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.

USOC gets one right: its new communications chief

Maybe the U.S. Olympic Committee leadership is beginning to get it.

Its choice of an acting chief communications officer shows at least a little comprehension of how particular an entity the USOC is -- and that skills in one area may not necessarily work in the Olympic arena.

The danger was that the USOC would hire another person from a corporate background who would need months just to digest the alphabet soup of acronyms in Olympic business.

Instead, the USOC announced today that it has chosen Patrick Sandusky, who has spent five years learning about the Olympics -- and learning to love what they can stand for.

U.S. Olympic Committee chaos: the whole story

The top two officials of the U.S. Olympic Committee, acting chief executive Stephanie Streeter and board chairman Larry Probst, took actions Wednesday that were tantamount to an admission the USOC had failed Chicago in its bid to be host of the 2016 Olympics.

But even Streeter’s announcement she would not seek the job on a permanent basis and Probst’s decision to turn his volunteer position into a full-time commitment fell short of satisfying their critics.

Leaders of 46 national sports federations, known as NGBs, who are directly involved in preparing Olympic athletes, gave a collective vote of no-confidence in both Streeter and Probst and called for both to resign immediately.

Streeter is to stay as acting CEO through a search process Probst said should be complete by the end of the first quarter of 2010. Before the NGB statement was issued, Probst said he had no plans to resign.

NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol and NGB Council chair Skip Gilbert decried the idea that Streeter, acting CEO since March 5, would stay in her position during the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.

What the U.S. Olympic Committee would rather keep silent

The United States Olympic Committee prefers the sounds of silence.

Here is what -- or hear what -- it isn't saying:

-- There is an open spot on the U.S. Olympic Committee board of directors -- the independent director position Stephanie Streeter belatedly vacated after becoming acting USOC chief executive in March.

I have learned the favorite to fill it is Robert Bach, president of Microsoft's entertainment and devices division.

Why might his addition to the board be significant?

Like Streeter and other board members, he has ties to Stanford University. Streeter and board member Jair Lynch received undergraduate degrees from Stanford; board member Bob Bowlsby is the Stanford director of athletics; and Bach got his MBA from Stanford.

And Bach works in the same general area (hardware and software for entertainment) as did USOC Chairman Larry Probst, the retired chief executive of video games giant Electronic Arts. To my question of whether he and Bach had a professional relationship, Probst replied (somewhat obliquely) Tuesday by e-mail: "Part of his [Bach's] responsibility is the Xbox business and Electronic Arts develops software products for the Xbox platform.''

And what might that mean?

Truce? USOC boss calls critics 'vocal minority'

There already is strain in that truce between the National Governing Bodies and the U.S. Olympic Committee leadership.

Why?

One day after she made a public commitment to better dialogue with the NGBs – the individual governing bodies for Olympic sports in the United States – the acting chairwoman of the USOC dissed those NGB leaders who have opposed some of her actions as a "vocal minority.’’

Stephanie Streeter used that categorization in a Thursday news conference at the U.S. Olympic media summit, a meeting that allows media one-stop shopping with many of the country’s potential 2010 Winter Olympians and top USOC officials.

Since I had made a point of noting the truce in a Wednesday entry on this Blog, I also made it a point of questioning Streeter about the "vocal minority" label, since the more vocal critics included the chairman and a member of the NGB Council.

I also could have told her that a lot of other NGB leaders had been equally dismayed by the USOC board’s dismissal of Jim Scherr as chief executive in March – and Streeter’s previously deaf ear to their concerns since her taking over in what looked like a coup d’etat, since she was among the board members who ousted Scherr.

USOC thinking about asking Uncle Sam for a handout

For years, the U.S. Olympic Committee has noted, with a mix of pride and pragmatism, that its Olympic teams succeed without any direct funding from the government, making it unique in the Olympic world.

That era could be ending.

International pressure on the USOC to reduce the revenue sharing percentages it gets from global Olympic sponsorship (20%) and U.S. broadcast rights (12.75%) has led the USOC leadership to consider asking for government funding in the future.

"Potential government funding is one of the things we will examine as part of a longer term strategic plan,''  USOC Chairman Larry Probst said today. "Please don't interpret that to mean we will seek government funding. What I am saying is that is something that will be evaluated.''

