USOC May Cut Its Budget by as Much as $20 Million

The U.S. Olympic Committee, suffering from a fundraising letdown in the wake of the L.A. Games, may have to cut back its budget for the present quadrennial leading up to the 1988 Seoul Games, by $15 million to $20 million, USOC Secretary-General George Miller said Monday.

Miller said the decision on what to do will be made in December.

If the larger cutback is adopted, it would mean that the USOC will be spending a little more to prepare for Seoul than it did for Los Angeles. The budget in the L.A. quadrennial--which included all USOC activities--was $88.7 million. The budget originally set for the present four years was $115 million.

Miller said that corporate sponsorships have been slow in arriving and that current USOC expenditures are running more than $2 million a month while income has been approximately only half that. He said that many corporations are holding off making donations until closer to the Seoul Games, while, he added, “for us, it’s essential to have early money.”

Joining Miller in predicting a budgetary cutback was USOC President Robert Helmick, who said Monday the USOC is suffering from an overall softer market for sports sponsorships.

“We had a very aggressive budget,” Helmick said. “I see some adjustment.”

Miller said that although individual donations to the USOC have been coming in relatively better than corporate gifts, he still feels that there is “a general perception that the USOC has a lot of money available” as a result of the L.A. Olympic surplus when, in fact, this is not the case.

For one thing, he said, half the USOC’s 40% share of the $223 million Olympic surplus has not yet come to the organization, because the Internal Revenue Service is conducting an audit of the L.A. Olympic Organizing Committee books. For another, the money that has come has been placed in an endowment that will produce only about $3 million in interest income this year.