US Olympic Committee chairman Larry Probst and chief executive Scott Blackmun will hold further talks with the International Olympic Committee tomorrow over a new broadcast and sponsorship revenue-sharing agreement.
Probst told the Associated Press that it would take time for both sides to ensure the new deal “gets done correctly”, and they were “making progress, slowly but surely.”
Many IOC and international sports officials consider the USOC’s share of 20 per cent of the IOC’s global sponsorship revenues and 12.75 per cent of US broadcast rights deals to be excessive. Any new revenue-sharing agreement would take effect after 2020.
Widespread disapproval of the current arrangement was thought to have contributed to Chicago coming bottom out of four in the October 2009 vote on the candidate city for the 2016 Olympic Games.
Blackmun said that it would be difficult for the USOC to submit a successful bid for a future edition of the Olympics while the dispute remains unresolved.
The IOC and the USOC had hoped to reach an agreement last year. In December, IOC marketing commission chairman Gerhard Heiberg said talks with the USOC were taking longer than expected, but that the parties were on good terms.
The latest round of negotiations will take place in Innsbruck, Austria, where the Winter Youth Olympic Games will start tomorrow.