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SLOC says financial help needed
Posted: Tuesday May 18, 1999 08:49 PM
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- If Salt Lake City's sports venues are to open for pre-Olympics training, then outside financial help is a must, the chief organizer of the scandal-plagued games said Tuesday. Salt Lake Organizing Committee president Mitt Romney said budget cuts -- including $5 million from funds to operate ski jumps, bobsled and luge runs and a speedskating track before the start of the 2002 Winter Games -- were painful reminders of the worst corruption case in Olympic history. "We can't pretend nothing has happened in the last year, and there have been things that have happened in the last year," Romney said in an interview. "And we can't pretend that's not going to require any changes." SLOC faces a $300 million gap in sponsorships, caused at least in part by the bribery case. Last week it signed three new sponsors -- the first deals since the scandal broke six months ago. Meanwhile, the International Olympic Committee's marketing director said that, despite the bribery case, public support for Olympic athletes remained high -- although it "clearly has been a black eye for the IOC's image." Marketing chief Michael Payne said in an interview that worldwide surveys conducted for the IOC found that failure to adopt reforms in the wake of the scandal 'would cause certain erosion' in other areas of the Olympic community. But the surveys of 10,000 people in 10 countries in February and March showed 76 percent had a positive attitude toward the games and 85 percent a positive attitude toward Olympic athletes. The threat to keep the venues closed until just before the games begin in February 2002 is at the center of a dispute between SLOC and the U.S. Olympic Committee, which argues that Romney's' predecessors pledged free training access to American athletes. The USOC is aiming to double its medal count in 2002, from 13 in Nagano last winter to 26 in Salt Lake, and says the training time is a key to that goal. The dispute has delayed SLOC's purchase of the facilities as it negotiates with the USOC on a solution. Romney said his suggestion that the USOC pick up the tab was "not an outrageous request." "I think that we and the USOC have exactly the same incentive: to find ways to reduce costs and to share the costs wherever possible," he said. "I don't feel any conflict with the folks at the USOC and we are working together to try to find ways to make that work." Romney said the IOC and the USOC had been cooperative in trying to find solutions to his budget problems, including exchanges of ideas during IOC coordination commission meetings this week. He noted that proposed budget cuts totaled $98 million "and there's probably a lot more we haven't discovered yet." SLOC, he said, had "every interest ... to see if other people can help out and be additional sources of revenue. ... I'm looking for heroes of all stripes to save our bacon and to also support the games." Payne said the IOC studies were conducted by SRI, an international research firm, among 18- to 49-year-olds with "an interest in sports and an awareness of the Olympics." Because of the different countries and cultures, SRI eliminated the lowest income group from each sample. Africa was not included in the sampling. When asked about watching the Olympics on TV, 7 percent said their interest was higher since the scandal. And 9 percent said their support for Olympic sponsors shot up. Only half approved of the course of IOC reform actions. "The public sees a very elemental difference between the games and the athletes, and backroom dealings that may have taken place," Payne said. He said the clearest explanation for higher approval of sponsors was that, for the first time, fans recognized that sponsorship money was essential to stage the Olympics. Surveys conducted at the same time by the U.S. Olympic Committee found that 73 percent of respondents said the scandal had not changed their attitudes toward Olympic athletes or sponsors. John Krimsky, the USOC's marketing chief and deputy executive director, said the surveys by Wirthlin Worldwide would be conducted through June. They involve telephone interviews with households with more than $60,000 annual income, some college education and a "familiarity with the Olympics," Krimsky said. Payne's comments were the first time the IOC has discussed its marketing surveys relating to the scandal's impact. The remarks also came a week after the IOC's leading critic among sponsors, John Hancock president David D'Alessandro, said his company's surveys had found 20 percent of those questioned "have now lost faith in not only the Olympics but in the companies that sponsor the Olympics and their products." Only three percent to four percent said they were more likely to buy an Olympic sponsor's product. Payne said it was difficult to comment on the Hancock findings without knowing details of the survey sample and questions. He said Hancock had sent the IOC some information but refused to reveal the wording of the questions.
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