From the Olympics to golf tourneys, money crunch taking a toll on sports

By Anthony Cotton | The Denver Post • Published March 26, 2009

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DENVER — Although the Olympic flame was extinguished just a little more than seven months ago, already there are some who wonder whether the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing marked the end of the Olympics as we’ve come to know them.

“The economic climate has got to be taken into consideration; you just aren’t going to have the huge spectacle that Beijing was,” said Andrew Bacchus of United Kingdom Trade and Investment, one of the groups responsible for securing financing for the 2012 Games in London.

In these days of global financial uncertainty, it’s hard to envision any sports extravaganza approaching last summer’s Olympics in its over-the-top theater or the estimated $45 billion that China shelled out.

Indeed, as about 1,500 delegates from around the world gather in Denver for this week’s SportAccord, the conversations sound remarkably like those on Main Street: how will we weather the economic crisis? And, specifically for these leaders of more than 100 sports federations, might the economic meltdown forever change the face of sport around the globe?

“It’s a very serious issue,” said U.S. Olympic Committee vice president Bob Ctvrtlik. “These international federations have real problems. Their charge is to grow sport around the world, and they have threats to their sports.”

Robert Fasulo, the USOC chief of international relations, said he recently spoke with an official from the Danish National Olympic Committee. “As I was explaining some of our own challenges in leadership and organizationally, he said they had just laid off 10 percent of their work force as well,” Fasulo said. “This is Denmark. It’s been felt, for sure, in all corners.

“Everybody is adapting in different ways. The whole sport movement is trying to figure out how to operate more like businesses and yet keep their core sport values. Some are acting in ways similar to us, in which you make preventative measures, and others are just hoping to ride it out.” (Last week, the USOC laid off 54 employees.)

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