Restructuring the United States sports system
Recommendations from the Commission on the State of U.S. Olympics and Paralympics would change the landscape of sport in the United States. Part 1 of a series.
The Commission on the State of U.S. Olympics and Paralympics presented its final report to Congress recently regarding the reconfiguration of the U.S. sport system. How Congress reacts to the report could trigger a major adjustment to how sport is offered and governed in the United States. This would be the second such shift during my lifetime; the first happened in the late 70s as a result of the Amateur Sports Act.
By the 1970s U.S. sport had become primarily a volunteer, community-based activity managed by a jumble of competing local and national contexts. But poor Olympic performances, especially against Soviet-bloc nations, and jurisdictional disputes among the numerous, often self-appointed governing bodies prompted congressional action aimed at bringing a degree of central control over the wildly decentralized system.
The Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act was the result. Passed by Congress in 1978 it remains the guidebook for much of what we consider as the U.S. sport system today.
The Act mandated that the United States Olympic Committee coordinate and develop Olympic sports (Paralympic was added to its name later). However, the Act made no provision for funding the USOPC resulting in our current, mostly privatized, pay-to-play system.
Additionally, the Act did not directly integrate scholastic or recreational contexts under the USOPC. It left high schools and colleges, for example, on their own for operations and governance.
Today, this movement is again in dire need of systemic change. In recent years, it has faced a reckoning over widespread abuse of athletes and associated cover-ups, over disparities in access and accessibility, and over deficiencies in accountability and due process. It is again time to re-envision how Olympic and Paralympic sports ought to be organized and governed so we can protect and empower athletes to reach for their best and, in so doing, help demonstrate America’s best. Passing the Torch, p. 6
What did the commission find?
The Commission reported three general findings: (a) SafeSport is not working, (b) the USOPC cannot carry out its dual mandate of developing both high performance and grassroots sport, and (c) there are disparities in grassroots opportunities based mostly on income.
These findings are not new, they’ve existed for many years. That they have been, so far, unsolvable accentuates the need for remedies that perhaps only a government can provide.
The Commission makes recommendations for reform legislation in three areas:
Change the USOPC mandate to develop and coordinate only high performance Olympic sport. This would require an additional agency to deal with sport at lower levels.
Expand SafeSport's authority to encompass all sport contexts and, most importantly, fund it independently of national governing bodies (NGBs).
Address inequalities of opportunity in sport for low income families and in rural communities.
In this article I will address #1 above. Future editions of this letter will discuss SafeSport and economic inequalities.
Changing the USOPC mandate
Sport as an institution is viewed not only as a stage on which to showcase America's best athletes but also as a universal good, one to be enjoyed by all Americans. The USOPC mandate gives it authority but no funding. This has led to a highly commercialized system where costs have risen for pay-to-play activities to the point where many sports are only available to upper income families.
From a social perspective this results in economic discrimination. From a sport development perspective it causes artificial elimination of youngsters from the athlete pool. The Commission found that both needed to be remedied:
Finding: Since 1978, USOPC has been unable to achieve its congressional mandate to “coordinate and develop'' youth and grassroots sports across the country, which has led to the development of a youth-sports landscape that has hampered safety, limited equitable access, and jeopardized our long-term Olympic and Paralympic pipeline. Passing the Torch, p. 77
The report notes that the USOPC has been successful at developing high performance but lacks effective programs at the grassroots level. This is a bit misleading to the average reader because under the current set-up the USOPC acts through each sport's NGB, so youth programs are dependent on the NGBs. Because of this the quality and scope of grassroot programs vary.
Using my own sport as an example, USA Swimming administers programs for athletes at all levels from the grassroots to the Olympic team. The USOPC has little direct input into how the sport operates although there are administrative and legal concerns that USA Swimming must meet as part of the USOPC and to meet the requirements of the Sports Act.
At the high performance level, the USOPC determines ('approves' is probably more appropriate) how the U.S. Olympic swimming team is selected, and then later how it's prepared for the Games. This process is straightforward because all athletes eligible for Olympic swimming team selection are members of USA Swimming. And since qualification for the Games is naturally limited to the best of the best, the number of possible athletes is small compared to the total number of athletes registered with USA Swimming.
