SBJ Unpacks: Do winter sports need ice and snow?

For the first time in four Winter Olympics, I made it out to biathlon. And the crowd and the Anterselva Biathlon Arena sold me on it — best venue of the Games so far.

Nestled amid the towering peaks of the Dolomites, the permanent site regularly hosts World Cups and world championships. The infrastructure is there because European fans are rabid for the sport, and it’s the best crowd in these Olympics, with around 19,000 daily.

Max Cobb, secretary general of the International Biathlon Union and former US Biathlon CEO, showed me around with glee at the prime stage for his sport. I’ll even go along with my good friend, Nancy’s, Buffalo Bills comparison.

A great time, and I wouldn’t dare miss it in the French Alps in four years.

Also tonight:

• Is a rotation of Olympic hosts the solution to climate challenges?
• Women’s hockey showcases ties between Olympics and colleges
• The tech tool helping the USOPC project podium probabilities
• U.S. Ski and Snowboard launches campaign to fund athlete development

Listen to SBJ’s most popular podcast, Morning Buzzcast, where Abe Madkour opens the week with LSU selling the first jersey patch deal in college sports, the Cubs preferring to control their own destiny as MLB pursues bringing more teams under one media umbrella, what the winners of Daytona 500 weekend races had in common and more.

MILAN — As the Milan Cortina Games near a close, ski mountaineering will make its debut as an Olympic discipline. The organizing committee became the first Winter Games host to put forward a discipline just for its edition of the Games, something the IOC has allowed hosts to do in recent years.

If others in the movement have their say, there might be other new — and unconventional — sports added to the Winter Games.

Under new president Kirsty Coventry, the IOC has launched “Fit for the Future,” a process for reforming the movement. The Olympic program working group has drawn particular attention, especially as sports like cyclo-cross and cross country (running, not skiing) have been proposed.

With the Summer Games growing ever bigger — with more than 11,000 athletes expected to compete in L.A. — and the smaller Winter Games facing threats from climate change, the movement is primed for shakeup. How radical a change remains to be seen.

“I just think we’re at a really good crossroads right now to be able to analyze that,” Coventry said. “The Olympic program group are working really hard on trying to come up with different ways forward on how do we analyze and what does that look like? And one thing that is standing out is that as soon as we start adding venues ... that’s when you start adding complexities and costs.”

As reports of potential additions have emerged, the heads of the international federations for winter sports have publicly opposed adding non-Olympic disciplines from summer sport federations.

David Lappartient, an IOC member and the president of the International Cycling Union (UCI), said the French Alps could put forward cyclo-cross for its program in four years.

“I fully also recognize the value of ice and snow,” he said. “I also understand my colleagues from the Winter Olympic federations, they don’t want to dilute in something that is kind of mixed. They are the DNA, but we can bring our source of fresh air also to the Winter Games.”

Winter sports ... without snow?

Indeed, the Olympic charter would potentially need to be changed should the IOC seriously consider those sports. As is, it requires sports in the Winter Games to be practiced on ice or snow.

That would seemingly rule out other summer Olympic sports — like basketball or volleyball — that are typically played indoors in high schools and colleges during the winter.

IOC member Karl Stoss, who previously chaired commissions on the Winter Games and the Olympic program, said the organization could look for other ways to promote universality. As it is, the Summer Olympics have representatives from more than twice as many national Olympic committees as the Winter Games.

“We will lose the identity of winter sports, for example, if we bring summer spots to the winter sport editions,” Stoss said.

The IOC is expected to make its recommendations during its session in June. That would be in plenty of time for Utah 2034, which will start examining its sport program next year and look to have it set four or five years before those Games.

The IOC could change the core program, and organizers there could propose their own additions, as Milan Cortina did with ski mountaineering. While recognizing a need for change, many in winter sports hope those changes don’t take the Games farther away from the heart of what a Winter Olympics has been.

“I’m a traditionalist. I do like ice and the snow and outdoor elements of unpredictability,” said Aron McGuire, CEO of USA Bobsled/Skeleton. “I think that’s one of the special things about the Winter Games.”

