National Public Radio: USOC Under Fire For Olympic-Sized Missteps!

The article is filled with "finger pointing" and references as to how important the business end is in regards to running the not-for-profit USOC.

Abject anger over the USA losing the Chicago 2016 Games is rampant!

The only person who put up a rational statement was Skip Gilbert of USA Triathlon who put the focus on the athletes rather than the money."

From NPR:

"Sports is not rocket science," adds Logan. "But by the same token, it is a business in and of itself that has got its own set of relationships, which are rather unique. And to fill both of those jobs by individuals who have no knowledge or experience with sports — that's got to be rethought."

The U.S. Olympians Association, which represents 6,000 current and former American Olympic athletes, has similar concerns.

"They have a great understanding of how a corporation should be run, but unfortunately that is not what we have here," says Willie Banks, a former Olympic and world champion triple jumper who runs the U.S. Olympians Association. "The understanding that they lack is that this is a public trust. We don't sell anything. We raise money to put a team out on the field of play during the Olympic Games."

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The overall tone of the article makes me think that individual fortunes must have been lost by Chicago failing to capture the 2016 Games!

NGB presidents are calling for the head of the current CEO of the USOC to be severed and place on a pike and readily displayed outside the USOC headquarters next to those tacky statues.

Most of them are griping about BUSINESS, BUSINESS, BUSINESS. Whereas one lone voice, Skip Gilbert, is crying: ATHLETES, ATHLETES, ATHLETES!

I have a feeling that the inner workings of our non-profit National Governing Bodies; (Save for USA Triathlon), would greatly disturb us.

The photo above is of the USOC headquarters and are those statues really cheesy or what?

The US Olympic Committee CEO, Stephanie Streeter, is being forced to resign!

This is how we do business in America: Show me the money or I will show you the door.

As you know the Chicago Olympic games were vetoed by the IOC and subsequently both our President and First Lady were summarily embarrassed after having Chicago rejected during the first round.

Chicago hosting the 2016 Games summarily meant international prestige for both our President and his home town but instead both President Obama and the city of Chicago "came home" looking weaker than when they left.

The governing bodies did not like that.

The other major factor includes NBC paying 2-billion dollars for the Olympic games and this loss just messed with their return on that investment.

The governing bodies did not like that either and neither did NBC.

Compound the loss of revenue with the political embarrassment and you get yourself a a bunch of NGB types forming a posse!

From the Chron:

NBC Universal Sports and Olympics Chairman Dick Ebersol, whose company purchased the rights to the next two Olympics for a record $2 billion, made the first public call for a leadership change hours after Chicago became the second straight U.S. city to finish fourth in the international race for a Summer Games. The International Olympic Committee awarded the 2016 Games to Rio de Janeiro. New York lost its bid for the 2012 Games, which went to London, four years ago.

Ebersol and others have said the USOC's failure to connect with the international sports community and the perceived arrogance of its leadership doomed Chicago's bid. In March, the USOC's board ousted the popular and, from a sporting perspective, successful chief executive Jim Scherr, replacing him with Streeter, who went from a volunteer position on the board to earning a $560,000 salary.

Now the punchline,

[Ebersol] also said candidates for the CEO's job could include Steve Penny, CEO of USA Gymnastics, and Chuck Wielgus, CEO of USA Swimming.

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When a network CEO who paid "2-billion large" for the Olympics calls for who should run the USOC, that is a red flag that money is taking precedence over the sport.

So, let me throw in my name to head the USOC: Skip Gilbert of USA Triathlon. Gilbert has experience with three sports, has grown the USAT to 122,000 members and is not beholden to a specific manufacturer like USA Swimming is.

Does the USOC receive an "immoral amount" of IOC cash? - Peter Ueberroth spanks the guy who suggested just that!

From Boston.com:

"... "An immoral amount," declared IOC member Hein Verbruggen of the Netherlands.

It's pretty simple math," Ueberroth said in his farewell speech at the US Olympic Assembly.

The USOC gets 12.75 percent of the domestic TV fee and 20 percent of the sponsorship cash, which added up to $300 million over the past quadrennium (half of the committee's budget) and will increase to $450 million for the upcoming quad. Still, it's only a fraction of what the Americans fork over to the IOC.

NBC paid nearly $900 million for the Beijing rights (twice as much as the European Broadcasting Union did) and signed on for another $2 billion for the 2010 and 2012 Games even before the sites were chosen. And half of the $866 million from the IOC's 12 global sponsors for the last quad came from US-based companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, and Visa.

