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IOC and USOC look to resolve financial issue

Posted 1h 57m ago

By Stephen Wilson, AP Sports Writer

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Adding a new global sponsor could be the key to settling one of the financial disputes that has strained relations for years between U.S. and international Olympic leaders.

U.S. Olympic Committee CEO Scott Blackmun and International Olympic Committee executive board member Denis Oswald told The Associated Press on Tuesday that a financial agreement could hinge on the signing of a new sponsor for the 2012 London Games.

The two sides are trying to reach a deal on how much the USOC should pay toward the administrative costs of putting on the Olympics, the first step toward a revision of the revenue-sharing agreement that international officials complain gives the Americans an unfair share.

The IOC currently has nine companies in its top-tier TOP sponsorship program for London, two short of the number from the previous four-year period.

Oswald said the IOC is in discussions with at least two possible new sponsors, with indications that it is "likely" at least one will sign up.

"That would help to resolve the situation (with the USOC) if you have a little bit more money to distribute," Oswald said. "For them it means not cutting too much their budget.

Blackmun, who began talks with the IOC on the issue during the Vancouver Games in February, concurred.

"If the IOC were to secure another TOP sponsor, that would make it easier for us to reach an accommodation on the games-cost issue," he said. "I think it would provide us with another option."

The two sides also agreed last year to begin negotiations in 2013 on a new revenue-sharing formula to go into effect in 2020.

Currently, the USOC gets a 20 percent share of global sponsorship revenue and a 12.75 percent share of U.S. broadcast rights deals. Many international officials think it's too big a portion.

Oswald and Blackmun declined to say which companies or which categories were being considered as new sponsors.

...

As part of that process, the USOC has sent a six-person delegation including chairman Larry Probst and new IOC member Angela Ruggiero to Dubai for the SportAccord convention, a major gathering of the world's sports and Olympic officials.

"The primary mission is just to reconnect with other people in the Olympic movement," Blackmun said.

In the meantime, the USOC is not planning on pursuing any Olympic bids.

"It's really going to be difficult to mount a bid while we have these issues outstanding," Blackmun said. "We have no present intention of submitting a winter or summer bid. Our first order of business is really to address the issues."

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/2010-04-27-2872487469_x.htm

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"We have no present intention of submitting a winter or summer bid. Our first order of business is really to address the issues."

I like this rhetoric. Not sure how the IOC is responding to this "gesture"

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I just want make clear that I do not disapprove the way US handles things in general. Except for the unilateral attitude in foreign policy I tend to support them. However, it is clear that the IOC sees things differently. And that's basically because most of the Olympic sports cannot support themselves financially. So, most of the IF members, most of the Olympic athletes and most of the NOCs depend on financial aid from governments to operate. That's a reality mainly everywhere except from the US.

However, the right to exploit the use of the Olympic brand by the USOC is also a government action to help the US. The US government might have granted the brand to the IOC or made it of public use. The legal framework that ensure the USOC this right is an indirect form of supporting the NOC.

Anyway, the point I made is that the problem is there, either you like it or not. Complaining about it won't change things.

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This is true. A lot of the track athletes and swimmers from other countries go to school (or have gone to school) in the United States. Some examples include Jamaican Sprinter Veronica Campbell Brown (University of Arkansas) and Brazilian Swimmer Cesar Cielo (Auburn University). I recall numerous times where announcers in those sports would sometimes mention the American based university that the foreign athletes attended. Track and Field and Swimming has a lot of these former NCAA student-athletes that usually represent other countries in international competitions.

Also in basketball too. Granted there aren't that many foreign born NBA players who played in the United States before playing in the NBA, but they are playing in the United States now and spend 8-10 months in a year (depending on how long their season is) in the United States, having homes in the NBA cities that they play in. Same for the hockey players. Some even end up playing hockey in either a junior league based in one of the Northern states of the United States or NCAA hockey.

But that is a partial help to other countries. This mainly means that they select high performance athletes to compete for a university. Those university athletes are recruited when they are more or less ready to produce results. Of course they evolve under a place with a superior structure, but they are already excelling in their home countries. Cesar Cielo is a case like this.

However, what most countries need is to have all their athletes training in good facilities to create improve the performance and acquire knowledge. So, they want to bring their crappy baseball team to train with American coaches and American teams to learn from them. For instance, I know some judo fighters, that were around 15, who went to training camps with the national teams from Germany and France. That's the kind of action that would contribute to the Olympic movement as a whole.

