The ‘E’ Means Elite Only for 2002 Winter Games

In theory, auctioning prime seats for events at the Salt Lake City Games on EBay was a fine idea.

When the Salt Lake Organizing Committee put 100 tickets up for bid for a brief period that ends today, those who didn’t get tickets in last year’s initial public sale got a chance to be Jack Nicholson for a night. All proceeds above face value--$375 for the figure skating free skates and $425 for the men’s gold-medal hockey game--will help fund the Paralympic Games, to be held in Salt Lake City in March. Do well and do good. It couldn’t get better than that.

However, the online auction has driven prices beyond what organizers imagined and put tickets beyond the financial reach of the people they were intended for, trampling the SLOC’s good intentions.

Two tickets for the women’s free skate, in which home-country favorite Michelle Kwan will go for gold, sold Wednesday for $10,100 to a bidder who bought another pair for the same amount, as well as two tickets to the ice-dance free dance for $5,600 and two tickets for the pairs free skate for $5,200. That bidder had changed his or her EBay ID in the previous 30 days to gain anonymity and did not respond to an e-mail asking if he or she is a broker. Another buyer, who also paid $5,600 for a pair of tickets to the free dance and $10,100 for two tickets to the women’s free skate, also had a newly minted ID.

So did the person who spent $3,050 for two tickets to the U.S.-Russia men’s hockey game, which had a $300 face value. As did the highest bidder, who paid $11,100 for two tickets to the men’s free skate.

Tickets for snowboarding, Alpine skiing and ski jumping have also drawn bids, but the figure skating prices stunned SLOC executives. Before you empty your piggy bank, consider this: although the money will help the Paralympics, the SLOC’s attorneys say the amount above face value probably isn’t tax deductible as a charitable contribution.

Although it’s likely many of the free-spending figure skating bidders are brokers who will try to resell those tickets, the SLOC is delighted with the financial windfall it will reap.

“We don’t really know who the buyers are,” said Mitt Romney, SLOC’s president. “Those are vanity seats, in the very front row of those venues, that would normally go to sponsors and media. We said, ‘Let’s auction them so everyone has a chance to bid for them, and the proceeds above face value will go to the Paralympics.’ If they go to brokers, they’ll in turn sell those seats to celebrities and people who want to be on TV all night.

“We expected a front-row seat would go for two to three times face value. They’re going for much more. That’s just extraordinary. It makes everybody else who has tickets say, ‘Wow, these are really valuable.’ It’s also creating a buzz around what’s been sold and what we have left. . . .

“This is not a general-public ticketing program. That was something held between October and December of last year. This is, if you will, a bit of an anomaly being offered to generate some modest funds. I’ve been at charity auctions where vast sums of money were spent, and the Olympics is a charity and the Paralympics is a charity. If Jack Nicholson wants seats in the front row at our venues, that’s great.”

Joe and Jane Fan might want to join him, but only if they skip their mortgage payments for a while.

Romney said many tickets were made available at modest prices, including $50 seats in the upper bowl of the Salt Lake Ice Center, site of figure skating and short-track speedskating. In addition, 50,000 tickets to various events were set aside for free distribution to children, and a local supermarket chain will give out free tickets to the medal ceremonies at a downtown plaza.

“We call it a barbell ticket process,” Romney said. “We’re selling a lot of seats for as high a price as we can get, and a lot at a low price. . . . You can go to the final round of women’s free skating for $50. Or $8,900. You can sit back a bit for $50 and have the same experience. We’re not embarrassed to charge the very wealthy as much as they’re willing to pay. We’re going to have a lot of seats at low prices.”

The SLOC plans to auction more tickets on EBay, for a total of about 1,000. Figure skating is nearly sold out, except for tickets purchased in premium packages, which include an array of events over several days and sell for more than face value. Single tickets can be purchased through the SLOC Web site, https://saltlake2002.com, or https://tickets.com.

A riskier route is to buy from individuals whose requests were granted during last year’s initial sale. Many are auctioning tickets on EBay, but that option involves a lot of trust and many potential pitfalls.

