Peter Ueberroth, the new chairman of the U.S. Olympic Committee’s streamlined board of directors, has previous and current business ties to national and global Olympic sponsors, but Ueberroth told SportsBusiness Journal that a policy is in place to address future conflict-of-interest concerns for him and fellow board members.
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Ueberroth, 66, head of the financially successful Los Angeles Olympic Games 20 years ago and later commissioner of Major League Baseball, has been a director of the Coca-Cola Co. since 1986. Coca-Cola is a longtime worldwide and, by extension, U.S. Olympic sponsor and under contract through 2008.
“I looked at the list of sponsors, and I think I had about a dozen that I’ve had business with,” Ueberroth said last week after the USOC introduced him as volunteer board chairman. “I was [formerly] on the board of Bank of America,” a U.S. sponsor.
Ueberroth, the owner and co-chairman of resort parent company Pebble Beach Co., said all 11 of the newly seated USOC directors — named to replace an unwieldy 125-member board that had attracted congressional scrutiny — were vetted for conflicts.
“It was basically determined that if [a member] is serving as a director of a public company, and if that company brought any matter to the board, that individual would recuse himself,” he said. “You can’t find anybody that could weave their way through this process without having connections with a long list of Olympic sponsors or suppliers.”
The new board comprises two members nominated by the USOC’s athletes’ advisory council; two nominated by the NGB Council (representing Olympic sports federations); the three U.S. members of the International Olympic Committee; and three other independent directors in addition to Ueberroth. Those three are Erroll Davis, chairman and CEO of Alliant Energy of Madison, Wis.; Harold Shapiro, president emeritus of Princeton University; and Stephanie Streeter, chairman, president and CEO of Banta Corp., a printing and digital imaging company based in Menasha, Wis.
One of the two NGB Council nominees is former Turner Sports executive Mike Plant, a 1980 speedskating Olympian and former Goodwill Games president, now executive vice president of the Atlanta Braves.
The USOC reforms resulted from a leadership crisis after numerous high-level resignations spurred by ethics scandals.
“We’ve gone through a necessary cleansing,” said board and U.S. IOC member Bob Ctvrtlik, a volleyball Olympic gold medalist. “The caliber of the individuals chosen is extremely high, and with Peter Ueberroth I don’t see how we could have done much better.”
Steve Woodward is a writer in Illinois.