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"We have no present intention of submitting a winter or summer bid. Our first order of business is really to address the issues."

I like this rhetoric. Not sure how the IOC is responding to this "gesture"

Do you think they're more of the opinion like good you jerks don't bother, or are they like we need to work this out it could end up affecting us and our reputation in the US? I'm of 2 minds, I'd love to see a local-ish games somewhere in the US, preferably California, but I'm also of the mind that the US as a whole needs to stand up and say what's your deal you know, you can't punish a country of 309,000,000 people because some shrewd businessmen made favorable deals 20-30 years ago.

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If the Olympics were to leave NBC, would it affect Universal Sports in any way?

Well, in that it would not longer have the rights to show replays of the current or most recent Olympic Games, yes. Also, during Vancouver, Universal Sports was a large component of coverage, with really great shows, I might add, like the "Olympic Morning Buzz" and "Meet the Olympic Press". So, yeah, it would definitely be a loss for Universal Sports.

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Well, in that it would not longer have the rights to show replays of the current or most recent Olympic Games, yes. Also, during Vancouver, Universal Sports was a large component of coverage, with really great shows, I might add, like the "Olympic Morning Buzz" and "Meet the Olympic Press". So, yeah, it would definitely be a loss for Universal Sports.

They also have coverage of all Olympic sports except basketball, which makes sense for obvious reasons.

Good god, I cannot imagine all of the nicknames Chris Berman will give to Olympic athletes if ESPN gets the Olympic rights. It's bad enough he gives NFL players nicknames like Jake "Daylight's Coming Me want to" Delhomme.

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They also have coverage of all Olympic sports except basketball, which makes sense for obvious reasons.

Good god, I cannot imagine all of the nicknames Chris Berman will give to Olympic athletes if ESPN gets the Olympic rights. It's bad enough he gives NFL players nicknames like Jake "Daylight's Coming Me want to" Delhomme.

They don't have the rights to show any basketball games at all? National teams aren't the NBA.

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They don't have the rights to show any basketball games at all? National teams aren't the NBA.

Nope. This year's FIBA World Championships will be shown on ESPN. Last year's European Championships were also shown by ESPN with some games on NBA TV. The Womens World Championships are also going to be shown on ESPN. Basketball is the only sport Universal Sports does not have that is an Olympic sport. NBA TV and ESPN get all of the International tournaments due to the numbers of NBA and WNBA players on the national teams.

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At the moment, the Olympics are pretty much the only thing NBC has going for it. I think they will do everything they can to hang onto the rights. And yes, Universal Sports would be hit hard if NBC loses the Olympics. I've always seen Universal Sports as fitting hand in glove with the Olympics -- keeping people aware of Olympic sports in non-Olympic years and seasons. It definitely has a niche. I too enjoyed some of their Vancouver coverage. But WHY must they show endless re-runs of Iron Man?

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At the moment, the Olympics are pretty much the only thing NBC has going for it. I think they will do everything they can to hang onto the rights. And yes, Universal Sports would be hit hard if NBC loses the Olympics. I've always seen Universal Sports as fitting hand in glove with the Olympics -- keeping people aware of Olympic sports in non-Olympic years and seasons. It definitely has a niche. I too enjoyed some of their Vancouver coverage. But WHY must they show endless re-runs of Iron Man?

NBC has Sunday Night Football, which gives them major ratings every week for like 20 weeks. If they lose the Olympics, they will still have Sunday Night Football. Sure, the NFL isn't as big as the Olympics, but it's not like the NFL is some second rate league in the US. It's the number one league in the United States. Super Bowl 43 had the highest ratings in a while. So if NBC loses the Olympics, they will still have football. Heck, they used Bob Costas, Al Michaels, Dan Patrick and Chris Collinsworth for Vancouver and all of them (Collinsworth especially) are part of Sunday Night Football. NBC will use the London Games for the 2012 NFL Season, like they did using the Beijing Games to promote the 2008 season. It's not like Sunday Night Football needs the promotion since they are doing well, but it does not hurt.

And if Fox gets the Olympics, they will promote (ad nauseum) Fox NFL Sunday during the Summer Olympics and NASCAR and Baseball during the Winter Games. They'll end up using Joe Buck on their Olympic coverage, as well as Dick Stockton, Kenny Albert and several others. They'll also borrow a few announcers from other Networks like NBC has done to fill out the broadcasts of the events. ABC/ESPN would do the same.

