Olympic organizing committee (OCO'88) The
Calgary Olympic Development Association (CODA) Board of Directors had originally 25 members. It was chaired by Frank King, The Olympic Organizing Committee (OOC) was formed by utilizing many of the original board of directors members. It was initially started with 11 members and was grown to 25 members by October 1983. It grew further to 29 members by 1985, when former
Alberta premier,
Peter Lougheed, was added to the list. An Olympic biographer, Kevin Wamsley, noted that the
CEO Frank King, President
Bill Pratt, Ralph Klein, and former
COA President
Roger Jackson had collectively the most influence on all aspects of these Winter Olympics. The
City of Calgary and the Canadian Olympic Association (COA) delegated officially all Olympic responsibilities, including staging the Winter Olympics under the
Olympic Charter, to the newly formed OCO'88 in February and September 1983 respectively. The negotiating committee was represented by
Dick Pound for the IOC, Bill Wardle for OCO'88 and consultant Barry Frank. The co-negotiating committee designed a new tender process for the television rights bid with an emphasis on creating a level playing field for all broadcasters. For the first time, the negotiations were based on a series of
sealed bids and representatives from
ABC,
CBS and
NBC vied for the opportunity to broadcast the Games. After six rounds of sealed bids, the ABC delegation led by producer
Roone Arledge was successful with an agreement paying a record million ( million Canadian at the time) in exchange for exclusive rights for the games. CBS exited the bidding process after the second round with a final offer of $257 million, while ABC and NBC both reached the fifth round with an offer of $300 million. In the sixth and final stage, the IOC and OCO'88 decided a
coin flip would determine which of ABC or NBC had the right to submit the first bid or defer, a decision neither network supported. NBC's president of sports Arthur A. Watson elected to call the coin-flip, although he remained silent on the first flip, so a second coinflip was required, and NBC won with a choice of "heads", and after 30 minutes of deliberation submitted a $304 million bid. ABC's representative Arledge made a quick phone call to executive Fred Pierce, and ABC submitted a $309 million bid, exceeding NBC's bid by $5 million. ABC's record-setting bid was immediately controversial, first Arledge had exceeded the maximum allowable bid set by ABC's executives by $34 million, and in the coming weeks ABC's coverage of the
1984 Winter Olympics which cost $91.5 million returned poor
Nielsen ratings. Early estimates speculated the network would lose $50-$60 million televising the games.
The Wall Street Journal described the NBC agreement as the "biggest prize of the
Winter Olympics". The deal which was at the time the highest amount ever paid for a sporting event, allowed OCO'88 to announce the Games would be debt-free. The negotiations with American television broadcasters were in sharp contrast to negotiations for Western European rights with the
European Broadcasting Union quickly closing an exclusive deal with the IOC for million led by
Juan Antonio Samaranch and
Marc Hodler on behalf of the IOC. The
Calgary Herald headline after the announcement negatively reflected on the "bargain" the European network received, and OCO'88 chairman Frank King publicly expressed his disappointment with the IOC. Samaranch's argument for providing for a privileged negotiation with EBU was ensuring European viewers had equal access and coverage of the games, something he did not believe would occur if private networks from each nation were provided with the opportunity to bid. Dick Pound was also critical of the decision and argued more revenue could be brought in from BBC and RAI alone and the privileged status suppressed the willingness of the EBU to make a market-value bid on the games. The
CTV Television Network won the bid to broadcast the Games in Canada in December 1983, paying million for the exclusive rights. CTV also won the $23.5 million contract to serve as the host broadcaster, responsible for the manpower and equipment to televise the games. The nightly summary of the Games was also televised on
CBC. Japan's broadcast rights were awarded to
NHK in July 1986 for million. OCO'88 made several alterations to the Olympic program as part of efforts to ensure value for its broadcast partners. Now, the premier and main events, including ice hockey and figure skating, were scheduled for
prime time and the Games were lengthened to 15 days from the previous 12 to ensure three weekends of coverage. However, a significant downturn in advertising revenue for sporting events resulted in ABC forecasting significant financial losses on the Games. Calgary organizers appreciated their fortunate timing in signing the deal. King described the timing of the contract with ABC as "the passing of the sun and the moon at the right time for Calgary". ABC had net losses of more than $60 million, and broadcast rights to the
1992 Winter Olympics were later sold to the
CBS network for $243 million, a 20 per cent reduction compared to Calgary.