In assessing what to do with the Winter Olympics, International Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry has opened the door for the IOC to consider everything from moving the date to adding sports that don’t happen on ice or snow.

With the IOC’s review setting the path of the Games for decades to come, all options are on the table — including one a changing climate is nudging them toward but that the organization shelved three years ago: rotating the Winter Games among a handful of permanent hosts.

The IOC’s research shows a shrinking number of places in the world that could host this event. Some highly specialized venues, like a sliding track, are difficult and costly to build, the IOC must weigh the stability of the Winter Games with the value of the periodic contests to win hosting rights.

With price tags typically in the neighborhood of $2 billion for the Winter Games — and infrastructure sometimes adding billions more — choosing a handful of places to regularly host could spur investment and greater legacy. Only 17 sliding tracks for bobsled, skeleton and luge exist in the world, and Milan Cortina rebuilding its track was estimated at 118 million euros ($140.6 million), with elements not complete until just before the Games.

While a rotation of permanent hosts could address some of those issues, it remains to be seen how the IOC weighs that options against others.

“To do it in Europe as well as in the Americas — that means in the U.S. or in Canada — or in Asia, in these countries, I think the IOC should stay flexible and have an open race for the future and not to say there are just six candidates and we will choose just one of these,” said IOC member Karl Stoss.

Stoss chaired the IOC’s future host commission that in late 2022, facing potential bid cities dropping out, was tasked with studying climate feasibility.

The commission found 15 national Olympic committees had potential hosts meeting the IOC’s criteria of being climate feasible through 2050, with about 80% of venues already existing. That number is expected to drop to around 10 by 2040.

But the IOC took the idea of permanent hosts no further, choosing in 2024 to award the Games to the French Alps in 2030, to Salt Lake City in 2034 and to make Switzerland the preferred candidate in 2038.

“Salt Lake would always love to host the Games,” said Fraser Bullock, Utah 2034 executive chair and president, who has said the organizing committee’s own studies show it being climate stable to 2070. “But we recognize it’s a balance between universality, having a lot of countries participate, but also the reality of climate change and sustainability. And so looking at those two, I think there’s some interesting solutions that could maybe blend the two in terms of a future strategy.”

Those other options include adding new sports, with proposals including cyclo-cross and cross country, but the winter international federations have opposed the addition of non-Olympic disciplines from summer federations.

Stoss said the IOC could also consider moving the timing of the Games up one month. With the Winter Olympics held in February, the Paralympics face a particular challenge at times with rising March temperatures.

Critical cost-benefit analysis coming

These Games offer another data point. Milan Cortina’s are the first truly regional Games in the movement’s history, one the IOC pursued to host more sustainably and avoid building white elephant venues that have no use afterward.

But to leverage those venues has meant spreading them over hundreds of miles in Northern Italy, with eight venue locations. Stakeholders from national Olympic committees to broadcasters and others have voiced concerns with the IOC about how that has shifted economic and logistical burdens to them, and the IOC will do a cost-benefit analysis after these Games.

“We are the first one to do [that], but I think for an alpine environment, that’s the only way,” said Milan Cortina CEO Andrea Varnier. “Maybe in other locations of the world, that’s not the case, and I’m happy if there is someplace that can host the entire thing in a small territory.”

“There is no doubt that our community loves the notion of a rotational model. There’s just this love of sport in Utah that’s grown since the ’02 Games.”

—  Brad Ross, CEO, Utah 2034

If the IOC were to seriously engage with the concept of permanent hosts, with the Games rotating through a handful of locations every 16 or 20 years, it could lead to a new investment model. Those vying for a spot would be incentivized to create structures that keep facilities in use and updated, much as Salt Lake City has done since it hosted in 2002. Its venues regularly host international competitions, elite athlete training and community events, driving investment in those venues.

Organizers there tried for years to bring the Games back before winning the 2034 hosting rights.

“There is no doubt that our community loves the notion of a rotational model,” said Utah 2034 CEO Brad Wilson. “There’s just this love of sport in Utah that’s grown since the ’02 Games.