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NBC has Sunday Night Football, which gives them major ratings every week for like 20 weeks. If they lose the Olympics, they will still have Sunday Night Football. Sure, the NFL isn't as big as the Olympics, but it's not like the NFL is some second rate league in the US. It's the number one league in the United States. Super Bowl 43 had the highest ratings in a while. So if NBC loses the Olympics, they will still have football. Heck, they used Bob Costas, Al Michaels, Dan Patrick and Chris Collinsworth for Vancouver and all of them (Collinsworth especially) are part of Sunday Night Football. NBC will use the London Games for the 2012 NFL Season, like they did using the Beijing Games to promote the 2008 season. It's not like Sunday Night Football needs the promotion since they are doing well, but it does not hurt.

And if Fox gets the Olympics, they will promote (ad nauseum) Fox NFL Sunday during the Summer Olympics and NASCAR and Baseball during the Winter Games. They'll end up using Joe Buck on their Olympic coverage, as well as Dick Stockton, Kenny Albert and several others. They'll also borrow a few announcers from other Networks like NBC has done to fill out the broadcasts of the events. ABC/ESPN would do the same.

NFL is the biggest domestic sports league in the world. And for being an almost US only institution I'd say they make plenty of $$$ (Sunday Ticket's last contract expansion was for $4 billion) that puts them at or near to IOC status.

I love FOX and I think they'd do well with Olympic coverage, I think if they are in it to win it, they should go full steam ahead, but I think if there's some random backroom stuff where IOC wants FOX to bid just to big up the stakes, then shame on Rupert and Fox for playing into the Olympic cabal's game.

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NFL is the biggest domestic sports league in the world. And for being an almost US only institution I'd say they make plenty of $$$ (Sunday Ticket's last contract expansion was for $4 billion) that puts them at or near to IOC status.

Yep. Which is why I think NBC will be fine if they lose the Olympics.

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I agree that Sunday Night Football is a big deal and of course the NFL is the biggest sports draw in the U.S., but NBC doesn't have anything resembling exclusive NFL rights. They just have a piece of the pie. This is most noticeable through playoffs and the Superbowl. If you say "NFL" I don't automatically think "NBC."

By contrast, NBC does have exclusive Olympic rights. You say "Olympics", most people think "NBC." Of course the network would survive if they lost the Games to somebody else, but they would lose the "feather in their cap." There's a reason the L.A. NBC offices have giant golden Olympic rings on the wall. The Olympics are a point of pride. They set NBC apart. They make them feel special. Without the Olympics, NBC would lose what little luster they have left.

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I was watching Ice Hockey between Slovakia and Russia on Universal Sports today. That's good that they cover hockey now. It does help that they are a TV partner with the NHL. Basketball and soccer are the only Olympic sports that they don't have. They have everything else: Track and field, cycling, ice hockey, table tennis, volleyball, figure skating, gymnastics, swimming etc. Soccer isn't on Universal Sports for obvious reasons: Olympic soccer isn't as big as the FIFA World Cup, plus all American TV coverage is on Fox Soccer Channel (which Fox could conceivably use for Olympic soccer if they win future bids).

Basketball is also not on Universal Sports for simple reasons as well. One of them being the fact that all international basketball tournaments are on ESPN and/or NBA TV due to the numbers of NBA players on the respective international teams. Last year was the European Championships, and all games were done on ESPN because of recognizable NBA names such as Pau Gasol (Spain), Tony Parker (France), Andrei Kirilenko (Russia) and Dirk Nowitzski (Germany). Also, ESPN is an official NBA TV partner. If the NBA had still been on NBC, you might have seen some international tournaments on Universal Sports.

It would actually benefit Universal Sports if NBC got the NBA back. NBC could negotiate with the NBA and with FIBA over TV rights to exhibition basketball games like an Olympic qualifying tournament, international exhibitions involving the United States and some lesser tournaments such as the European Championships and the Americas Championship. I believe all of those are properties of ESPN and NBA TV. You can still have games on ESPN, like they did the last time the NBA was on NBC. There could still be major tournaments on ESPN (such as the World Championships).

While I like how Universal Sports has hockey, soccer and basketball are the two Olympic sports that they don't have on their network. No basketball or soccer of any level on Universal Sports.

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