In the Olympics, Team USA athletes have proven themselves formidable opponents with a board underfoot.
Now, competition has turned internal as groups vie for who will run some of those sports at the highest level. In a novel approach, U.S. Ski and Snowboard has applied to run the Olympic teams in surfing and skateboarding.
But it faces not only a competing application from USA Surfing, which is seeking recertification after leadership changes and reforms meant to address issues found in a U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee audit, but opposition from the international federations in those sports and concerns about compliance with federal law and the Olympic charter.
With hearings by both organizations in the past week, the USOPC’s process now moves to a more substantial audit of their capabilities before a decision, likely in the fall, about who will govern each sport, or at least part of it.
“Some may see this as disruptive,” said Sophie Goldschmidt, CEO of U.S. Ski and Snowboard. “I actually think it’s really progressive and a really smart way to look at elevating these smaller sports that have huge potential but don’t have the financial and other kind of wherewithal to really take it to the next level, and the fact that we’re willing to do it in a really collaborative way, I really believe can be a win-win.”
The USOPC had been managing both sports at the elite level in recent years after it decertified USA Surfing in late 2021 and USA Skateboarding in 2023. But it has been pushing to get out of the business of managing sports, and last year reached out to U.S. Ski and Snowboard to gauge the NGB’s interest in taking on surfing and skateboarding at the elite level.
Historically, NGBs have governed sports from the grassroots to the Olympic podium, something USA Surfing proposes to do. U.S. Ski and Snowboard’s approach would see the NGB taking on the elite team in both sports but leaving the rest of the pipeline to others to run.
For the USOPC’s certification review group, the competing applications have set up a David vs. Goliath of sorts - a small organization that has changed leadership and reformed (USA Surfing) versus one of the strongest and most commercially viable NGBs in the movement (U.S. Ski and Snowboard).
“What I’ve asked of our team is to have an open mind around structure,” said USOPC CEO Sarah Hirshland. “I want us to be open minded to understanding the boxes that need to get filled for a sport to be healthy, and then let’s figure out the best way to get there, as opposed to saying, ‘Well, here’s the model we have to fit. We have to fit every sport into a single structure.’ I don’t believe that that’s true, albeit I say all of that acknowledging that does require some creative thinking and may require us to work a little bit differently given some of the parameters that we have to work within.”
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USA Surfing is pushing for more of the standard model but faces the challenge of convincing the compliance review group that it has solved the issues leading to its decertification.
With surfing added to the Olympics starting in Tokyo, USA Surfing led governing the sport domestically starting in 2017. But in 2019, an audit by the USOPC found issues in several areas, largely around financial management, auditing, expenses and its conflict of interest policy.
In late 2021, it agreed to decertification with the expectation that it could reapply for NGB status after resolving the issues in the audit. Since then, it has changed leadership, with CEO Becky Fleischauer taking over as executive director in January 2024, and has a new board.
A small NGB operating on less than $1M in five of the past six fiscal years, according to its 990s, USA Surfing’s leaders say it has gone through several financial audits since then. It brought on Sara Pflipsen, who worked at USOPC for 13 years, as its chief legal and compliance officer, and she has spearheaded the creation of the governance and policy documents for the organization.
“We aren’t perfect. We’ll still admit that there is absolutely room for growth and to be better and to do better,” Pflipsen said. “And resources and staff can help with that, additional resources. We’re not here to blow smoke.We’ve got absolutely everything together.”
USA Surfing’s leaders have pushed back in a process that they feel has advantaged U.S. Ski and Snowboard, arguing they have the support of the sport and its athletes and are better able to serve it from the grassroots to the Olympic and Paralympic podiums.
During its hearing, it highlighted those differences, arguing that it would govern the disciplines beyond just the one (shortboard) included in the Olympics.
“Instead of being welcomed back into the Olympic family on the strength of all the work that we’ve done and the results that we’ve had, we’re now watching our sport quietly handed over to a winter sports federation whose application clearly states they have no intent to govern the sport beyond four athletes,” said board chairman Rob Pendergrist. “That’s not governance. That’s a power grab.”
USA Surfing made the case with the support of the International Surfing Association, where it has been a member since 1989. During the hearing, ISA executive director Robert Fasulo urged the USOPC to recognize USA Surfing and comply with Rule 29 of the Olympic charter, which says for national federations to be a member of a national Olympic committee, they “must exercise a specific, real and on-going sports activity” and be affiliated with an IF recognized by the International Olympic Committee.
“We recognize that USA Surfing has had some challenges in the past,” Fasulo said. “However, we also believe, based on the facts presented in their application, that USA Surfing has made real and substantial progress in reinforcing and advancing its governance structure and autonomy, especially under its new and credible leadership.”
USA Surfing has continued to support teams competing in ISA championships, and recognition by the IF remains an issue to be addressed.
Under the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act, the law that established the USOPC and NGBs, a national governing body can only be affiliated with one international federation. U.S. Ski and Snowboard is a member of the International Ski and Snowboard Federation.
“We feel there’s plenty of ways to get around that, and have been advised by the USOPC that that would be possible,” said Goldschmidt, the former CEO of the World Surf League. “It’s one step at a time in this process.”
That could include creating a new legal entity to allow U.S. Ski and Snowboard to manage the high-performance program. The scope of that remains unclear. Team USA had six surfers and 12 skateboarders compete in Paris, though high-performance pools or national teams at most NGBs are often larger than the number that makes the team.
