Hazlehurst’s Blog
Insight and commentary from John Hazlehurst

USOC marketing reorganization

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Every day brings a new USOC rumor - and yesterday was no exception.

 

According to the usual unreliable source (I could tell you who she is, but I’d have to lie) USOC Chief Marketing Officer Lisa Baird will be hiring as many as six employees to staff the USOC’s marketing program, which may no longer be located in Colorado Springs. 

Baird, who previously worked for the NFL as a senior VP for consumer products and marketing, took over the position as CMO on Jan. 20.

 

Baird, who lives in Connecticut, cited her desire to spend more time with her family, which includes three young children, when she resigned from her post at the NFL. 

 

When she accepted the job with the USOC, there was widespread speculation that she would remain on the East Coast, and that major components of the USOC’s marketing division would relocate to New York.

 

So is this, in fact, the case?  Is the USOC starting to move quietly out of town, going by twos and threes rather than all at once?  We asked the USOC’s Darryl Seibel, who replied via e-mail

late yesterday afternoon.

 

“We are in the process of reorganizing our Marketing Division,” he wrote, “The reorganization will include the addition of several new positions, primarily in sponsorship sales and support.  As to where the positions will be based: we have not made a final decision, but our priority is to operate from markets that create the best opportunity for success for the USOC and our Corporate Partners.  Of course, if Chicago is fortunate enough to earn the honor of hosting the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games, that will have some bearing on where these positions are located.”

 

Is the USOC’s major marketing group moving out of town?  Or are these new hires, which may be located elsewhere, simply a means of bolstering the USOC’s marketing efforts?

 

My guess is that major marketing, in fact if not in name, will locate in NYC, which Baird may  have made a condition of her employment.  In a recessionary environment, coupled with the loss of former sponsors such as General Motors (once, as some may remember, an automobile manufacturer in the United States), USOC marketers need to have the kind of access to transportation, and to corporate decisionmakers, that our sunny little backwater can scarcely offer.

 

But given that this move may have been anticipated since December, it most likely has no bearing on whether the USOC will actually pull up stakes and leave Colorado Springs for greener pastures-even ones with better air service and solvent developers.

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Posted by John Hazlehurst on May 13th, 2009 :: Filed under Uncategorized
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Let the games end!

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The U.S. Olympic Committee/city/LandCo drama continues, with no end in sight - or if there is, the principal players aren’t talking. 

We don’t know whether the Mayor Lionel Rivera’s clandestine fundraising campaign to prop up the deal continues (to read the letter in its entirety, click here), or whether the USA Boxing still wants a $3 million purse to stay in town (to read the letter from USA Boxing to the mayor, click here), or whether LandCo can raise the $16 million required to make the deal work, or whether El Pomar is ready to drain its treasury and take over as principal funder or whether a Deus ex Machina will descend from above (The USOC supplemental stimulus bill, maybe?).

Here’s what we do know.  The deal has a fuse.  If it’s not done by the end of this month, it might never happen.  We also know that the USOC has an exit strategy.

It’s not clear whether Jim Scherr’s abrupt exit is in any way linked to the deal, but it is clear that the new leadership at USOC is less committed to the well-being, comfort and morale of the staff, and more committed to organizational survival.  If, come October, Chicago gets the nod to host the 2016 Olympics, you can expect to see the de facto departure of most of the USOC to Chicago. 

Some support staff will remain here, as of course will the Olympic Training Center, but the real USOC will be headquartered in a real city, where senior executives can more easily interact with sponsors. 

In the end, the USOC is a big, quasi-international business - kind of like, say, Citigroup on a much smaller scale.  And, like all such businesses, they have dragons to slay and mountains to climb.

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Posted by John Hazlehurst on March 13th, 2009 :: Filed under Blog
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