AUDIO and TRANSCRIPT: June 2025 USOPC Leadership Press Briefing

Below is the audio recording and transcript from the U.S Olympic and Paralympic Committee leadership press briefing on Wednesday, June 18, following the board of directors meeting via teleconference.

AUDIO

Moderator:

Good day. I'd like to welcome everyone to the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee board briefing. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during that time, simply press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then the number two on your telephone keypad. Today's call is being recorded and I'd now like to turn the call over to Jon Mason. Please go ahead. 

Jon Mason:

Great. Thank you Margo. Hello and welcome everybody. Thank you for joining us today. I know it's getting late on the east coast and we have a limited amount of time, so we'll go ahead and get started right away. First with an update from USOPC Chairman Gene Sykes, followed by an update from USOPC CEO, Sarah Hirschland. After that, we will open the line to your questions. With that over to Gene. 

Gene Sykes:

Thanks very much, Jon. Good afternoon everyone. As always, my thanks go to all of the board members for their commitment and for offering their time and expertise to this effort. This was our second board meeting of the year, our second meeting with this full board intact and another valuable opportunity to discuss the work of the organization and the Olympic and Paralympic landscape in the U.S. and globally. Of course, our work is focused on the future and the opportunity of Milano-Cortina on the near horizon. We are officially in the games countdown and very excited about what lies ahead for the winner athletes of Team USA. Looking further out, we have the incredible honor and opportunity of serving as the host NOC twice in one decade. When we welcome the world to LA28 and Utah 2034, it should be an amazing decade of sport. I'll start things off today by providing you with an overview of what we discussed in the board meeting and then ask Sarah to give you an update as well.

As always, we appreciate you taking the time to join us this afternoon. On the international front, I'm very much looking forward to joining friends and colleagues in Lausanne next week for the handover ceremony of the IOC presidency. All four of us who are IOC members from the United States will be there and we are thrilled to welcome President Kirsty Coventry and offer her our support as she works to carry forward the momentum of a fantastic Paris 2024 Games through the next decade and beyond. I've known Kirsty Coventry for a decade, since I was working on the bid for the games in Los Angeles, originally the games that were slated to take place in 2024. So I remember her when she was on the Athletes Commission for the IOC and I have seen her evolve to become obviously a great leader of the IOC and now the leader for the next decade and beyond. I am incredibly impressed with her and I would remind all of us that Kirsty Coventry was a champion swimmer, not only for Zimbabwe in multiple Olympic games, she won two gold medals as everyone knows, but she was also a swimmer at Auburn University in Georgia. She has two young daughters and so she joins many other young women, young mothers who are successful and very important leaders in Olympic and Paralympic sport.

During this board meeting, we discussed the recent activity related to anti-doping and our commitment to clean sport. As I'm sure many of you saw yesterday, there was a congressional hearing in Washington D.C. on this very topic and while we were not in in-person participants, we are naturally very interested and engaged in the topic. We applaud the Senate committee for raising this subject and for seeking answers. We firmly support Travis Tygart and USADA for continuing to provide U.S. athletes with education and with levels of service that make participation and adherence to the world anti-doping code as transparent and streamlined as possible. At the same time, we want to emphasize the importance of an effective global infrastructure governed by the World Anti-Doping Agency that serves all athletes while instilling confidence in competitors and fans alike. That is a goal we can all strive for and the USOPC is a key partner to all who support this effort.

We also enjoyed a visit from Joel Rosinbum. He is the new chair of the Team USA Athletes Commission. He has been a terrific leader for the Athletes Commission in the short time since his election. He's very focused on the needs of Team USA athletes and collaboration with the USOPC and our NGBs, and he's always willing to discuss important subjects with our group, with the board. The trajectory of the Athletes Commission is very good and Joel has made it clear along with the rest of the leadership group that they intend to have a very collaborative effort with us and we have several initiatives to help us both understand the most important needs of the athletes, the perspectives of the athletes and make sure that the services and efforts that we undertake on behalf of athletes are as good and as effective as they can possibly be. So we thank him for his work and we really appreciate his very positive participation with the board.