To USA Surfing, allowing that is not in the best interest of the sport.
“It would strand it from the rest of the development pipeline and the opportunity to have that logical connection and inspiration. It’s motivating for all the teams in our entire community,” Fleischauer said. “We’re open to conversations about resource sharing. Resource sharing and partnership make abundant sense. But governance must include stewardship. … The final outcome should protect athletes’ pathways for development, elevate surfing and follow the Olympic charter’s vision for excellence in fair play and athletes voice.”
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U.S. Ski and Snowboard faces a somewhat clearer path in skateboarding, where no other entity has applied for NGB certification.
The NGB has a memorandum of understanding with USA Skateboarding, the organization that had governed the sport domestically until it was decertified in 2023. The agreement would see U.S. Ski and Snowboard manage the Olympic team while USA Skateboarding focuses on the grassroots of the sport - one that looks very different to sports like soccer or swimming, that have well-established and organized pipelines.
“We don’t need to be the NGB. In fact, we’re quite happy not being the NGB,” Goldschmidt said during the hearing. “We’re very happy for someone else to take that on and collaborate with them.”
In doing due diligence to consider vying for the sports, U.S. Ski and Snowboard found connections that make sense. At its USANA Center for Excellence in Park City, Utah, it already has several ramps - a byproduct of the crossover by athletes in trick-based sports, like snowboarding and freeskiing.
“I think we really believe we can make a difference to sports where there’s kind of an authentic link,” Goldschmidt said.
It’s not without issue. World Skate, the international federation that includes skateboarding, recognizes Skate USA (formerly USA Roller Sports) as the national federation in the United States. A memorandum-of-understanding signed last year allowed the USOPC to manage skateboarding in the lead up to the Paris Games.
Skate USA remains the only organization that can enter athletes in World Skate events, which would be needed to qualify spots for LA28. Managing the sport outside that NGB “risks to penalize U.S. athletes,” Doris Gentile, vice secretary general of World Skate, said in the hearing. “We respectfully urge the USOPC to reconsider and suspend the current procedure and engage in identifying the best process to comply with World Skate rules and the Olympic charter.”
Holly Shick, the USOPC’s chief ethics and compliance officer, said the organization is “actively working on identifying a go-forward plan.”
Representatives from Skate USA and its outside attorney did not return messages from Sports Business Journal.
Daniel Gale, vice president at USA Skateboarding, said he believes collaboration across the various organizations is possible.
“We understand as an organization that there are important questions to ask as to how everything fits into the broader international structure,” Gale said. “Any model moving forwards should be transparent and respect skateboarding’s culture. … There is really no better organization in the U.S. that understands those technicalities and the importance of those technicalities and that relationship than USSS. We as an organization believe that path exists, and we’re committed to helping build that path with both World Skate and U.S. Ski and Snow.”
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In its history, U.S. Ski and Snowboard has taken on this kind of expansion before. The addition of snowboarding, which debuted in the Nagano Games in 1998, came with friction and cultural concerns in that sport.
More recently, it took over the Para Alpine and Para snowboard teams from the USOPC in 2023.
The NGB is one of the strongest in the movement, with a projected $61.7M in revenue for the 2025 fiscal year. Its foundation has been a model among NGBs for donor giving, with $18M projected for 2025 and another $17.5M projected from commercial partnerships.
That commercial upside is one U.S. Ski and Snowboard has argued would benefit surfing and skateboarding. Goldschmidt said the NGB has spoken to sponsors who would be more interested in a program with assets in the Summer and Winter Games.
“They have huge confidence in how we manage our current partnerships and how we deliver value, take a long-term approach and just add a level of professionalism that doesn’t currently exist,” she said.
“This isn’t a power play. We’re not trying to sort of control the whole ecosystem,” she said. “We want to add value in the areas where we feel we can provide the best support and we have the best, transferable experience.”
Goldschmidt said that revenue would be driven back into programs for those sports, with U.S. Ski and Snowboard expected to hire sport leaders in each, if its applications are successful.
Michael Jaquet, CEO of the Sports Marketing Collective, said the consolidation of the sports under U.S. Ski and Snowboard would help address fragmentation in the market that often makes it difficult for sponsors to get involved. Jaquet has worked with USA Skateboarding to sell sponsorships since 2019, and prior to that he was CMO at U.S. Ski and Snowboard.
“Where the USOPC is coming from is that they have a tremendous amount of money and high expectations for LA28, and they’re expected by everybody involved, especially the government, to deliver a hell of a lot of success at a domestic Olympics that is now three years away,” he said. “Because of that, they’re trying to find solutions that are going to deliver the best results in the fastest manner possible. This is clearly that.
“(Sponsors) want this all aligned. The sports are too small and this whole thing is too fractured already for people to care about the minutiae. For the sake of the Olympic movement overall, it makes sense for people to work together and to support each other’s efforts.”
How much collaboration is possible between the competing organizations remains to be seen.
The certification review group will conduct an audit - expected to take between 3-5 months - before scheduling a second public hearing to allow each organization to address any issues. It will then submit a final report, which must be approved by Hirshland, the NGB oversight and compliance committee and ultimately, the board of directors.
“We don’t have the answer yet. We’re sort of in this process of, let’s explore everything. Don’t take something off the table for the wrong reason,” Hirshland said.
“(Operating) independent of one another entirely is not productive. Legally separate entities with some level of collaboration and defined scope and roles? I don’t know, maybe.”
