Olympic leaders challenge USOC

DENVER – Angry and acting like they have nothing to lose, a group of key Olympic leaders ramped up the rhetoric Tuesday over a contentious revenue-sharing agreement with the U.S. Olympic Committee.

They passed a resolution urging the International Olympic Committee to sever its contract with the USOC, increasing the stakes at a delicate time – with the bid to bring the 2016 Olympics to Chicago shifting into full gear.

“The greed of this organization is unlimited. Totally unlimited,” Hein Verbruggen, one of the most outspoken Olympic leaders on the issue, said of the USOC. “It infuriates everybody and especially me.”

Verbruggen and IOC executive board member Denis Oswald were key players in the unanimous vote by the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF) urging the IOC to terminate its long-standing contract and start negotiating a new one.

The contract, first signed in the 1990s, allocates 20 percent of the money from the IOC’s top sponsorship program and 12.75 percent of its TV revenues to the USOC. American companies provide well more than that, but the international leaders say that as the overall revenue has increased, the gap between America and the rest has become too wide.

USOC chairman Larry Probst is leading a delegation meeting with Oswald and others to discuss the issue, though no changes are expected to come this week.

“We’re looking for a long-term solution, and it’s probably not best to do it in an emotional or pressure environment,” said Bob Ctvrtlik, the USOC’s vice chairman for international relations. “It’s not easy. It is complicated. I think we need to do that in a nice, calm manner.”

That’s not the approach Verbruggen and many in the Olympic movement are taking.

They say the dispute has been on the table for four years and the USOC hasn’t been serious about resolving it; that past USOC offers have amounted to mere “peanuts” – Verbruggen’s words; and that “the way they treat us, there’s no respect, no respect at all. It’s infuriating. I have no other words,” he said.

The USOC disagrees.

“For anyone to say there hasn’t been a good-faith effort by the USOC, that just doesn’t ring true,” Ctvrtlik said.

Entering into the negotiations will be Probst and the USOC’s new CEO, Stephanie Streeter. Probst replaces Peter Ueberroth, who last year took a hard line against the IOC position.

The USOC has the ultimate weapon – the money. Best example: NBC paid about $894 million to televise the Beijing Games last year, compared with about $443.5 million from the European Broadcasting Union and $7 million from Chinese networks.

The USOC receives 20 percent of those revenues, though Verbruggen said the federation’s ability to block the IOC from cutting side deals with American TV puts up yet another roadblock.

“You know numbers,” Ctvrtlik said. “You can look at them in a variety of ways. We’re trying to completely and thoroughly listen and understand the arguments that have been made. We want to do it in calm, reasoned dialogue. Not negotiating through the press. We would like to come to a solution that benefits the Olympic movement.”

Last week, Oswald came out with the idea that the IOC might terminate the contract if it didn’t get a better deal.

The move by the ASOIF, while not binding in any way, sent a strong message. The IOC executive board meets with the ASOIF today, with more meetings later in the week.

The debate is blossoming with the 2016 bid cities preparing an important presentation for Thursday, then getting ready for the IOC site visits next month. The IOC will pick a host in October.

Both sides in the debate have steadily claimed there’s no link between the revenue deal and the Chicago bid. Chicago 2016 chairman Pat Ryan agrees, though he said he’s not so naive as to suggest some IOC members won’t link them.

“I won’t make any comment on that,” Verbruggen said. “I like the guys in Chicago. I really like Pat Ryan. I’d think they might be embarrassed with this whole thing.”