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Don't blame it on Rio or Chicago; blame USOC for failed bid
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A little Saturday-evening quarterbacking on the choice of Rio as 2016 Olympic host:
Call those criticizing President Obama's visit to Copenhagen predictable political opportunists. Don't call them knowledgeable about the International Olympic Committee.
The fact Chicago got only 18 votes of 94 and was eliminated in the first round is indication that Team Obama and Chicago never really had a chance to win the 2016 Olympics. In fact, it's likely the city would have fared even worse without the Obamas.
"Without the Obamas, Chicago had nothing,'' said Olympic historian David Wallechinsky to the Chicago Tribune.
Obama said he doesn't regret going to Copenhagen.
But what those paltry 18 votes meant is that U.S. influence among IOC members has shallow roots. Chicago had an impressive bid, the necessary financial guarantee, skilled bid team leaders. But the fact a U.S. bid city got the early boot for the second-straight time (remember New York 2012?) points to deeper issues between the U.S. and the IOC.
Yes, it is possible that the IOC's voting procedure sunk Chicago -- it's not unusual for members to give sympathy votes in the early rounds to save underdogs from embarrassment while assuming a Chicago-Rio final. That might explain the gasp heard in the room when the Chicago announcement was made.
"I actually feel really sorry," IOC member Rene Fasel of Switzerland told USA Today. "Everybody was shocked about the result. That's this kind of vote. It's more an accident. Because everybody expected Chicago and Rio in the end — everybody."
It wasn't Chicago's fault. It wasn't the Obamas' either. Instead, look to the U.S. Olympic Committee for failing at establishing long-term relationships with a Eurocentric IOC.
It's a mystifying shortcoming, having hosted so many Games already and providing the IOC with the one thing they value most -- money, through a hefty TV contract and deep-pocketed American sponsors.
The closest thing the U.S. has to Olympic royalty, at least in the IOC's view, is not the Obamas. It's Games-saver Peter Ueberroth, the former USOC chairman who is perceived by many as having rescued the Olympic movement when it teetered close to financial collapse.
Ueberroth established a corporate-driven sponsorship model for the 1984 Olympics, which turned a profit of more than $250 million. Before that, organizing committees in Lake Placid and Montreal went bankrupt hosting the Games.
Yet where was Ueberroth in Copenhagen? Despite some ruffled feathers among IOC members over Ueberroth pushing the USOC's since-shelved Olympic network, he still has value in his longterm ties with voters. There was little mention of him in Copenhagen, and new leadership at the USOC -- chairman Larry Probst and interim chief executive Stephanie Streeter, were barely known to IOC voters.
It appears they grossly underestimated the value placed on who knows who, or they might have brought along Ueberroth and may not have ousted chief executive Jim Scherr, a 1984 Olympic athlete and leader credited with bringing stability to the USOC, just seven months before the vote.
So what's different now from when the U.S. seemed to host Olympics every decade or so?
NPR's Howard Berkes suggests, and we suspect he's only half-joking, that because of rules installed in the wake of the Salt Lake City scandal, that the U.S. can no longer bribe our way into hosting the Olympics. There's something to be said for that theory, and for the fact that when it comes to money matters (TV contracts and sponsorships, where the USOC gets a much bigger cut than any other national organizing committee), the U.S. is seen as arrogant and self-serving when it comes to Olympic matters.
That's something neither the Obamas nor any of the celebrities rolled out in Copenhagen could overcome. It's also something that might take a long time to fix.
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