The Olympic Games

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    If you believe Republican conventional wisdom, it was Obama’s fault that Chicago lost its bid to host the summer Olympics games. However, there was so much more to the bid than just Obama, who really didn’t have much to do with it other than trying to make a speech about why America deserved to host.

     There is an excellent article by Bill Briggs from msnbc.com about Scott Blackmon, new CEO of the United States Olympic Committee http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35147038/ns/business-sports_biz/. In it, he talks about all of the missteps that the committee has taken over the years. Among the biggest mistake is the revenue sharing agreement that the committee has with the International Olympic Committee. Rather than me trying to explain it, I’ll let that part of the article fill you in:

“…..The revenue-sharing deal stems from a 1978 congressional decision that granted the USOC exclusive rights to market the Olympic rings. That act, in turn, forced the IOC to ink a pair of then-necessary — now-unpopular — marketing and TV rights deals with the USOC.
Under those contracts, the USOC is guaranteed 20 percent of all global Olympic sponsorship money and 12.75 percent of the worldwide Olympic TV rights fees. The rest of the 200-plus Olympic countries divided the remaining IOC funding.

The IOC has recently pushed the USOC to restructure that arrangement, though both sides have mutually agreed to shelve further talks until 2013. Still, one IOC member — Denis Oswald from Switzerland — pointed to the lopsided revenue shares as one reason Chicago’s 2016 bid was handily shot down by an IOC vote……”

     In short, the Chicago bid was doomed from the start due to old business deals & internal & external politics. What is unfortunate is that it doesn’t look like the United States will get another chance at an Olympics until the revenue sharing contract is ironed out.

     I highly encourage everyone to read this article. It goes into a lot of other problems that the committee has to deal with, many of them self inflicted. I wish Scott Blackmon much luck with rebuilding the prestige of the Olympic committee. Every 2 years, I look forward to watching our best athletes compete against the rest of the world. A strong committee will ensure a strong team.