Olympic Festival Wrapup : It Wasn’t the Failure It Once Was

Current joke:

Q: What exactly is the U.S. Olympic Festival?

A: An excuse to build velodromes every few years.

If you don’t get it, don’t worry. This multi-sport competition, held in every non-Olympic year, has been suffering from an identity crisis for years. It got so bad, in fact, that the United States Olympic Committee changed the event’s name from the National Sports Festival.

As a result, the Festival is attracting a higher-caliber athlete. When bigger-name athletes compete in the Olympic Festival, the telecasts get higher ratings and more fans buy tickets. That’s the theme of the new Olympic Festival.

As the Festival closed here Sunday, Gen. George Miller, the Secretary General of the USOC, called this seventh event: “The most successful festival ever.”

In terms of revenue, that may be true. But in terms of athletic competition, it’s questionable.

Numerous Festival attendance records were set. Ticket sales were the highest ever and were expected to come to 340,000 to 350,000. Officials expect to double the previous revenue record of $1.2 million.

“The Festival was not designed to be a competition for elite caliber athletes,” Miller said. “It’s an opportunity for the athletes of Olympic potential to come together and have an opportunity to compete.

“We have done some things that are absolutely going to raise the level of competition. We have added Olympic to the title. We have found there is a greater interest among the higher-caliber athletes to participate in the Festival. When this happens, the Festival gets better. As a result, it generates more attention.”

Miller pointed out that cable network ESPN earned a 2.0 rating, its highest Festival rating ever. Yet glamour sports such as boxing were a big disappointment, both in terms of attendance and performance.

Other sports, such as synchronized swimming, equestrian and taekwondo were sold out. So shocked were officials at the fencing competition with the sellout crowds there, that the executive director of U.S. fencing dashed outside the gymnasium to photograph brokers scalping fencing tickets. No doubt a first in the sport.

Houston, too, benefited from the Festival. The city is feeling the effects of the capricious oil industry and is economically depressed. Festival officials estimate the festival will bring the city between $20-30 million.

Whether or not the Festival organizing committee will break even is another matter.

“Nobody is going to let this be a money loser,” said Jack Kelly, the executive director of the organizing committee. “But, we are a nonprofit organization. We’re not looking to make money.”

Each year, the cost of holding these events escalates. The committee was guaranteed $125,000 from the sale of souvenirs, for example, but liability insurance rates soared from $35,000 for last year’s Festival in Baton Rouge, La., to $138,000 here. Organizers had to forgo buying catastrophe insurance, which would have cost $150,000. Because of the crisis in insurance rates, the USOC waived its $10-million liability insurance requirement.

One successful experiment was the USOC’s exchange program with the Soviet Union. Soviet boxers, cyclists and ice dancers performed in exhibitions here and were well received. The one exception was in boxing, where hecklers finally drove one Soviet boxer to challenge all comers to join him in the ring.

The USOC paid about $150,000 in expenses for the Soviet delegation.

Two incidents marred the Festival. The first occurred last week, when a hockey player was arrested for burglary and resisting arrest in connection with the theft of a car stereo. The second happened Sunday, when javelin thrower Bob Roggy died after falling from the back of a moving pickup truck.

In the competition, diving, speed skating and track produced some world-class performances. Swimming, boxing and team handball were disappointing, however.