh

Streeter era -- or error -- costs USOC more than $1 million

The brief Stephanie Streeter era -- which should be called the Stephanie Streeter error -- cost the U.S. Olympic Committee more than $1 million.

Streeter, who spent less than 10 months as acting chief executive of the USOC, raked in $959,000 in salary and bonus compensation, according to the committee's tax filing for 2009.  Her total compensation was $1,006,336.

Streeter became CEO when the USOC board forced out Jim Scherr in March 2009.

The exact amount spent for Streeter is difficult to calculate. Their base salaries wound up nearly identical, but her bonus was about $400,000 more than Scherr's in 2008. To that, one would add the nearly $400,000 in severance, the $160,000 bonus and about $100,000 of the deferred compensation all paid to Scherr in 2009.

 The new chief executive, Scott Blackmun, has a base salary of $450,000.  He took over in late January.

The Tribune first reported in August that Streeter's deal could double the $619,507 in salary, bonuses, benefits and other compensation Scherr received in 2008.

"She would have to hit it out of the park in every way for [a total more than $1 million] to happen,'' Bob Bowlsby, head of the USOC compensation committee, said at the time.

Streeter struck out, but her total compensation wound up $1,006,336.

 

The former printing company chief executive from Wisconsin alienated nearly every USOC constituency soon after moving from the USOC's volunteer board of directors to a job for which she was painfully ill-suited, especially given her discomfort in public. Pressure for her ouster had become intense when Streeter announced in October she did not want to be considered for the job on a permanent basis.

Streeter's base annual salary was to be $560,000, but it was pro-rated to $401,045. She received a bonus of $558,462.

The USOC board signed off on that largesse to Streeter at a time when the organization had just lost three major sponsors and faced uncertainty over its revenue streams beyond the 2012 Olympics.  

Another former USOC executive, chief communications officer Darryl Seibel, also was rewarded handsomely for a reduced amount of work.

Seibel, who resigned May 5, received total compensation of $373,363 with a $171,468 severance package. That severance included what would have been his remaining salary for 2009, when Seibel went on to work five months for the Chicago 2016 bid with no compensation. The total was $5,000 more than his compensation for a full year of work in 2008.                          

 

Chris Duplanty, who received $281,747 in 2008 for what had been conceived as a volunteer liaison position, did even better in 2009, when $76,862 in severance pushed his total to $354,996. Former board chairman Peter Ueberroth had been responsible for making Duplanty's job a salaried staff position.

 

The No. 2 USOC employee, chief operating officer Norm Bellingham, received about 4% more in salary and bonuses ($515,436) in 2009 than he had in 2008 ($494,474).

 

-- Philip Hersh

 

Photo: Stephanie Streeter made more than $1 million in total compensation for an ill-fated 10 months as acting chief executive of the U.S. Olympic Committee. Credit: Ed Andrieski / Associated Press

 

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.