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≡ WHAT MATTERS MOST? ≡
There was an amazing, 12-hour period where the Olympic Movement seemed to stop being about sports and athletes and excitement. It was about money.
It was Wednesday, 21 May, and in Los Angeles, a quickly-scheduled meeting of the Los Angeles City Council’s Ad Hoc Committee on the 2028 Olympics and Paralympics was convened.
LA28 organizing committee Chief Operating Officer John Harper gave a brief update on the organizing effort, and then a lengthy discussion among the Council members ensued, during which athletes, teams and sports had no part.
It was about money, and how small businesses in Los Angeles were going to get an important part of the billions that will be spent by LA28 to put on the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games, especially in view of the City’s budget crisis.
Council member Monica Rodriguez led the charge:
“[T]here hasn’t really seemed to be this very authentic kind of intentionality behind this work. My question is, what are you all doing, aside from some of the flashy events, to intentionally start engaging these small businesses, particularly at a time when the City of Los Angeles, in the budget, has actually proposed [cutting] a lot of the very individuals that are important to this process, on our side.
“So I want to know what LA28’s commitment is to helping to fulfill that, because if we cut off those appendages from the City of Los Angeles in some of the budget actions that are before us, then that is going to fall off the face of this effort.
“And that is a real important legacy for a lot of businesses, that we talk about, and it means a lot to our tax base at a time when the City is already very strained for resources, as you know.”
Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson added this directive:
“We have to have a standard; to measure the outcome is too late, because the Olympic Games will be over if you measure just the outcome. We need a goal, a commitment: this much of the business is going to be done with small businesses in this region, period.
“And some levers to make sure that that actually happens, or creates some consequences if it doesn’t happen.
“Because otherwise, I agree, a lot of announcements and ads in papers and making presentations at meetings is different than ‘these are the contracts, these are the ones that we think small businesses can compete for, and here are the preparation items that businesses need to do.’
“Businesses, by the way, I think I can speak for most Council members, small businesses in all of our districts are asking us, ‘what can I do to be ready, what can I do to be ready’ and I can tell them to go to RAMP [Regional Alliance Marketplace for Procurement of public contracts], but they had RAMP two years ago.
“But that doesn’t make them feel like ‘I’m doing the work to be ready to compete’ when the contract comes out. So, I think that’s going to be nature of our conversation next month.”
Council member Curren Price Jr. noted that services, as well as goods, need to be considered:
“Lots of professionals in town provide a range of professional services that should be employed now, that would certainly demonstrate intentionality, I think, and good faith, and a sense of ‘we’re really making it happen.’”
LA28 committed in 2021 to a “Community Business and Procurement Program” with goals to be defined by 31 March 2025 and a “Local Hire Program,” also with goals established by 31 March 2025, and both are late. Harper re-stated the organizing committee’s commitment to these programs and promised more information at the next meeting of the Ad Hoc Committee.
Athletes, hosting the Games, the thrill of sport had no part of this, only the City’s dire financial situation and the need for more business for L.A.-area companies and people.
Well, perhaps this was just a local issue for LA28.
Then, about 11 hours later – Pacific time – a news conference took place 7,161 miles away, in Brisbane, Australia, at the close of the third meeting of the International Olympic Committee Coordination Commission for the 2032 Olympic Games.
Asked about the milestones the IOC would like to see from the Brisbane organizers by the time of the 2028 Los Angeles Games, new Coordination Commission Chair (and IOC member) Mikaela Cojuangco Jaworski (PHI) cited:
“Venues, not just that they be finalized, but broken ground already, making a lot of progress; sport program, of course; emblems and vision.
“Another thing that I think is very interesting is the procurement process, because I think this is one of the best ways that everybody – well, not everybody – but there will be a lot of engagement, involvement opportunities.”
So, sport has a role, here was another reminder of how money plays a part as essentially a “legacy” impact of the Olympic Games before they happen, as a local economic driver.
First the City of Los Angeles and then the IOC itself, on two continents, on the same day (Pacific time).
Is this a bad thing?
Maybe, maybe not. During the Thomas Bach Era, which will end on 23 June as he turns over the administration of the Olympic Movement to five-time Olympic swimmer and former Zimbabwean government minister Kirsty Coventry, the focus has been steady on the importance and rights of athletes and the IOC’s support of sport as a social unifier and tool for peace.
Coventry has also stressed athlete rights, but the L.A. City Council members and IOC member Cojuangco Jaworski made the case for the Olympic and Paralympic Games as an economic driver for a host city, region or country, with money coming in from the IOC, sponsors and ticket buyers.
The IOC will provide a total $898 million of its television rights revenues to LA28; perhaps $200 million or so has already been advanced, with most handed to the Youth Sports Partnership with the City of Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department (which took up the remainder of the Ad Hoc Committee meeting). An estimated $437 million more will be provided to LA28 from the IOC’s worldwide sponsorship program.
Will future potential hosts target that money as just as important as the sports and venues and athletes?
That could be a danger, because chasing money often involves spending money in ways which are NOT contemplated in terms of good governance. The IOC went through a massive scandal in 1999 with the exposure of gifts and privileges to IOC members related to the selection of Salt Lake City for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games, that soured more than a decade of bids.
Again?
L.A. Council members Rodriguez, Harris-Dawson and Price are rightly more worried about their constituents than the 2028 Games, still three years away, an eternity in a financial crisis. But for the IOC and the future of the Games, the focus must be on the athletes, sports and inspiration the Games bring, not the dollars.
One more task for Coventry, starting in a month.
Rich Perelman
Editor
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