USOC speeding up financial debate with IOC

VANCOUVER – The U.S. Olympic Committee might resolve a financial squabble with the International Olympic Committee sooner than expected, contemplating the possibility of accelerating a 2013 deadline in hopes of improving its shaky international standing.

USOC executives met with IOC president Jacques Rogge on Monday in Vancouver, and they’ll talk again during the Winter Olympics that start Friday with uncertainty over the USOC’s future in a revenue-sharing deal with the IOC and its part of Games-time costs.

It’s a touchy topic for the USOC, still licking its wounds following Chicago’s first-round loss in a bid for the 2016 Olympics, awarded to Rio de Janeiro, and still trying to restore its image after a rocky year in which the USOC board forced chief executive officer Jim Scherr to resign then replaced him with Stephanie Streeter, who lasted a mere 10 months.

The IOC and the USOC, one of only a few national Olympic committees that doesn’t get government funding, have until 2013 to work onto the same page with a revenue-sharing agreement that sees the USOC net 12.75 percent of U.S. TV rights fees and 20 percent of worldwide marketing revenues – an estimated $750 million from 2005 to 2012.

Disagreement also exists over how much the USOC pays for expenses at the Olympics – things like anti-doping operations, an appeals court and a coordination commission. IOC member Denis Oswald said in March the USOC should pay about $15 million every four years, and the USOC agreed to consider forking over millions of dollars in the short term.

“The sooner we reach an agreement with them,” USOC CEO Scott Blackmun said, “the better off we’re going to be and the easier it will be to make progress on important fronts, specifically on our participation in the worldwide movement. … We’re going to stay in a dialogue with them as long as we need to make that happen.”

USOC chairman Larry Probst said new timetables haven’t been established but that “both sides want to move forward in a positive direction. … We need to fix some things in our relationship with the IOC and their membership, and we’re hard at work doing that. We hope that we can make some significant progress in a relatively short period of time.”