“As we’re doing the limited planning we’re doing, we’re thinking, how does this parlay into a 2050 or 2054 hosting experience?” he added. “We’re not just thinking about how do we improve a venue for 2034. It’s like we need this venue to be ready 16 or 20 years later.”

CORTINA d’AMPEZZO, Italy -- The link between Olympic sports and collegiate athletics is inescapable during the Summer Games. Though less clear in the Winter Olympics, it’s still there.

To see its strength, look no further than women’s hockey.

Since the sport was added to the Olympic program for the 1998 Nagano Games, its growth globally has been fueled by its growth collegiately. Making that connection comes at an imperative time, with changing revenue models in NCAA athletics threatening the viability of many Olympic and women’s sports.

“College athletics in the U.S. is one of the most powerful Olympic training systems in the world. It consistently builds the pipeline. It prepares athletes not just to compete, but to win on the global stage,” said Women’s Sports Foundation CEO Danette Leighton. “When you watch Team USA, you’re often watching the results of years of the collegiate system at work and the power of Title IX as it relates to women’s sports.”

No women’s hockey players came from NCAA programs in 1998 when it launched, with the sanctioning of the sport in 2000. In the Milan Cortina Games, 117 players have NCAA backgrounds representing more than 50% of the field.

The NCAA’s own data shows that 61% of the athletes whose teams made it to bracket play hail from collegiate programs, and they scored 68% of the goals in pool play.

While the U.S. and Canadian rosters are entirely made up of current and former NCAA athletes, even the German roster on the low end includes 30% who played collegiately.

Further fortifying the college-Olympic connection

For Team USA and its international competitors, the link to summer sports is clearer. Around 75% of the U.S. Olympic team in Paris had a collegiate background.

Rocky Harris, chief of sport and athlete services, said that’s 40% for the Team USA roster in Milan Cortina. Approximately 28 are considered talent transfers, playing a different sport collegiately than they do here -- something that is especially common in bobsled.

NCAA and Big Ten staff were part of the Team USA welcome experience here, and the USOPC sends out daily summaries and information to collegiate stakeholders to further that link.

“It’s keeping that connection close so they don’t see winter sport as something separate from the role that they play,” Harris said.

That role is a critical linchpin to the entire ecosystem, something the Olympic movement has advocated for as Congress considers legislation governing collegiate sports.

USA Hockey Exec Dir Pat Kelleher notes that the national governing body had around 20,000 registered female members in 1998 when the Americans won the first Olympic tournament. When they won again in Pyeongchang in 2018, it had more than 25,000 U-18 members alone. It is set to cross 100,000 female members this year.

“College hockey is a very important part of the hockey landscape,” Kelleher said. “College athletics is in a very difficult time overall. College hockey is strong. Our job is to continue to develop more players, more American players, to feed into college hockey.”

Leighton said more investment is needed to maintain those programs. Now with the PWHL in its third season, there’s a viable grassroots-to-pro pipeline that can only further the growth of the sport.

“Look how fast it grew when it became a part of the collegiate model and now with the Professional Women’s Hockey League, how much opportunity,” Leighton said. “Those little girls don’t just see what they’re seeing right now in the Winter Olympics. They see it every year now and have a place to play.”

CORTINA d’AMPEZZO, Italy - Team USA’s overall medal projection remains a closely guarded secret. But how the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee sets expectations for its haul here, that’s a sophisticated, color-coded data set that Rocky Harris, chief of sport and athlete services, can pull up on his phone.

The system, developed with Gracenote and Infostrada and using machine learning, generates data on both total medal and gold medal expectancy each day, among other outputs. Tracking 300,000 data points per week and shaded on a scale from red to green, it shows Harris and the USOPC where Team USA stands versus expectations.

As in any Games, there are unexpected medals (see Ben Ogden in cross country skiing and Ryan Cochran-Siegle in alpine) and some misses. There have been some here for Team USA, including Ilia Malinin finishing eighth in men’s figure skating and Lindsey Vonn crashing in the downhill.

“It allows us to not overreact to these tough days,” Harris said. “It’s also for our team to be kind of measured to understand that it’s a long road here.”