We did not have a scheduled LA28 update at this meeting, but the LA28 Organizing Committee has had several landmark or achievements in the past several weeks. Sarah will describe in more detail an announcement about their commercial program where she was in attendance in Los Angeles at this announcement just last week with Honda, but the commercial program has shown the best success that I can recall from the beginning of the organizing committee. We're quite pleased with that. Moreover, they've made very significant progress in their games plan and in the organization of their own team. They're now up to somewhere between 275 and 280 staff members at LA28. They've moved their headquarters to downtown Los Angeles to expand over the next several years. They expect ultimately to reach perhaps three or 4,000 full-time employees and then tens of thousands of volunteers, and I think you'll find that they are very much in a strong organizational mode where they have demonstrated that they are really working as well as they possibly can, and we're quite happy to see the progress they've made.

We were joined by our partners from Salt Lake City, Utah 2034. They're also building on their initial organizational announcements and setting their sites on engagement with their own community in Utah. They've embarked on a listening tour in Utah, hearing directly from constituents across the state, sharing their vision for the games and gaining a great understanding of how the community wants to interact as well. They're excited about the response of the community so far. Of course, they've always demonstrated 80% plus support and that support continues to be demonstrated within Utah and they're presenting their plans that celebrate the games and the great winter sports legacy of Utah, the people across the State, the people across the country, and all around the world.

Another very important and impactful topic that we discussed at the board is changes to the collegiate landscape. In particular, after the recent house settlement was approved, we spent time talking about those changes and what they could mean for Team USA. Our organizational focus remains on the protection of broad-based sport on college the country, and is a pipeline to the Olympic and Paralympic teams. Sarah and the staff have been focused on this topic. First, Sarah will share some more detail about the progress when she gives her update. I want to close today by adding we had a very productive session over the past two days. I'm grateful to the board members for their commitment. All of the board members have been very busy. They have very demanding responsibilities elsewhere in their lives, in work, both in and out of the world of sport, and I want to honor their time and effort.

They give tremendous engagement to Team USA and the USOPC and we are very much in their debt. Last but not least, I want to add my congratulations, Sarah, for being named Sports Business Journal's Executive of the Year, last month at a ceremony in New York. This is incredibly well-deserved and I'm proud to call Sarah a colleague and friend. Her passion for the competitive success of Team USA is matched only by her commitment to the health and wellness of our Team USA athletes. Congratulations again and thank you, Sarah. I'm now happy to hand the call over to you.

Sarah Hirshland:

Thank you Gene, and good day everyone. Thank you all for taking time to join us and hear a few of our updates this afternoon. I certainly echo the sentiment about the commitment of the board. We have an incredible group of individuals and they're really just incredibly engaged and diving into important long-term both issues and challenges and opportunities on behalf of Team USA, and it's really inspiring to see. I will also always include my appreciation for Gene, who now in his capacity as both the chair of our board and an IOC member continues to dedicate extraordinary time and talent in support of Team USA and frankly the Olympic and Olympic movements around the world. So thank you, Gene. We had a very full and impactful meeting as you heard. Let me just take a few minutes to touch on some highlights in addition to those Gene already shared. He referenced the commercial success of U.S. Olympic and Paralympic properties and the LA28 effort to drive revenue surrounding both Team USA and the LA28 games, and we have seen extraordinary progress in the first six months of this year with partners being announced regularly throughout the first and second quarters.

I was in California as Honda announced as a founding partner through the 2028 games. This was a great day with a very inspired brand and an incredibly engaged and excited population of teammates there at Honda who are not only committed to the relationship in the Los Angeles market, but very committed to advancing the work of Team USA athletes. We saw and heard evidence of that through some of their equipment innovation that they have already done in support of some of our Paralympic athletes and wheelchair racers in particular, and it was very inspiring and exciting for us to have the new energy of Honda at our back. We are seeing similar support for Team USA athletes across the corporate community, whether that is Penny Mac and their work to help Team USA athletes secure mortgages or SAATVA who is shares the commitment of our sports medicine team in helping Team USA athletes understand, appreciate and get the best night's sleep they can in their training regimens.

