Champions 2026: Billy Payne

The afternoon before he was to deliver a 45-minute pitch aimed at convincing the International Olympic Committee to award the 1996 Games to once-distant long shot Atlanta, Billy Payne collapsed on the bed of a Tokyo hotel room, sobbing uncontrollably.

Nearly 3½ years earlier, Payne had set off on what most in the Olympic world thought to be a pipe dream. Inspired by the satisfaction he felt after leading a $2.5 million fundraising campaign as a member of a suburban Atlanta church, he dove headlong into a quest that would require 700 times the funds, nearly 50,000 volunteers and a methodically planned, meticulously tracked approach to wooing 87 IOC voters spread across the globe.

Initially a lesser-known candidate to many IOC members, Atlanta presented a package that yielded higher pre-voting scores than the other finalists: Belgrade, Yugoslavia; Melbourne; Toronto; Manchester, England; and Athens, the ancestral, odds-on favorite to host what would be the 100^th anniversary of the modern Olympic Games.

Bent on adding flesh and blood to the city’s meticulously crafted bid, Payne arrived in Tokyo for final presentations in September 1990, with a travel party of more than 200, including a “Dream Team” youth group that sang and danced outside the IOC hotel.

Though momentum appeared to be swinging in Atlanta’s favor, Payne knew no city ever had been selected on its first bid.

He often spoke of how the idea to chase the Games came to him while driving home from church with his wife, Martha. He didn’t always mention that he’d had two heart attacks before he turned 40, and felt called to do something both extraordinary and selfless before a third took him out.

Payne was a well-connected Atlanta real estate attorney, familiar to many as an All-America defensive end who played for Vince Dooley at Georgia. He’d corralled support from friends, then their friends and their friends, some of whom had put jobs and lives on hold at his request.

Walking through their Tokyo hotel on the day before the IOC would make its decision, Payne suddenly felt overwhelmed. He bolted out of sight, hurrying to an out-of-the-way “second room” that he’d booked as a retreat in which he could rest and think.

“Oh, God, I fell apart,” Payne said, recounting the moment recently in the office of his Atlanta real estate investment firm, appropriately stocked with mementos from one decade spent landing and running the Games and another spent as chairman of Augusta National Golf Club, at which he ushered in the first female members and modernized the commercial approach to the Masters.

“Emotionally, it got to me, looking around at these 200 people that came, all these kids, my whole bid team that had been with me for all these years. It dawned on me very seriously that I had led all of these people here as a consequence of a simple discussion that I had with my wife after church one day. And I could let them down. It was overwhelming. Never in my life had I felt that kind of responsibility.

“I was just crying like a baby.”

In a limousine on his way back to the hotel after a “Today” show interview, the former Atlanta mayor and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, who was joined at the hip with Payne through the final nine months of the bid process, was deep into his own crying jag. Like Payne, Andrew Young had asked himself the question, “What if we lose?” and broken down.

“Fortunately for me, we were stuck in traffic, so I had time to get myself together,” Young said. “But as soon as I got to the hotel, they said Billy was having a breakdown, too.”

Young went to his friend’s bedside. As Payne cried, Young, an ordained minister, consoled him.

“Billy hesitates to put his contribution in a religious context,” Young said. “But that was what I saw. I saw a young man who was in the prime of his life trying to decide what he was going to do as a part of a lasting legacy. He was led into this work on the Olympics. And I was grateful that he came and invited me to join him.”

Birth of the Atlanta Nine

Billy Payne’s Atlanta Olympics origin story opens with him looking out at the congregation of St. Luke’s Presbyterian Church in Dunwoody as he led the dedication of their new sanctuary in February 1987. Over the previous two years, he’d asked, coaxed and cajoled most of them for donations to cover the $2.5 million cost.

Cajoling friends and neighbors for money was a grind — and a thankless one, he thought, until he saw them beam with pride at the result.

Driving home from the dedication of the church building, he told Martha that he thought he’d found his calling.

“I don’t know what it is,” Payne told her, “but I’m going to think of something else that will bring that many people together in celebration and joy, and even surprise, at what they can accomplish if they work together.”