Imagine then how the USOPC and USA Swimming would interact with programs at the grassroots level where the number of athletes is over 300,000, and where athletes are spread out all over the country in clubs with various levels of expertise and access to a range of resources ranging from none to overwhelming. It's easy to see how the USOPC would not be effective at the opposite end of swimming performance; the landscape is too varied and the number of athletes too large given the USOPC's current administrative and funding structure.
This is why the Commission recommends amending the Sports Act and changing the USOPC mandate:
Recommendation #1: Congress should limit USOPC’s purpose to focusing on high-performance athletes and create a new federal office to coordinate and develop youth and grassroots movement sports. Passing the Torch, p. 120
Recommendation #4: The terms “amateur” and “amateurism” should finally be retired from the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic movement, and athletes’ rights should be enshrined in law. Passing the Torch, p. 129
Note: Amateurism hasn't been a 'thing' in sport for many years except in educational contexts and to a lesser extent in YMCA sport programs. The legal writing is on the wall: Amateurism is on its way out. I've written about this here, here, and here.
These two recommendations (out of the 12 in the report) could represent a major shift in how Olympic sport is governed. Reducing fragmentation is a theme discussed often in the report, so it might mean that high school and colleges, among others, would become part of the USOPC's mandate to normalize contexts. The report discusses this expansion in regard to SafeSport so it's not unreasonable to envision the implementation like this:
All contexts would be governed by the "new federal office" or by the USOPC depending on their high performance status. This includes NGBs, the NCAA, National Federation of High School Sports, YMCA, AAU, you get the idea.
The notion of amateurism no longer exists, so athletes have agency to promote themselves and take advantage of their name, image, and/or likeness as they wish. There are several cases currently under consideration and some that are already settled by the Supreme Court in the collegiate context. In those decisions it's clear that the concept of amateurism is on life support and will not stand much longer.
Title IX currently applies only to educational institutions. How might this be affected by adding a new government office into the sport administration mix? If the goal is to normalize the way numerous contexts operate then the application of Title IX to sport activities might also have to be reconsidered.
These points represent my own interpretation of how the Commission recommendations might be implemented. It's unclear how or if Congress will act on any of the report's contents.
Conclusion
It's not surprising that many sport practitioners are unaware of the Olympic committee's oversight role in how their sport operates. Although athletes would recognize their NGB as administering their particular sport, few are aware that it is the Olympic committee that controls how NGBs operate.
Often unconsidered is just how big of a job administering a sport from development to elite performance actually is. Private clubs, schools and colleges, and community organizations all have a hand in the process, but no single entity is actually in charge. In such a fragmented environment commercialization is inevitable, as is the sidlining of low income groups and rural communities.
If the Commission's recommendations are acted on, the USOPC's authority over NGBs might expand significantly to other contexts that also sponsor Olympic sports such as the NCAA and the YMCA. Would this be a good or a bad thing? The Sports Act specifically did not provide funding to the USOPC in order to preserve the "... uniquely American balance between the need for public oversight of the Olympic and Paralympic movement as well as our tradition of decentralized, private governance of sports." (Passing the Torch, p. 7). But as the Commission's findings show, this hands off approach has caused its own set of problems.
What's next?
Download: Passing the Torch: Modernizing Olympic, Paralympic, and Grassroots Sports in America, PDF, 277 pp.
If you haven't read the report, please, read it. Sport is a social institution and if you only understand it through the lens of one particular activity then you're not getting the full picture of where it fits into the American social fabric.
The 277-page report also contains lots of interesting data and is well worth reading by anyone interested in the demographics and participation patterns that exist within the U.S. sport system.
If you're reading this then you are probably involved somehow in at least one sport. The changes recommended by the Commission, especially the addition of a "new federal office" to address grassroot sport development will come with far reaching consequences. Whether they be good or bad will depend on the intellectual and experiential firepower used in designing it.
In an upcoming letter I will take a look at the Commission's findings and recommendations regarding SafeSport and income disparities in grassroots opportunities.