Harris said the USOPC started investing in the analytics around five years ago, with its development going into the 2024 Games in Paris changing the way the organization allocated resources. The analysis is updating in real time, allowing the USOPC to ensure support for national governing bodies and athletes at the right time during the Games. With the support of a donor who helped the USOPC build it out, it plans to launch the system for the Paralympics in Milan Cortina.

The deal with Gracenote allows the company to sell the back-end data collected on competitions to other countries, with a 10% cut to the USOPC.

It has helped give Harris a bit of peace here. With 17 total medals, five of them gold, through Sunday afternoon, the path for U.S. success will be determined on ice and snow and, to some degree, predicted in brightly-hued spreadsheets.

“We’re right on target,” Harris said, “and if we end up hitting our goals or our projections, we’re going to be in a very good spot and feel like it’s the progress that we need in this Games to set us up for what our long-term goals are, which is to be as committed and as exceptional at winter sport as we are at summer sport.”

CORTINA d’AMPEZZO, Italy -- With a home Olympics on the horizon, U.S. Ski and Snowboard has launched a fundraising campaign to invest in development of younger athletes.

The national governing body launched the campaign late last year with a $65M target. The aim is to help develop young athletes who haven’t yet made the U.S. national team in their discipline, but who might with more support.

U.S. Ski and Snowboard CEO Sophie Goldschmidt said the national governing body, which has the most successful foundation among its peers, would look to invest in facilities as well as working with clubs around the country. That could include extra programming that gives athletes more days on snow and training and hiring more coaches to work with clubs.

“It’s maintaining the investment and support at the top, but putting more into that level below,” Goldschmidt said. “For us, it’s really important that we’re working with the clubs. It’s not just creating another layer within our organization. Let’s make this investment go further.”

• NBC Sports’ drone coverage of the Winter Games is drawing a great deal of attention, from cheers for the captivating views they can capture to jeers for their distracting noise. SBJ’s Joe Lemire takes a behind the scenes look at their deployment, one that took years of discussions and planning.
• The cheating beef between the Canadian and Swedish men’s curling teams is becoming one of the breakout stories of the Winter Games.
• Minneapolis and Fort Myers, Fla., are in a tie for the top TV ratings markets for the Winter Games.
• USA Climbing wants to wrap up construction for its national training center in Salt Lake City in time for climbers to use it for training for LA28.

• The sudden resignation of MLBPA Executive Director Tony Clark on Tuesday sent shock waves through baseball’s power structure just 10 months before what many expect to be one of the most contentious collective bargaining negotiations in decades, reports SBJ’s Mike Mazzeo and Irving Mejia-Hilario. Clark’s departure comes amid a reported federal investigation involving the union’s licensing arm, OneTeam Partners, and youth baseball company Players Way on allegations of nepotism, financial misreporting and governance concerns.
• With Main Street Sports Group beginning its path to a winddown, sources tell SBJ’s Tom Friend that one scenario could be immediate Main Street liquidation -- which would have all FanDuel Sports Networks going dark and all employees immediately dismissed -- or a deal with a strategic partner that keeps employees’ jobs in place.
• The PGA Tour locked in a key sponsor to a long-term deal, with Genesis extending its agreement for the Genesis Invitational through the 2030 season, writes SBJ’s Josh Carpenter.
• Charlie Woods signed with his first agency, Players Group Management, the same group that represents his soon-to-be teammate at FSU, Miles Russell, the world’s top-ranked junior golfer, notes Carpenter.
• NASCAR quietly introduced a new ultra-premium hospitality club concept Sunday at Daytona that will in some ways be its version of F1’s Paddock Club, in what effectively becomes its top-tier ticketing option a $10,000 per unit, reports SBJ’s Adam Stern.
• WWE signed a multiyear deal with Dude Wipes to debut a first‑of‑its‑kind brand integration, writes SBJ’s Na’Andre Emerson, with superstar Dominik Mysterio as the face of the campaign.
• Basketball influencers Haley and Hanna Cavinder signed on to promote BetMGM in a first-of-its kind March Madness contest that the sportsbook launched Monday, notes SBJ’s Bill King.
• Monday’s op-ed looks at the true value of youth sports — even as private equity evaluates the sector as a source of revenue.