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Show WASATCH Continued from page 10 Lillehammer, Subaru, the long-time sugar daddy of the Ski Team was leavying. That put a double-bind on the organization. Jacki knew he had a big challenge ahead. In the short term, he had to raise a lot of cash. That meant replacing Subaru with a new and wealthy sponsor, as well as netting an entire school of smaller sponsors. It also meant tightening the,belt on the paunch of the Ski Team organization that had fattened with its successes. What the new CEO didn’t see, however,-was that some members of the organization had been with the Ski Team so long as to have established their own little fiefdoms. Doing things differently, the way the new guy saw things, wasn’t necessarily in their own recipe for success. Although the word “litigation” had flown through the air as Jacki departed last spring, he apparently has smoothed things over with the Ski Team board and doesn't now want to say anything that could be construed as derogatory. “What I really want is for the athletes, the kids, to get what they need to succeed. That’s what it’s all about. That’s what it should be all about,” Jacki said in a Mountain Times interview. “The bottom line is, the only people who get hurt (by the downsizing) are the Board Chairman kids.” ut the fact is, that during his short tenure, Jacki could not reign in some of the administrative staff at the Ski Team. The alpine team, because of equipment and other costs, has traditionally spent a lot more than the nordic teams. The alpine team, too, basks in the glory of cameras and the trappings of fancy ski resorts. And that spending continued unabated by warnings of budget cuts from Jacki. In the end, he was powerless to stop extravagant spending. “When people get used to doing things a certain way, and you say you are going to stop it, it creates internal problems. There is a lot of resistance. It causes animosity,” Jacki recalled. In the end, some coaches and staff members, particularly on the alpine team, just weren’t willing to change, whether or not it was in the best interest of the over-all athletic program The Money Game Running an operation like the US Ski Team is expensive. Last year, the Ski Team spent $12.5 million. The problem is that the organization was only able to raise $10 million The short term challenge for the US Ski Team is and will continue to be raising large sums of money. But the problem with skiing in the United States is that it is not a high-visibility sport. And although the popularity of the sport MOUNTAIN grew in the 1960s and ‘7Os, it is not growing now Drawing an analogy to the National Basketball Association, Jacki explained the A-B-C’s. of raising revenues. “Sponsorships are very much a function of events. The first thing the sponso1 asks is, “What do I get?” And while sponsors of the NBA get to put their names on hundreds and hundreds of games each season, the US Ski Team has one or two televised races per year in a non-Olympic year, he noted. “The only event we had to sell was the National Championships. I had one alpine property to sell,” Jacki said with inflection. And that is precisely why “The Return of the Champions” race was created — for TV revenue and exposure That race brought back old favorites, like the retired Mahre brothers, who would race against members of the present Ski Team. “The cant ‘It's the replace made up of people understand have Development means and of some gets beat Austria,” Jacki “But our more big-D than just finding a few new ski racers. In order for the Ski Team to be successful in the long run, there have to be tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of youngsters taking up the sport each year. Back to basketball: “Kids all over this country are wearing Michael Jordan T shirts and Charles Barkley shoes,” Jacki said. “Why? Because they emulate them. But out of all those kids, millions of them maybe, will come the new Michael Jordans and the new Charles Barkleys.” And therein lies the Catch-22 for Tim : Ly ing n is work well We have a clean rganization as and lean I the source of Ski Team problems, lik allowing Jacki and hi predecessor, Howard who built his fortune in New »York City’s garment district as the very Interesting “B” in BVD underwear, came west in the mid1970s and bought Alpine Meadows ski resort at Lake Tahoe. A few years later, he purchased the Park City Ski Area, when the resort and town had fallen on hard times. Many credit him with making Park City a stop on the world ski circuit member and A long-time board chairman of the Ski Team board, Badami was instrumental in bringing the Ski Team to Park City and powerful enough to bring the annual opening ski races of the World Cup to the Utah ski resort. When things began to come unglued last season, the 