Ticketing controversies A series of ticket-related scandals plagued the organizing committee as the Games approached, resulting in widespread public anger. Demand for tickets was high, particularly for the main events which had sold out a year in advance. Residents had been promised that only 10 per cent of tickets would go to "Olympic insiders", IOC officials and sponsors, but OCO'88 was later forced to admit that up to 50 percent of seats to top events had gone to insiders. These events were preceded by the ticketing manager for OCO'88 being charged with theft and fraud after he sent modified ticket request forms to Americans that asked them to pay in United States funds rather than Canadian and to return them to his company's post office box rather than the office of the organizing committee. At that time, the American dollar was
trading 40 cents higher than the Canadian dollar, resulting in significantly higher than anticipated revenue through currency conversion. The ticket manager maintained his innocence claiming he was used as a scapegoat and sponsor credit card
Visa was responsible for the error, despite his claims, the ticketing manager was convicted of
fraud,
theft, and
forgery, and sentenced to 5 years in prison. Organizers attempted to respond to public concern by asking sponsors to consider reducing their orders and by paying $1.5 million to add 2,600 seats to the Saddledome, as well as increase capacity for ski jumping, alpine skiing and the opening ceremonies. This led to a change of the venue of the closing ceremonies from Saddledome to McMahon Stadium, as the stadium capacity was about two times bigger than the indoor venue. a figure that eclipsed the previous three Winter Games combined. In the OCO'88's final report, the Committee admits the culmination of fraud charges, a large portion of premier tickets requested by Olympic insiders, and poor communications led to a negative public reaction to the ticketing process.
Community The city of Calgary is world-renowned for the enthusiasm of its population for volunteer work which is reflected in the annual
Calgary Stampede, which also relied heavily on volunteers to run the Olympics. Over 22,000 people signed up for more than 9,400 positions, no matter how inglorious: doctors, lawyers and executives even offered to collect the waste generated during the opening ceremony. Also, for the first time, a "Homestay" program was created and several local families opened their homes to visitors from around the world, and others were renting their rooms or houses to those who could not stay in pay a reserve in a hotel. The Games' mascots,
Hidy and Howdy, were designed to evoke images of "western hospitality". The smiling, cowboy-themed
polar bears were popular across Canada. Played by a team of 150 students from
Bishop Carroll High School, the sister-brother pair made up to 300 appearances per month in the lead-up to the Games. From their introduction at the closing ceremonies of the Sarajevo Games in 1984 until their retirement at the conclusion of the Calgary Games, the pair made about 50,000 appearances. The iconic mascots graced signs welcoming travellers to Calgary for nearly two decades until they were replaced in 2007. The mascot's names "Hidy" and "Howdy" were chosen by a public contest. The record-breaking cost of the Calgary Olympics came in stark contrast to the original projections during the 1981 bid, which estimated a total cost of million, split between million in capital costs and million in operating costs. The significant growth in capital expenditures came despite the three levels of government taking over projects which constituted nearly half of the original budgeted capital projects. The primary source of revenue for OCO'88 was the lucrative television contracts, bringing in million (58.3 per cent of revenue), the absolute majority coming from American broadcasters, followed by corporate sponsorships at million (15.8 per cent of revenue), and ticket sales of million (7.5 per cent of revenue). and million for the
Olympic Oval. Provincial expenses included million to build the
Canmore Nordic Centre, and million to build
Nakiska. All three governments contributed to the million
Olympic Saddledome. The Games were a major economic boom for the city, which had fallen into its worst
recession in 40 years following the collapse of both oil and grain prices three years before the games. A report prepared for the city in January 1985 estimated the games would create 11,100
man-years of employment and generate million in salaries and wages. In its post-Games report, OCO'88 estimated the Olympics created billion in economic benefits across Canada during the 1980s, 70 percent within Alberta, as a result of capital spending, increased tourism and new sporting opportunities created by the facilities. ==Torch relay==