‘Tough Love’: Richard Pound, David D'Alessandro, and the Salt Lake City Olympics Bid Scandal

Abstract

In late 1998, the IOC was gripped in a state of crisis by allegations that the Salt Lake City bid committee used cash, college scholarships and other benefits to entice some IOC members to support the city in its ultimately successful quest to host the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. An engaged international media flayed the IOC relentlessly through to March 1999 until the organization expelled a number of its members who had contravened its rules. The IOC's recovery operation took a calendar year, and eventually encompassed fifty reform measures to its Olympic Charter. This paper explores the efforts of (then) IOC Vice-President and Marketing Commission Chairman Richard Pound to manage discussions with anxious CEOs of the IOC's major corporate sponsors. Pound dedicated much time to dialogue with the most vociferous, and critical, of the CEOs, John Hancock's David D'Alessandro. We examined archival and newspapers sources to assess the key roles Pound and D'Alessandro played in the IOC's efforts to confront the crisis. Pound's credibility with the sponsors and media served the IOC well, while D'Alessandro's strident criticism afforded the IOC leadership no opportunity to back away from meaningful reform.