Chicago bid spurs truce in U.S. Olympic family feud

In the interest of avoiding any negative publicity that could affect Chicago's Olympic bid, the leaders of the U.S. Olympic sports federations -- called National Governing Bodies in Olympic world parlance -- have declared an informal truce in their Olympic family feud with the new USOC leadership.

"Chicago 2016 is the most important objective for everyone in the (U.S. Olympic) movement, and that is the one thing that brings complete consensus at this time,'' said Steve Penny, president and chief executive of USA Gymnastics.

Penny also is a member of the NGB Council, meeting this week in Chicago as part of the annual U.S. Olympic Assembly. He has been outspoken in expressing reservations over the USOC board's decision to dump chief executive Jim Scherr and replace him on an acting basis with board member Stephanie Streeter.

Other NGB leaders also have been very critical of the leadership change, which occurred in March. Many wondered why it could not have waited until after the Oct. 2 vote for the 2016 host city, since the switch only added to a long-held worldwide impression that years of USOC leadership instability were back.

USOC boss shoots down would-be vultures circling Chicago bid

The U.S. Olympic Committee took a potshot Monday at the cities circling Chicago's 2016 Olympic bid like vultures.

Stephanie Streeter, the USOC's acting chief executive, issued a "Statement of USOC Commitment to Chicago 2016.''

That was prompted by recent stories, which drew attention on some Olympic news sites, suggesting Tulsa, Okla.; Pittsburgh, Pa.; Minneapolis; Detroit and Birmingham, Ala., are thinking about bids for the 2020 Summer Games. Such putative bids, preposterous at face value (The Tulsa Olympics?  Riiight...), would be out of the question if Chicago was selected the 2016 host on Oct. 2.

Last winter, the USOC had to tamp down interest in Denver for a 2018 Winter Olympic bid, which also seemingly depended on Chicago's failure. Former USOC spokesman Darryl Seibel said in March: "All our attention is focused on Chicago and supporting its bid.''

(As it turns out, a 2018 winter bid would have been impossible for a U.S. city, because the IOC has set an Oct. 15 deadline for national Olympic committees to submit the name of a candidate, and the USOC could not be evaluating winter bids while working for Chicago's.)

Doping, swimsuit farce and USOC network issues are back

(Clothes make the man: Germany's Paul Biedermann in the soon-to-be banned suit he said was a key factor in beating Michael Phelps at the World Swimming SHAMpionships. Photo: Martin Bureau / Getty Images)

Back from vacation and catching up on new and ongoing stories.  Here are some of them:

1. Watching Universal Sports' live stream of the World Swimming Championships, with picture quality that is clearer than ever, also makes it clearer than ever that the U.S. Olympic Committee should have thrown in with NBC-owned Universal rather than create its own U.S. Olympic Network (referred to hereafter as USON).  Not only did the USOC get on the wrong side of the International Olympic Committee on the network issue, it likely will spend at least $25 million a year -- with no return in the near future, if ever -- on the USON.  That could quickly wipe out the $100 million cash surplus with which the USOC began the 2009-2012 period and be even more telling after 2012, when USOC revenues are expected to be substantially lower than the current quadrennium.

 

2. I asked USON major domo Norm Bellingham, the USOC's chief operating officer, for comment about the financial risk involved (and five other questions), and he politely declined comment on any of them in an effort to "work quietly and effectively with our Olympic partners.''  That clearly referred to problems with the International Olympic Committee, which had blasted the USOC for going forward with the network announcement after being told to hold off.  "Since the announcement of our network, there have been several conversations and exchanges of information between the USOC and the IOC,'' Bellingham told me in an e-mail sent the day before I left on holiday. "Both sides have expressed a determination to reach a solution that is in the best interests of the Olympic movement in the United States and worldwide.''

Numbers game: IOC would be taxed without NBC revenues

Want to know why the International Olympic Committee is backing NBC in its dispute with the U.S. Olympic Committee over the U.S. Olympic Network?

 

It is pretty clear from the numbers in the IOC's 2008 tax filing.

 

Tripp Mickle of Sports Business Journal first posted information about the filing Tuesday. His story emphasized the IOC's $383.3 million profit on a record $2.4 billion revenue for the fiscal year that ended Dec. 31, 2008, noting it was 68% greater than the $228.6 million profit from the previous Summer Olympic year, 2004.

 

The revenue figure that struck me was $1.73 billion in global TV rights for the Beijing Olympics.

 

What the filing wasn't required to say is NBC paid $894 million of that -- a little more than half the total.