Two days later, Payne arrived at his law office before dawn, as was his habit most mornings. Taking out a fresh notepad, he began a list of projects that might both challenge and fulfill him. He still can’t explain the hubris — or perhaps naïveté — that led him to include securing the Olympic Games for Atlanta. Young thinks a serendipitously timed airing of an Olympics documentary on PBS tripped the switch. Others suggest a rumored bid by Nashville set him off.

Whatever the impetus, by the end of the week, Payne had set his mind to it.

He had no idea when the Games would next be available or how the bidding process worked. He had never heard of the IOC. But after a couple of months of fact-finding calls, Payne understood the framework. Before it could be considered by the IOC, Atlanta would have to win over the U.S. Olympic Committee, which already had begun its bid process.

“I started doing what anyone would do — recruiting my friends,” Payne said. “Most of them agreed to help, mostly because they didn’t want to see me get embarrassed. It was pretty clear that I was all-in. ‘So we gotta help Billy.’

“It just so happens that my collection of friends was really strong.”

Peter Candler was a close fishing buddy who descended from the founder of Coca-Cola, which for an Atlantan is akin to coming over on the Mayflower. Horace Sibley was a senior partner with white shoe law firm King & Spalding, which did work for Coke. Sibley brought two other lawyers from his firm, Charlie Battle and Charlie Shaffer. Ginger Watkins and Linda Stephenson had deep ties leading fundraisers and were connected to the Junior League. Candler knew Watkins, who recruited Stephenson. Cindy Fowler, owner of a leading event planning company; Tim Christian, a two-sport athlete at Auburn who later coached football there before getting into real estate; and Bobby Rearden Jr., who was in insurance, rounded out the group.

Together, they quickly became known as the Atlanta Nine, an inner circle that Payne would lean on to build support and an infrastructure around the nonprofit he created.

Stephenson remembers her husband asking how it went when she returned home from her first coffee meeting with Watkins and Payne, whose enthusiasm for the project was infectious.

“I don’t know and I’m not sure what I signed up for,” she told him, “but I think it’s going to be an adventure.”

Payne’s first priority was to secure support from city government, a requirement of any bid. Sibley arranged a meeting with Young.

“I remember thinking, ‘Can anybody really be this wonderful?’” Payne said, floored by Young’s rise from pastor to civil rights leader, U.S. Congress and a global stage. “I’m about to have the meeting of a lifetime. And, through all these years, that opinion hasn’t changed. There’s nobody like Andy Young.”

Before Payne arrived, city staff warned Young of the financial burdens left behind by some Olympic bids, which were plagued by cost overruns. Nearly 20 years later, Montreal still was paying off debt from the 1976 Games. But Payne didn’t focus on the finances in his pitch to Young. He asked only for the city’s blessing.

Rather than reaching for Young’s wallet, Payne tugged at his heart.

“Everybody told me Andy’s Achilles’ heel is his love for kids and youth, so my whole spiel was how we’re going to inspire all these future young athletes and see the world come together,” Payne said. “Everybody is saying Atlanta is the jewel of the American South. Let’s just expand that definition to an international acceptance and admiration.”

Though Payne didn’t know it, Young already had given thought to an Atlanta Olympics. He’d spoken with L.A. Mayor Tom Bradley about the ’84 Games, which were privately funded and a rousing success. Young even had considered the role he could play. Coming upon a list of the 87 countries with IOC votes, Young counted 59 in which he “knew somebody or knew somebody who knew somebody,” thanks to his time spent as a U.N. ambassador.

“As far as I was concerned, though nobody else knew that, for me it was a done deal as soon as Billy said he wanted to go for it,” Young said. “So when he did, I said ‘I’m with you.’”

To get its crack at the IOC, Atlanta first had to be selected by the USOC. Pit against Minneapolis-St. Paul, Payne began to hone Atlanta’s message, positioning the city as a capable host led by a mayor with global ties. While Minneapolis focused on its facilities and commitment to amateur sports, Atlanta sold itself as the candidate that would give the U.S. the best chance to win.

A majority of USOC members agreed.

Its selection as the U.S. bid city secured, the Atlanta committee turned its attention to the herculean task of courting the nearly 90 IOC members holding votes.

