Ueberroth helped get USOC back in black

TURIN, Italy – Three years ago, the U.S. Olympic Committee found itself wracked by an ethics-related scandal, prompting concern that sponsors might flee.

Two years ago, Peter Ueberroth, who as head of the 1984 Los Angeles Games created the model of Olympic financing that is still in use today, returned to the Olympic movement, agreeing to take over as chairman of a USOC board that had been made over in the wake of the scandal. He promised the USOC would sharpen its financial bearings.

Now, the USOC is perhaps the healthiest it has ever been financially – a potential boon to U.S. medal prospects this month in Turin and two years from now at the Summer Games in Beijing.

The 2006 USOC budget calls for $172 million in revenue, a $37 million surplus over the budgeted $135 million in expenses. The USOC expects to achieve that surplus even while directing a 17 percent increase in funding to athletes and national governing bodies over 2002, the comparable year in the four-year Olympic cycle.

“The financial condition when the new board was elected was very unattractive,” Ueberroth said in a recent interview. “We were surprised to find that major bank loans were necessary to fund ongoing operations, and that the United States Olympic Committee was basically in debt.”

For the years 2001-04, USOC revenue totaled $557.6 million, expenses $580.1 million, a $22.5 million deficit.

“Today it’s debt free,” said Ueberroth, who went on to describe efforts to build a powerful economic model. “The only corporations that should sponsor the Olympics are companies that are extremely competitive businesses and have the culture of wanting to be No. 1,” Ueberroth said. “That marries very well with the story of an Olympic athlete, and the public identifies with those sponsors.”

Paul Swangard, director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon, said the USOC’s financial resurgence underscores the enduring strength, power and resiliency of the Olympic brand.

“The Games create these compelling stories out of – in some cases – thin air. That is pretty unique,” he said. “It’s a story that here in America everyone can relate to: it’s the hero in the making.”

The USOC’s financial status has afforded senior management the luxury of undertaking long-range planning, particularly with 2008 in mind.