"Who pays the bill for the world Olympic movement? Make no mistake about it," Ueberroth said. ..."

[Link]

These figures are amazing. Both the IOC and the USOC are overwhelmingly, stinky, smelly, rich. I think they both should spread the wealth around a little bit more. Maybe throw some more money at the athletes.

Is the 'International Olympic Commitee' playing hardball with the 'USOC' or is it the other way around?

The IOC is taking the international credit crisis quite seriously and they are leveraging external profit centers for more money. In fact they are pointedly asking the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) to take a smaller cut in both Olympic Sponsorship deals and broadcast revenue sharing.

In none too subtle ways, the Chicago 2016 Olympic bid has been hinted as the carrot the IOC will use to get the USOC to agree to smaller percentage deals. From the L.A. Times:

Many IOC members have been applying public pressure for three years to insist that the USOC reduce the shares it gets from global Olympic sponsorship (20%) and U.S. broadcast rights money (12.75%)

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Now, though the IOC has categorically stated that they can ride out this credit crunch, IOC reserves have dropped 14% to $400-million dollars due to their financial officer making a bad bet against the dollar.

From another L.A. Times article:

As of last week, IOC reserves had dropped about 14% in 2008, to $400 million, according to IOC Finance Commission Chairman Richard Carrion of Puerto Rico. The stock market decline was an obvious reason for the drop, but another loss shows just how hard it is to hedge bets. The IOC's investments in currencies other than dollars also dropped because the dollar strengthened -- until the Federal Reserve cut interest rates to nothing this week.

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There is a Nigerian proverb that states: "When the mouse laughs at the cat, there is always a hole nearby!"

The fact that the USOC will not negotiate a compromise means the USOC is the "mouse" here and that the proverbial "hole" has got to be the massive interest USA media companies have on bidding for the Olympic Games. From AP News:

NEW YORK (AP) — CBS Corp. and Time Warner Inc. executives have discussed joining forces to bid on rights to televise the Olympics in 2014 and 2016, turning that competition into an even greater clash of media titans.

TV empires headed by incumbent NBC, Fox and ABC-ESPN have all said they expect to bid on the U.S. rights to the games. Because of the economy, the International Olympics Committee has said it is prepared to postpone its bid selection until after the host city is named next October for the 2016 Summer Games.

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Another curious thing that has been suggested is that IOC appears to be planning to wait till a host city is selected before opening the bidding for television rights for the 2016 Olympic Games. Now, if Chicago is selected, I suspect USA Media interests would bid more frantically since the US would be the host country. From Hellenic Athletes.com:

According to the IOC, a contract for the US market could be quite the bidding war as NBC, CBS-Time Warner, Fox and ABC Sports-ESPN are all reportedly chomping at the bit to televise what could be another US based games. The IOC’s main revenue source is broadcasting rights, with close to $4 billion alone for the 2010-2012 two-Games package. NBC’s portion -- long the lion’s share -- is about $2.2 billion, from a bid agreed to back in 2003.

And that is the issue -- prices agreed to many years in advance. The US rights deal has been considered the most important IOC television contract because it represents one of the largest source of funds..."

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Though I am hoping for a Tokyo 2016 Summer Games, I suspect that Chicago is the likely pick especially since the President elect of the United States has ties to that city, that there is a global recession in the horizon, and several enthusiastic USA media conglomerates are ready to go to auction. Hence it appears that Chicago is the likely candidate, and the IOC will likely place a bet on that horse.

As for the economic health of the United States and its global standing post Beijing. Our government has made a lot of bad choices. Americans have made a lot of bad choices and we share the blame for this economic credit collapse. Our government and the citizens herein generally only change when we HAVE TO and the people I associate with feel a sense of panic and severe embarrassment at this time!

Now is an opportunity for the US to change and get innovative or to simply circle the drain as we have been doing.

The "feeling on the ground" here in the US is that we are about to print up a lot of money and spend it on taking the US to the "next level" with massive energy projects and infrastructure projects like this country did in the 1930's and 1950's. I suspect Chicago 2016 will get some of that money and I bet the IOC really wants to hear that.

So, post cash infusion into our economy, I expect either a renaissance on a "Biblical scale" or the United States becoming a second tier nation in the next 30-years with a ferocious military. I for one am betting on the renaissance for that's what Americans do, they believe, and we take chances.