With 28 months to work with, Payne set a goal of someone from his group meeting each IOC member at least four times before the vote. Some of those might come at large meetings that many members attended. But the expectation was to also meet each of them individually, preferably in their homes, and convince them all to come to Atlanta, a city most hadn’t visited.

While other bid cities attended IOC meetings and entertained members at site visits, none layered on an authentically Southern touch that Atlanta introduced. Rather than hosting IOC members at premier restaurants as others did, Payne decreed that they be entertained at intimate dinner parties held at the homes of some of the more affluent Atlanta Nine members.

When word of the parties spread, others volunteered to host.

“It was not the norm — and maybe, unintentionally, the best decision I ever made,” Payne said. “We weren’t going to do what others were doing. We were going to do it the Southern way: Take them to our homes. As affluent and successful as all these [IOC members] were, it was clear they were not used to going to people’s homes to be entertained. We did that because, after all, we’re the American South. That’s what you do. You embrace people like they’re members of your family.

“We didn’t think of it strategically, though it turned out to be. This is what we’ve been doing our whole lives.”

Rather than assigning committee members to regions or countries, Payne let relationships develop organically. If one of the Atlanta Nine hit it off with a voter at a larger gathering, they’d be the one to make the trip to visit them.

“The one thing Billy realized is that this wasn’t a chamber of commerce, we’ve got a big airport and lots of hotels kind of thing,” said Battle, who eventually went to work full time for the committee as managing director for international relations. “This was about relationships. And it was all about winning the trust and confidence of the people who were going to vote. He was committed to that and that’s what we knew. And everything we did was built around making friends with these people.”

Payne kept meticulous track of who met with whom, developing dossiers to make sure that their eventual visit to Atlanta suited their personalities and preferences.

They ended up convincing 68 voters to visit, about 90% of what they thought possible when considering travel bans and geopolitical factors, Payne said. When the IOC held its annual meeting in Puerto Rico one year before the vote, Payne took advantage of their proximity, pushing voters to swing by on their way to or from the island. Atlanta hosted 27 members in two phases, entertaining them at 21 dinners in volunteers’ homes.

“Your bid book is important,” Payne said. “Everything is important. But at the end of the day, it’s like everything else: People vote for their friends. We realized from Day 1, it was critical that we made true friendships with these people and did whatever it took to do that.”

Young’s involvement proved to be essential. When he finished his second term as mayor at the end of 1990 — nine months ahead of the IOC vote — he signed on as chairman of the bid effort, with Payne as CEO and new Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson joining the group. Young opened doors across continents, especially in Africa, where he’d engaged on diplomacy and maintained relationships during his time at the U.N.

Payne thought the contrasts of their diversity — Young, a Black preacher and politician; Payne, a white real estate lawyer — strengthened Atlanta’s bid efforts.

“Atlanta was already being referred to as the best example of a partnership between the Black and white communities,” Payne said. “We were able to prosper, even in the deep American South. We were proud of that and wanted the whole world to know that. And, the world got to know that. How could they not? Andy and I went to countries around the world hugging each other.

“We’d always say, ‘[Atlanta] is not perfect, but we’re better than everybody else.’ And we believed that passionately.”

In Atlanta, Payne was at work corralling corporate support to fund what would amount to a $7.5 million sales effort. Roundly rebuffed when he approached Atlanta’s larger companies ahead of the bid to the USOC, Payne had more success once they saw he’d put the city on a global stage.

“I feel confident that, without exception, the corporate community felt they were just wasting their money,” Payne said. “None of them could have possibly thought that we could win. But we had the Atlanta Nine and we had Andy Young. My guess would be that they concluded, ‘Well, the cat is out of the bag and we don’t want Atlanta to be embarrassed. So maybe we should support this.’ And they did.”

A crowd of about 2,000 assembled to watch the announcement from Tokyo on screens at a downtown Atlanta plaza. An estimated 50,000 attended the ticker-tape parade to celebrate the selection when the bid committee returned home. Atlantans were so hungry to show off their win that the USOC granted a 90-day window to sell licensed gear, a right typically reserved for the upcoming host, which at that time was Sydney.

“It’s still the hottest hot market that I’ve ever been associated with,” said Diamond Baseball co-founder Pat Battle, who has been friends with Payne since his prior company handled the licensing.