So the corporate community is a great tailwind for Team USA right now and we're feeling that energy and momentum continue and thank the whole team at U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Properties for their continued work and partnership. Gene also referenced the collegiate landscape, a relevant and complex topic. As you know, we are fully engaged in the collegiate conversation. Our work with the Collegiate Advisory Council started back in 2016. That group which consists of collegiate university leaders, athletes, NGB representatives, conference commissioners, NCAA staff and our team has really been invaluable in understanding and sharing the issues facing collegiate sport at every level of the ecosystem. And for current and future Team USA athletes, it is both an aspirational opportunity to represent their school and be part of that team, and a high performance pathway to represent the U.S. at the Olympic and Paralympic Games, a critical part of our journey. These systems, both academic and athletically are deeply interconnected and deeply valued by our entire ecosystem. As a reminder, I know you all know this, the power of collegiate athletics was very clear during the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games. Where 75% of team USA Olympians and 53% of our Paralympian's were current or former collegiate athletes. These athletes brought pride to their communities, their schools and to our nation at once. Their success really underscores the importance of preserving the pipeline that supports their development in these critical years of athletics.

Now, as we turn our attention to legislative discussions on the heels of the house settlement, we believe there is a meaningful opportunity to create policy that empowers institutions, athletic associations and conferences to continue investing in a broad portfolio of sports. We are engaged with these leaders in that conversation and with the right framework, we feel confident that Congress can help ensure that Olympic and Paralympic sports and the athletes who rely on them are protected and not sidelined. We encourage thoughtful integration of compensation provisions alongside support for sports sponsorship within the SCORE act. We stand ready to partner with the NCAA, the institutions and the NGBs in the effort to preserve and protect Olympic and Paralympic sport on campus. We're eager that these conversations are continuing to occur.

Let me turn to the upcoming games. We are very much on the road to Milano-Cortina. As Gene referenced, we are excited at the way the team is taking shape and all of the performance indicators that we're seeing. At our next meeting, we will have had a full summer of competition to call on and we've seen some incredible performances and big events on the horizon. But for now, a few stats on the 2026 team that's coming together. To date, we have 14 athletes qualified or nominated for the Olympic team in the sports of curling, freestyle, skiing, snowboarding, and ice hockey. Of those 14, there are returning medal winners like Red Gerard and Chloe Kim, and there are nine first time participants. That bodes extraordinarily well, both for the present and also for our future. On Monday, the world took notice when the first six players for the eight nations competing in the Men's Olympic ice hockey competition were shared in the one hour increments throughout the day.

Building on that excitement of the Four Nations tournament, the return of NHL players to the games for sure guarantees great action, very healthy and vibrant competition and great fan support. And as all you can all imagine, we are looking for a different outcome in that competition. On the Paralympic's side, Team USA earned a six-one victory over Canada in the gold medal game of the 2025 World Para Ice Hockey Championships, finishing the tournament with a perfect 5-0 record and securing their spot in Milan-Cortina next year. If you have not followed our Paris Sled hockey Team, I strongly encourage you to do so. It is a compelling team and really exciting competition. Now that they're officially qualified for 2026, we look forward to seeing them take shape. No doubt they're going to be focused on keeping that string of success intact. It's an exciting and fun team to watch as are frankly all of our hockey teams right now. Incredible.