No stage persona here: This is probably the real Gold Medal Mel!

Gold Medal Mel is in Beijing and in this YouTube you can hear a tinge of anxiety in his voice as he foreshadows that he may be covering topics more serious than usual.

I say this because he mentions that he is spending time with corporate types within the USOC as well as USA Swimming staff. When you start speaking to people at that level, your words have to be measured and your facts have to be solid. I find it refreshing.

Jessica Hardy has removed her name from the US Olympic team

Associated Press: "...The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency announced Hardy's decision Friday, saying she did so "in the best interests of the team. ..." [Link]

Now that she has removed herself from the team and will not appeal her removal, what happens to the alternates? This whole episode has been a definitive fiasco in planning by both US Swimming and the US Olympic committee.

A deal must have been struck. I am NOT saying that Hardy is dirty; that is for WADA and USADA to judge, I just have a strong suspicion that a lot of people really want this to episode to go away and to do so quickly. Now, Jessica Hardy has provided an out.

After reading this from Bloomberg, this sort of smells like the deal to me: "...Hardy didn't contest the laboratory findings and was granted additional time by an American Arbitration Association panel to investigate possible causes of her positive test. While she received a two-year ban from competition, Hardy will be permitted to come back to the AAA panel to present evidence which could reduce her period of ineligibility, USADA said. ..." [Link]

"Speedo" and the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs did a lot of "over-promising" this week

"Under-promise but over-deliver," that is what Creative Director, Susi Watson, taught me when I worked for the Disney Internet Group.

This week a lot of promises were made in regards to swimming: We had Speedo's claim yesterday that their new speed suit is 10% more fluid dynamic than the original Fastskin and as a result provides the swimmer with 4% more oxygen stores.

Now, quoted in the Washington Post, trainers at the USOC are insinuating that they have a way of cataloging or quantifying successful tweaks in one's training. They are vague and "snarky" about what it is but this is how it is described:

"... They undertook a joint study at the training center last fall. They devised what Vint described as a "measurement thing," and Olympic megastar Michael Phelps assisted with the testing. The new "thing" helped Phelps and other swimmers, according to Vint, who hopes it will make a difference for the United States in Beijing. Prior to the USOC's change in structure, Vint said, such a partnership would never have emerged. ..."

They say they won't reveal it till September: [Link]

The proof will be in the water and as a matter of fact, Michael Phelps, Dara Torres, and other Speedo mercenaries will be swimming at the 2008 Toyota Grand Prix of Swimming this weekend at the University of Missouri.

We are only six months out from the Olympic games and these athletes have been promised by Speedo to have 4% added oxygen stores by wearing suits that are 5% more fluid dynamic than the suits they wore at the 2007 FINA World Championships. If that is the case, they all should be swimming remarkably faster than they did last year when they step onto the blocks.

As for the USOC who asserted in the Washington Post article that Michael Phelps and other USA swimmers were helped by this. "measurement thing," again, same thing, we should definitely expect faster swimming, but on the other hand, what if we don't?

The photo above is posted with permission from Business Wire and it is captioned: Michael Phelps (USA) models the new Speedo LZR RACER, the world's fastest swimsuit. The new suit will be worn by athletes in Beijing. (Photo: Business Wire)

Major League Baseball, the NFL, NBA and NHL will join forces with the United States Olympic Committee to combat doping! - Oh Really?

Well, there went my faith in the USOC as an organization dedicated to rooting out doping! This quote disturbed me most: "... As the initial founding partners, the USOC, USADA, MLB and NFL have collectively committed to contribute $10 million to the project. Each founding partner will have one representative on the board of governors, which will oversee the research. ..." [Link]

Hello? Didn't they try a similar arrangement in Las Vegas during the 1950's when the mafia had at least one representative on the board of governors at each casino so as to keep both the gamblers and the casinos honest?

Like the Mafia, the NHL, the NFL, and the MLB, they will look out for their interests only and not those who are interested in eliminating doping all together. As board members they will stall, threaten to eliminate funding, and forewarn any and all zillion-dollar athletes who generate kajillion-zillion-dollars for the league that they are suspect.

FACT: The MLB and NFL have had widespread doping for the last half-century and they knew it. NFL doping reference: [Link] MLB doping reference: [Link]

Above is before-and-after photos of Barry Bonds post his Balco make-over