WELLINGTON, New Zealand—International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge expects another level of funding will be added to the revenue-sharing contract the IOC has with the U.S. Olympic Committee after 2020, a result of a deal reached late last week.
The agreement ends a four-year standoff between the two bodies over the amount paid to the USOC from the international body’s top sponsorship program and from its TV revenues.
Some international members had characterized the USOC’s revenue levels—it gets 20 percent of the IOC’s top sponsorship program and 12.75 percent of its TV revenue—as “unlimited greed.”
“The contracts from 2013 will have another tier of distribution than the one we are having now—and that’s something that has to be discussed, so I can’t give you an actual figure,” Rogge told a news conference Monday.
He is in New Zealand to attend a meeting of Oceania national Olympic committees.
“All the revenue coming after 2020, there will be another tier of distribution that is going to be discussed bilaterally between the IOC and the USOC,” he said. “We are going … to discuss this (third) tier of distribution immediately after the (2012) London Games.”
Rogge did not elaborate on what the proposed “third tier” covered, but said that the effect “is going to be gradual.”
The deal, cut days ago at meetings in Denver, Colo., brought a halt to feuding between the two bodies.
The USOC agreed to consider paying several million dollars in the short term in exchange for delaying the talks on reducing its take of sponsorship and TV revenues until 2013.
The USOC has long argued that American-based companies pay the majority of the money into the system—for instance, broadcaster NBC paid $894 million to televise the Beijing Olympics, more than double what the Europeans paid. So, it’s not outlandish for the USOC to take a bigger portion of the proceeds.
The other countries say that was a reasonable arrangement in 1996, when the contract was signed and the package was worth around $100 million. But that has grown to more than $1 billion, and as the amount has grown, the gap between the USOC and other members increased.
At the Denver meeting, one senior Olympic official derided the USOC’s previous offers to settle the issue as “peanuts.”
Asked if the deal was “better than peanuts,” Rogge laughed and declined comment.
“We have a very good agreement that was achieved in a very good spirit, with a sense of true partnership,” Rogge said, responding to calls from some Olympic members that the IOC terminate its current funding contract with the USOC if the Americans failed to offer a better deal.
“I don’t believe that has been the reason” for reaching a deal now, he said.
He made no comment on suggestions the issue could affect the body’s view of whether Chicago should be given the right to host the 2016 summer Olympics ahead of other bidders—Madrid, Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro—when the selection is made in October.
All four cities seeking the right to stage the 2016 Summer Games will present their bids to Oceania Olympic officials at their meeting in Queenstown, on New Zealand’s South Island, later this week.
