BOSTON ? So, when all the bills are paid, how much money will the 2002 Winter Games have earned?
Bottom-line figures from the Salt Lake Olympics ? which at a few points seemed headed for red ink ? haven't been announced yet, but the president of the U.S. Olympic Committee indicated Saturday that the final in-the-black tally will be something less than $80 million.
And that has to be divvied up among USOC, the International Olympic Committee and the Utah Athletic Foundation, the organization created to run the state's Olympic facilities.
The Salt Lake Organizing Committee isn't expected to announce the size of the profit made from the $1.3 billion event until Wednesday, at what likely will be the last meeting of the SLOC Board of Trustees.
Even SLOC President Mitt Romney, who will address the USOC board of directors meeting here on Sunday, is keeping mum. Romney, a candidate for governor in Massachusetts, won't reveal the amount of the surplus during his speech, SLOC spokeswoman Caroline Shaw said.
Nor will SLOC's chief operating officer, Fraser Bullock. Bullock told the Deseret News on Saturday only that "the overall surplus is far less than $80 million," mostly from what's left of SLOC's $55 million contingency fund. He would not provide further details.
"I think the surplus is a reasonable amount given the financial management of the Games that we had, particularly with our contingency," Bullock said. He said only "a small amount" of the contingency fund was used.
USOC President Sandy Baldwin, who is also a SLOC trustee, told reporters here Saturday that her organization anticipates getting less than $20 million from the Games. Because USOC receives 25 percent of any surplus, that means the total left over would be less than $80 million.
The IOC gets a 10 percent cut.
The rest goes to the Utah Athletic Foundation.
By contrast, USOC also made less than $20 million in profit from the last Olympics in the United States, the much-larger 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta, USOC spokesman Mike Moran said. USOC collected a heftier $139 million from the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles.
Baldwin said Salt Lake organizers "did a magnificent job of managing expenses ? an absolutely masterful job on that side of the ledger." So much so, she said, that SLOC never had to borrow against a line of credit set up with Bank of America, a Games sponsor.
The news of a surplus comes after some tough times for SLOC. Organizers feared the Games could be a financial disaster when the Salt Lake bid scandal surfaced in late 1998.
Allegations that Salt Lake bidders tried to buy the votes of IOC members with more than $1 million in cash and gifts, which led to federal charges against two former SLOC officials, scared away some potential sponsors.
The bottom line was also threatened by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against the United States. The federal government ended up significantly boosting the amount of tax dollars spent on security.
But the Games ended up being an undisputed success and were labeled "superb" by IOC President Jacques Rogge.
Now the biggest problem for organizers may be what happens to the profits left over.
Baldwin said the USOC's share won't be used to help the Utah foundation, which will operate the ski jumps and bobsled track near Park City and the speedskating oval in Kearns.
She said the USOC already has made a "huge investment" in the Salt Lake Games, including $18 million in training funds alone. The USOC and Salt Lake organizers also jointly marketed national corporate sponsorships for the 2002 Games and split those revenues.
Instead, Baldwin said, the USOC's share of the profit from the Games would go into the national committee's general fund. However, she suggested the IOC would contribute its share, less than $8 million, to sporting programs in the United States.
Bullock declined to comment on the IOC's plans. "That's their announcement," he said.
It's not clear if any of that money would go to the Utah foundation, which is anxious to supplement the $40 million already set aside by SLOC to run the facilities. The organizing committee has also already repaid the $59 million Utah taxpayers spent to build the facilities. Foundation members have said the $40 million endowment, though, isn't enough.
Also, there is concern that more money is needed to run the Olympic biathlon and cross-country skiing course at Soldier Hollow in Wasatch Mountain State Park near Midway. The course is not operated by the foundation.
Baldwin said the USOC wants to see the biathlon and cross-country course funded by the foundation. That, she said, "will be a strong recommendation from us."
One of USOC's goals "is to leave that foundation well-enough endowed so those facilities can be maintained in such a way that we can really begin to have sustained competitive excellence in the Olympic Winter Games," she said.
After both the Atlanta and Los Angeles Games, USOC received a larger share of the surplus than it will from Salt Lake. That distribution is set up in what's called the host city contract between the city holding the Games and the IOC.
Baldwin also said Saturday that the stage used at the downtown medals plaza during the Games would be turned over by SLOC to Salt Lake City. Bullock declined to comment. About the only piece of the stage that SLOC did not rent was the Hoberman Arch, a mechanical metal "curtain" that opened nightly.
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