In Tokyo, Payne and Young shared a weary, teary hug.

“I think it’s fair to say that the joy and pride and celebration, at least for the first several hours, was secondary to — it was over,” Payne said. “The contribution and expenditure of time and effort for that long, all for one objective, is a heavy stress. To know that, regardless of the outcome, that heavy pressure and burden is gone, was a good feeling.”

Payne returned to Atlanta to celebrate — and begin more work.

“When we won,” Young said, “we were broke.”

‘Hugh McColl saved us’

When they returned to Atlanta, Young headed directly to his office, at which he was greeted by a call from Hugh McColl, CEO of the bank NCNB, which was changing its name to NationsBank as the result of a massive merger that included Atlanta’s largest bank, C&S. Still mayor when McColl made the acquisition, Young had sent McColl a note suggesting that the best way to gain acceptance in Atlanta would be to support the Games financially if Atlanta won.

McColl was calling to say he wanted to be the first to do so. The C&S building was about six blocks from the Atlanta organizing committee’s offices. McColl could be there in 15 minutes if they wanted to talk.

“I called Billy and said, ‘You better come on down here,’” Young recalled. “‘Hugh McColl is walking over.’”

Penciling out how Atlanta would fund the Games’ $1.7 billion budget, Payne considered three obvious buckets: TV rights, ticket sales and sponsorships. To hit their number, they would have to charge $40 million for the top tier of U.S. sponsor rights they controlled, quadrupling the rate companies paid in L.A. in 1984.

When Payne floated that number before Atlanta won the Games, few companies would even take his call, Payne said. But McColl didn’t blink.

“I just spent $90 million changing the name on this bank,” Young recalled him saying. “I’ll probably get more good out of the Olympics.”

They had their first deal.

“Hugh McColl is the one, the first and the most important, of all the people who bought in at that outrageous amount of money, because of the circumstances,” Payne said. “I don’t even know if he ever evaluated what it was worth. He just said, we gotta do something about this bad publicity we’re getting buying Atlanta’s flagship bank.”

More deals soon followed. By the time of the Games, they had lined up 42 companies that together delivered about $540 million.

“All those people who had kicked me out of their office the previous six months when I was introducing the $40 million deal to the great corporations of America, all the ones that laughed at me, I went back to see,” Payne said. “And I said, ‘You’re not going to believe this, this little itty-bitty bank from North Carolina just agreed to $40 million. They don’t even have a national footprint.’ And so, over the next six months, they all fell in.

“Hugh McColl saved us.”

For the first time, the same person who led a city’s effort to land the Games was charged with running them.

“He worked harder than anybody,” said Stephenson, whose primary role was securing volunteers. “He was there 24/7. He had a river of ideas that would just come at you. You’d go, ‘Maybe that might not work.’ But he’d say, ‘You get out there and try it and see.’ He’d inspire you to go out and try something that you thought wouldn’t work — but it did. It was never boring.”

The ’96 Games were the first to attract athletes from all 197 IOC member nations, hosting a record 10,318 athletes. The 8.32 million tickets sold set a record that held until 2024, bringing in $420 million. Coupled with record sponsor revenue and a solid TV take, the Games turned a profit of $19 million.

“In everything he did, you sensed his dedication,” Young said. “This wasn’t about Billy trying to be important. This was about Billy trying to do something for his city and state, who had treated him very well. This was not a stepping stone to something else. This was, ‘If I can do one thing before I die, let me try to do this.’”

A Perfect Job

Fourteen months after the Games concluded, Payne turned 50.

He knew he needed to downshift after a decade of 16-hour workdays; he was “completely worn out.” Payne wanted to spend fewer days on the road and be a more present husband. He briefly considered taking time off, but that didn’t suit him. In 1997, he accepted an invitation for membership at Augusta National.

Payne spent 18 months as vice chair at NationsBank, reporting to McColl. He took a crack at an internet startup. He was managing partner of an investment bank. He found that a decade as leader of a vast, high-profile operation had spoiled him.

“I realized that to commit my effort and whatever intellect I had left under somebody else’s direction, I would be doing them a disservice,” Payne said. “When I finished [the Olympics], I said I was going to do my own thing. And that’s what I needed to do.”

