● From our sister site, TheSportsExaminer.com ●
Fraser Bullock was the Chief Operating Officer of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games organizing committee and spent the next 22 years working to bring the event back to Salt Lake City, finally co-leading the bid committee which was awarded the 2034 Winter Games last year.
On Thursday, the first meeting of the Salt Lake City-Utah 2034 Board and Steering Committee was held, part of which was available to be viewed by reporters. Bullock told the Steering Committee by way of introduction:
“We’ve been awarded the Games; it’s really a gift for us to be able to serve the world.
“That’s how I look at the Games and we’ve been given this gift of 2034 hosting, to serve the world. And when I think about that and the opportunity to bring unity to our communities, whether it’s local, national or worldwide, it’s such a powerful tool to look at the great, aspirational and inspirational lives of the athletes, how they inspire us to do better, to do more, to accomplish what we all think is impossible, to embody the Olympic and Paralympic values. …
“And this group here, collectively, is going to drive that opportunity to make sure we make the most of it that we can.”
Bullock and organizing committee chief executive Brad Wilson, a former speaker of the Utah House, explained that the he steering group, seen as an advisory and outreach complement to the Board, will meet three of four times per year, with one meeting designated to be in-person.
First up, however, is how to deal with all of the enthusiasm already percolating inside Utah. Wilson explained:
“We’re gearing up to start a listening tour. We’re going to be meeting with our host venue communities, other communities throughout the state.
“I got a call yesterday from the Mayor of Garden City [population 602], Mayor Mike [Leonhardt] up there, wanting to know how Garden City – up at Bear Lake – could help prepare, to be involved in the Olympic Movement.
“From literally every corner of the state, we’re going to be engaging and listening to you.”
And there is an overarching goal, well beyond the actual staging of the Games in 2034, per Wilson:
“First and foremost, how do we engage the youth? How do we find ways to touch kids across the state. With a nine-year runway, it’s very likely there’s kids in classes today here in this state who could be athletes in 2034.
“And so we want to make sure we do everything we can to engage the youth in this state and we have some strategies. …
“And we want to touch not just kids along the Wasatch Front that are proximate to venues, the kids in rural Utah as well.”
The organizing committee itself is going to be quite small for a while. The SLC-Utah 2034 organizers will not have any commercial rights to sell for several years, at least until the Los Angeles 2028 Games have passed. Wilson noted:
“We are engaging people right now and we have remarkable donors, who have already stood up and said they want to help contribute and really donors are the foundation we’re working from. And they are funding our efforts, over about the next 5-6 years. All of our operating budget will come from the philanthropic community, and not just in Utah, but others. …
“One of the things we did today, we approved the ability to hire, to start hiring and build our team, and we’re going to have maybe 5-6 employees this year, at the most. We’ll start out with two in the month of March and grow from there.
“The reason I point that out is that I just think it illustrates we’re going to be a lean, mean, fighting machine and be very frugal in terms of the way we ramp up towards the Games.”
Those first two staff members will be Cat Raney Norman, the four-time Olympic speed skater who was the much-respected Chair of the Bid Committee, who will lead the fund-raising effort, and Darren Hughes, the technical wizard behind the bid and who was also a member of the 2002 organizing committee.
Bullock and Wilson both pointed out that the bid effort was especially aggressive so that the usual panic starts of many organizing committees could be avoided:
● Wilson: “My job as CEO is very different than what a CEO’s job might be in another host venue. There’s a reason for that. There are things I don’t have to do as the CEO that other CEOs would have to ramp up. It’s a long list of things that were accomplished during the bid process that Fraser and his team did, that were just remarkable.”
● Bullock: “One of the things that we wanted to do during the bid phase was do as much of the early work of the organizing committee we could do, to allow the organizing committee to aspire to loftier expectations.
“And the other thing we wanted to do is we did these things to de-risk the Games, because a lot of these things have economics associated with them, and to the extent we could get them locked in, we knew what our numbers were, instead of speculating what our numbers would be. …
“Some of the key elements of [organizing committee] work that we completed: no. 1, and maybe most important, is that we have all of the venue use agreements done … we have 100% completed those and we’re thrilled with our venue partners.
“Second of all, we have 21,000 hotel rooms under contract already, and we have a few more to go, but we’re thrilled about that, and we have a Games budget that’s very thorough. Most bids, it’s hard to figure out how all the economics are going to work and so it’s a little bit more speculation. Fortunately for us, given our experience in ‘02 and given the experience with people around the table, we put together a very, very robust budget, in which we feel a high level of confidence.
“So with all those pieces in place, it frees up the organizing committee to work on things like engaging our communities and youth.”
Wilson added:
“I’ve been overwhelmed personally with the people that have reached out – and I mean overwhelmed in a good way – that want to be involved, that want to volunteer, and I think our challenge, quite frankly, is going to be keeping track.
“Because we don’t have a lot of work to do right now, but everyone wants to help. And so we don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings wen we say, ‘yeah, we want your help, but we just don’t want it yet.’ And we’re going to want it, down the road.”
~ Rich Perelman
Be the first to comment