74-year-old Badami resumed his seat as chairman of the board of the Ski Team 11 Lieweke Jacki Ski Team CEOs have come and gone, th board of directors has remained practically the same. Some ics point to the board Badami, athletes.” : — And we as 1OV restructuring a like said. Team Dl that by country the debt PAGE a ridiculous US small the frustration of Ski UTIVe said they succeed in getting New CEO new kids involved in the sport. In a country of 4 million people, they have 200,000 kids in skiing programs. Here, we have 20,000 And from there it is simply a numbers game, all other things being equal Drawing a team of winning athletes is much easier if there is a large pool to draw from Part of the problem, Jacki maintains is the ski industry in America. It has grown expensive but not user-friendly And the former Ski Team CEO argues that ski resorts have to begin seeing themselves in competition with other forms of entertainment, not other ski resorts “They have to understand they are competing against Disney, the NBA, the NEL, and 40 other things.” Badami who enjoy the sport, whether its basketball, football, golf or skiing In US Ski Team parlance, that’s “Development.” the generation Subaru as the team’s new patron saint. Big money sponsors, like Chevrolet, Coca-Cola, IBM or McDonalds are used to shelling out $20,000 for 30-second TV commercials. But they know, for that sum, they will reach 20 million people Trouble brewing? “When you sit down with these corpo“I don’t think anything went wrong rations,” Jacki says, “their first question in one year. The problems built up over is: ‘Is this a better investment than a 30a long time,” said Nick Badami reflecsecond commercial?” tively. But the money game doesn’t operBadami is, in the best sense of the ate independently word, the godfaof the audience. “I'm not blind. I clearly ther of the US Ski And the audience is Team. Nick referring ZoeSs coaches to next Although Badami was critical of Jacki in earlier press reports, he has now soft ened those criticisms, perhaps | too, to keep feathers from becomir fled again | think we had an organization that was not quite structured properly for th 90s,” Badami told the Mountain Time and because the demand isn’t there, television networks won't feel a need to put the races on the air and around and around it weren't happy about it,” Jacki recalls. “But the sponsors loved it They got 90 minutes of TV time and they got the commercials, too. It was “The Return of the Champions” — an event that has nothing to do with the Cup, or the World world of competitive ski racing, for that matter, that helped Jacki sign Chevrolet Trucks TIMES skiing in the United States. People like Tommy Moe and Picabo Street have to keep winning ski races in order to entice a new generation that will want to ski, want to watch them ski on TV and finally, want to take up competitive skiing ut if the youngsters can't see Tommy Moe and Picabo Street on TV because television networks and sponsors don’t believe there is enough excitement involved, then there won't be a signifi- Tim Peterson, Lieweke tions and tors to go over to set unre alistic revenue proje: Ski Team administra allowing Jacki’s head to avoid budget cuts to their programs But Badami deflects this criticism “The board is not the problem. These people (board members) are used to running big companies. They are indus try people. They know how business works Further, the chairman said, the board would not run roughshod over the CEO or undermine his authority “They give the CEO plenty of latitude Any CEO worth his salt will handle these problems,” Badami said Beyond that, Badami said the board has been open to knew ideas and dia logue and has not been locked-in t running the organization in any narrowly-defined way. “We encourage people to voice their opinions.” adami apparently isn’t deaf to complaints that recent cuts have diminished the coaching staff, perhaps further than it should have been cut, especially for nordic athletes. But he shrugs off that criticism as a minor point and perhaps one that isn’t completely justified coaching is never deep “The We've just won a Nordicenough combined. We’ve never won a Nordiccombined (until now).’ As a point of edification, Badami points to the Summer Games in Atlanta next year problems money as a source of to the Ski Team. went to the Summer unforeseen A lot of the Games,” he explained. “A lot of the sponsors went right to Atlanta.’ Badami, too, realizes that a lot o new youngsters have to be brought in the skiing picture every year It is very important to have the winners out there. We have Hillary Lind, Picabo Street, Tommy Moe, Kyle Rasmussen and A.J. Kitt. We had 26 (World Cup he victories) last year,” noted. But the TV nut may be difficult to crack, Badami agrees Continued on page 12 |