Payne found his next big thing in 2006, when he was named chairman of Augusta National, in part thanks to the support of old friend and fellow member McColl.

Charlie Battle knew the chairman’s role at Augusta was perfect for his old friend when he heard about an inspection of the course Payne made with the grounds superintendent shortly before taking the job. When he pointed out a failing tree that might have to be taken down, Payne asked what the process was to do that.

“All you have to do is tell me,” the grounds superintendent said.

“That’s when he knew he was in charge,” Battle said, chuckling. “And Billy likes being in charge. Not to say he’s not a good delegator, but he will make sure you know how he wants things done.

“That was a perfect job for him, and he did it amazingly well.”

Payne shifts in his chair and his posture straightens when the topic comes up during an interview.

“We don’t talk about it,” Payne said, explaining a long-standing tradition of Augusta chairmen remaining mum on club matters after retiring, as Payne did in 2017. “I love that.”

In his 11 years as chairman, Augusta National:

• Welcomed its first female members, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and investment banker Darla Moore, after a decade of public pressure.

• Created 90,000-square-foot hospitality area Berckmans Place, developed on land the club purchased near the fifth fairway. A major upgrade on what Augusta previously offered, it included five restaurants, a store with exclusive merchandise and three replica greens.

• Expanded TV coverage to include the Wednesday par-3 contest, along with more hours.

• Created Asia-Pacific and Latin America amateur tournaments, with winners securing Masters invitations.

• Opened the course to a drive, chip and putt contest for junior golfers, held on the Sunday before the Masters.

• Launched the event’s first mobile app and licensed its first video game, by EA and co-branded with Tiger Woods.

“The impact he’s had on the world of golf — he will never get enough credit for it,” said Pat Battle (no relation to Charlie Battle), a fellow Augusta member. “He’s just a visionary in every sense of the word. From the crazy dream to bring the Olympics to Atlanta, which made him a hero, to the things he created from thin air in the golf world, it’s pretty remarkable.”

Payne declined to discuss any of those Augusta creations in detail.

Asked about admitting women: “I’ll speak for me, specifically. I was always going to do the right thing. But I don’t need to be pushed.”

About how he was able to innovate a property often viewed as intractable: “I don’t want to get specific about how it works, but it is definitely, purposefully, a chairman-dominated environment.”

About the expansion of broadcast hours and days: “I’ll respond to that generally, as a person educated in the field of media rights. The willingness of various broadcasters to pay these enormous rights has a limitation. And the limitation is, if you want us to pay that amount of money, we need to be able to telecast a certain number of minutes on certain days.”

“If you want to know anything about Augusta National, you have to ask the current chairman,” Payne said. “Augusta National, the institution, speaks for itself.”

An active life

In 2004, Payne and son Porter founded Centennial Holding Company, a real estate investment firm that he chairs. He is at his desk by 7 most mornings, working through lunch before retiring to his nearby Buckhead home, where he often spends afternoons fiddling with his fishing gear.

Payne proudly compares his basement to a Bass Pro Shop, a 70-foot-long, 15-foot-wide stretch of racks, shelves and cubbies that is home to about 75 rods and reels.

He no longer fishes often, unable to sit comfortably in a boat because of an ailing back that he traces to football. His first back surgery came shortly after the Olympics. The latest, earlier this year, included the installation of a spinal cord stimulator, a low-voltage device meant to block pain signals to his brain.

He’s contemplating having them turn it up a notch.

Sadly, golf is out, too. But Payne still enjoys the benefits of Augusta National membership, visiting with friends at member parties and securing tee times for guests. Last month, he invited daughter Elizabeth, who has gone gaga for golf since turning 50, to play the course for the first time, joined by two friends.

His only request is that they maintain a crisp pace.

“If you’re willing to bust your ass to learn something or do something, you can be pretty successful at it,” Payne said of his philosophy on learning. “I’ve tried with my children, and my great-grandchildren now, to try to teach them that when they’re disappointed or not quite as good as they thought they wanted to be, that effort and repetition can make a dramatic difference.

“That’s kind of been my whole life. If you’re better than me at something, I bet next time we meet you’re not going to be.”