COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.—If Olympic business is a who-you-know world of negotiations and secret handshakes, the recent makeover at the U.S. Olympic Committee couldn’t have come at a more awkward time.
CEO Stephanie Streeter and another newcomer, chairman Larry Probst, are the new point people for an organization that has two critical missions over the next several months: Trying to bring the 2016 Olympics to Chicago and trying to do well at the Winter Olympics next February.
If they deliver, their move to the top will be considered a success. If they don’t, fair or not, they’re bound to get most of the blame from the multiple groups that didn’t agree with the sudden rise of these relative unknowns.
“We’re just scratching our heads going, ‘What’s going to happen next?'” said USA Triathlon executive director Skip Gilbert, one of the most outspoken skeptics of the move. “We’re wondering, how can we all pull together to make it work?”
Streeter’s rise to the top ended a six-year period during which Jim Scherr, the man she replaced, became the well-established leader and helped restore the USOC’s reputation. Scherr’s tenure was a welcome change for an organization that went through six presidents and CEOs from 2000 through 2003, in the wake of the Salt Lake City Olympics bid scandal and other internal problems.
Now, it’s the 2016 bid that’s up for grabs, with Chicago as one of the four finalists, and Streeter’s reputation is on the line.
Awarding the Olympics is the most important thing an IOC member does, and as much as being assured of solid finances and good presentations, the members want to be comfortable with the people they put in charge.
The USOC made an unprecedented effort over the past two years to coordinate the American bid after a scattered and embarrassing effort doomed New York City’s try for the 2012 Games.
The message this time: We’re all on the same page.
But two of the key messengers—Scherr and former chairman Peter Ueberroth—are gone, replaced by Streeter and Probst.
Why now?
Streeter said there were too many things that weren’t working well at the USOC to wait any longer—that the bad economy called for a more businesslike approach at the CEO level.
Among her top goals will be improving the USOC’s mediocre use of new media—Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc.—while also trying to bring to air the USOC TV network; negotiations for that game-changing venture have been dragging on for more than two years.
“We’ve got to start using that and using it effectively,” Streeter said.
Among her biggest accomplishments so far has been getting a temporary resolution to a long-simmering argument with the IOC over revenue sharing. It was an agreement Ueberroth and Scherr never could obtain.
Still, Streeter’s rise to the top has been greeted with more skepticism than praise, and much of the talk in the back rooms and hallways in Olympic circles has been about whether this move was necessary and above board.
“You don’t just get rid of people,” said John Dienhart, director of the Business Ethics Initiative at Seattle University. “It’s expensive to get rid of people. If I were a major shareholder in a company that did this and the CEO departed for a lot of small reasons, none of which looked compelling to me, I’d worry about the governance of that.”
Streeter acknowledges the difficulties her rise has brought.
“There are many different constituencies with really divergent opinions about what’s going on,” she said. “It’s even more than I expected, and I expected a fair amount.”
To casual fans, all these inner workings don’t matter so much.
They judge success by wins and medals and success stories. The Americans brought home 110 medals from Beijing last year—the most of any country—after some experts picked the hosts to win more than the United States.
The trip to Vancouver for the Winter Games comes with simpler logistics and lower expectations—the U.S. team has never been considered a power on snow and ice.
Still, if the Americans win fewer than the 25 medals they captured in 2006. it will be looked at as something of a disappointment, and Streeter will, fair or not, take a good portion of the blame.
Same goes with the Chicago bid.
Failures in either area will give the critics, domestic and international, a chance to look at an organization that seemed to be running smoothly, see all the changes and ask, ‘Why now?’ and ‘Why her?’
“It’s her ship to run,” Gilbert said. “And we’re hoping she’s going in the right direction.”