Before I close, I want to note that we are just about to share our 2024 Impact Report. This is essentially our annual report, but it intentionally goes further in outlining the impact that the USOPC, our partner National Governing Bodies and our entire stakeholder universe has on the support of Team USA and on sport both domestically and globally. We're really proud of our 2024 performance on the field of play, and as you'll see in this report, we also accomplished a great deal off the field. This is an important milestone because 2024 marked the start of a decade of sport that we believe will be transformational. So in many ways, while Team USA took our breath away with grace, speed and skill in 2024, on the organizational side, we are really proud of the work we did laying the foundation for current and future Team USA success. That included advancing the variety and volume of athlete support offerings, increasing our foundation reach and the levels of giving and real gains in our influence both domestically and internationally that make a difference for athletes both here and around the world. All of this adds up to a stronger and more dynamic organization and sustained, success and support for Team USA. And we have no intention of slowing down our progress. So I hope next week when we publish this report that you'll take a few minutes to read it and study some of the work that we accomplished back in 2024. We certainly appreciate the time today, and with that, I'll close and we can open it up to your questions.

Moderator:

Thank you, Sarah. At this time, if you'd like to ask a question, please press the star one on your telephone keypad. You may remove yourself from the queue at any time by pressing star two. Once again, that is star one to ask a question when asking your question, please state your name and affiliation and please limit yourself to one question and then you can rejoin the queue. If you have a follow up, we'll take our first question from Lisa Roche with Deseret News. Please go ahead.

Lisa Roche:

I'm here. I want to ask Gene about the hearing yesterday in Washington that you referenced, words like shocking and disturbing were used to describe the pressure put on you and others involved with the Utah bid ahead of the IOC decision to award the 2034 games. One senator even suggested the bid was threatened. Is that how you would characterize what happened? And it's been almost a year, are we any closer to resolving the tensions between U.S. and WADA leaders that have brought us to this place where there's a threat of Salt Lake losing the games?

Gene Sykes:

Thanks Lisa for the question. And as I was about to say, you and I have talked about this many, many times and as you know, we did not really feel any pressure at all. We were asked to include language that was already included in the host city contract, which had already been agreed to, and in fact the IOC has made assurances to us even since then that that language will be in every single host city contract from here on out. So there's nothing exceptional or extraordinary in any of that, and I don't expect any issue with regard to the Utah performance or any odd doubt about the opportunity for Utah to host the 2034 games, number one. Number two, I actually have more optimism. I think the fact that both Travis and Dr. Gupta offered testimony in front of the Senate was useful. I think the Senate asked the right questions about WADA behaving in a way that can offer respect for everybody in the movement. For WADA, that WADA can be both professional and widely regarded as the arbiter of the world anti-doping code, and that's what we've always wanted. And this is not the U.S. versus WASA, it's definitely not that at all. I think it's a matter of making sure that WADA is able to do its job well to the satisfaction of athletes all around the world in all sports, and I am optimistic that we'll arrive at that conclusion. I think there are a lot of people who have that objective as well.

Moderator:

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Eddie Pells with Associated Press, please go ahead.

Eddie Pells:

Sarah, could you offer up any kind of details about what the Olympic parts of the legislation or proposed legislation that you've been talking to people on the hill about would look like? Any details?

Sarah Hirshland:

Yeah, Eddie, thanks. I think we're not quite at the point of having specific language to point to. We have been shameless and consistent for several years now on promoting broad-based sport on campus, and we want to ensure that as legislation is drafted and revised and going through its process both in the House and the Senate, that if there are actions in that legislation that we believe will have unintended consequences or our void of protecting broad-based sport, that we have allowed voice in ensuring that we intervene and strongly advocate for the protection of broad based sport on campus. Today we have no reason to believe that we don't have real alignment there from all the parties, including members of Congress who have indicated to us a very real concern for Olympic and Paralympic sport and the preservation of the strengths of our system and what Team USA is benefiting from today. We know that the NCAA and conferences are feeling the same, now the challenge is can we have language that doesn't provide for the wrong incentives or unintended consequences that would lead to sports being cut or resources being allocated in a different way that would hurt or harm Olympic and Paralympic sport. I don't have specific language to point to yet, but I expect that's coming probably not in the too far distant future.

Moderator:

Will take our next question from Rich Perelman with the Sports Examiner. Please go ahead.