The Latest Olympic Victory Is Golden for USOC’s Budget

The celebration at U.S. Olympic Committee headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo., when Salt Lake City was awarded the 2002 Winter Games on Friday was mixed with a profound sense of relief.

Meeting in Colorado Springs when the announcement came from the International Olympic Committee session in Budapest, Hungary, members of the USOC’s Reallocation Task Force were immediately able to increase the proposed budget for 1996-2000 by $31 million in anticipation of continued success in marketing, sponsorships and fund-raising.

For the current quadrennium, the USOC has a record budget of $419 million. But with concern that revenues would decline after the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, the task force, known not-so-affectionately as RAT, even by its own members, was formed to cut costs.

The task force was prepared to present a proposed budget of $324 million to the USOC’s executive committee at a July 29 meeting in Denver. But USOC treasurer Sandra Baldwin said the IOC’s decision to hold another Olympics in the United States allowed the figure to be raised to $355 million.

In the next seven years, Baldwin said the Salt Lake City Games could mean between $50 million and $80 million to the USOC.

“We still have to make significant cuts, but I believe in budgeting intelligently when you have limited resources,” Baldwin said. “That’s absolutely imperative or we begin to get like the federal government.”