Tiffin University

UNIT 2 PAPER: CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
The Salt Lake Organizing Committee: 2002 Olympics. Harvard Business Review. 9-604-092

Submitted for
Course Number MGT 537
Course Title: Personnel Management in Sports
Professor Bonnie Tiell

By:
Tamara Irwin
Ashville, Ohio
June 23, 2010

Case Facts:
This case study deals with the many variables that surrounded the hosting of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah and the outside variables that threatened its operation. Not the least of these variables was the timing of the international event, just months after the 9/11 bombings in the U.S. The entire country was still trying to figure out how to operate safely and productively in the wake of the first direct attacks on our soil in centuries. Not only were U.S. citizens and businesses unsure of how to operate, foreigners were uncertain about traveling to the U.S. and businesses didn’t know how to operate with the new restrictions and guidelines immediately put into place after 9/11. The case study in the opening paragraphs on Page 1 describe how large the capital investments were in bringing the Olympics to this site and the only remaining way to generate revenues at this point in time were through ticket sales, which were suffering from the post 9/11 turmoil. (Bowen, 2006)

This wasn’t the first symptom of trouble for the 2002 Olympics. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced in June of 1995 the selection of Salt Lake City, Utah as the site for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. In just over three years later, in November 1998 the media broke the story about a scandal involving the Salt Lake Organizing Committee (SLOC) and the IOC. The allegations against the SLOC included a scholarship and international assistance program that awarded scholarships totaling $400,000 to 13 students who were relatives of IOC