“It’s a real concern for the public buying that way because nobody gets physical possession of the tickets until January, and the opportunity for fraud is enormous,” Romney said. “We’re very concerned about any buyer being defrauded on the Web. We’d prefer to see auctions in January, once people have the actual tickets. I know our licensing agreement says you’re not going to resell [tickets], but we’re not going to make a fuss if you sell your tickets to a friend or family.

“And if there are cancellations because of weather, we will still deal with the original buyer. That’s the name in our database. We have to make it clear to people they should not buy a ticket until they see it.”

The moral is buyer beware--or better yet, buyer be rich.

Just Add Water

The U.S. women’s water polo team defeated Italy on Sunday to win the Thetis Cup, its first international competition since the Sydney Games. Brenda Villa of Commerce, a holdover from the silver medal-winning U.S. Olympic squad, was voted the tournament’s most valuable player, and Catherine von Schwarz of UCLA scored three goals in the championship game at Chania, Greece.

The women will compete in the Canada Cup in Montreal this week before playing a four-game exhibition series in Northern California against Australia, the teams’ first meeting since Australia defeated the U.S. in a controversial finish in the gold-medal game at Sydney last summer. The games will be played June 12 at Fresno, June 13 in Roseville (outside Sacramento), June 14 at Berkeley and June 15 at Palo Alto. The national team will also stage developmental clinics for aspiring water polo players.

Several Sydney medalists remain with the U.S. team, but Australia’s roster has changed considerably.

The U.S. men, under new taskmaster coach Ratko Rudic, finished seventh of eight teams at the Poseidon Cup tournament at Athens. UCLA All-American Brandon Brooks was in goal for the lone victory, an 11-3 rout of the Greek B team in the U.S. team’s finale. Tony Azevedo of Long Beach had four goals in that game.

The U.S. men were in Siracusa, Sicily, last week and will train in Italy with the Italian and Croatian teams next week in preparation for next month’s world championships in Japan.

Oh, Those ‘Undignified’ Lifts

Just what figure skating doesn’t need: more room for subjectivity.

The International Skating Union set the stage for controversy with its directive that, starting next season, judges must deduct 0.1 from the artistic marks for pairs and ice dance duos who perform “undignified poses/positions.” ISU President Ottavio Cinquanta cited “serious concern about the display to the TV public and audiences” of moves--performed mainly by women--such as sustained upside down splits and spread eagles while leaning backward low to the ice.

What one judge sees as undignified, though, another might deem athletic. It’s too vague to apply uniformly and will lead to some strange variations in marks.

There are more important things for Cinquanta to worry about. Start with the predictability of ice dance standings and its over-the-top theatricality. Then study the hip and back injuries suffered by elite skaters in recent years to see if too much stress is being placed on young bodies.

Here and There

The NHL All-Star game, to be held Feb. 3 at Staples Center, will retain its format of North Americans against players from the rest of the World, but the skills contests will have an Olympic theme to heighten interest in the Salt Lake City Games. The league’s plans to stage a mini-tournament and emphasize national rivalries that will heat up at the Olympics were rejected by the NHL Players Assn. “The skills contests will be done in an international format to whatever extent we can,” NHL Vice President Frank Brown said. “The U.S. vs. Canada and Finns vs. Swedes and so on.”

The family of injured skier Bill Johnson took over the operation of his Web site and is posting updates on his recovery from a near-fatal fall March 22. Progress reports are posted at https://billjohnson1984gold.com.

To the distinction of having won the first women’s triathlon gold medal at Sydney, Brigitte McMahon of Switzerland can add this footnote: She was in the early stages of her second pregnancy. She gave birth to a daughter last week, eight months after her gold-medal triumph. . . . The International Amateur Athletic Federation ratified Stacy Dragila’s world-record pole vault of 15 feet 5 inches, set Feb. 17 at Pocatello, Idaho.

Sprinter Donovan Bailey, who announced he will retire after the outdoor season, hasn’t decided if his finale will be at the Canadian championships this month or the World Championships, to be held Aug. 3-12 at Edmonton, Canada.

USA Track and Field will pay $375,000 in bonuses to the first- through fourth-place finishers in individual Olympic events at the national championships later this month. The scale tops at $3,500 and descends to $500.

Only 249 days until the Salt Lake City Winter Games.