Jason Gewirtz has been on the ground in Italy throughout the Winter Olympics, talking with CEOs of various U.S. national governing bodies. Check out each interview here:
Matt Farrell, U.S. Figure Skating
Sophie Goldschmidt, U.S. Ski & Snowboard
CORTINA — Aron McGuire is no stranger to bobsled. He was a bobsledder from 2003 until 2006, where he spent time as a brakeman for U.S. bobsled legend Steven Holcomb. He later worked for USA Track & Field before joining the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee in 2013. Since 2020 he has been CEO of USA Bobsled/Skeleton, a sport that always has its moments to shine at the Olympic Winter Games.
This year, the U.S. team has come in with some controversy, as five-time Olympian Katie Uhlaender was denied an appeal of a decision that kept her out of the Games, and for the first time in years, the country fielded only one two-man bobsled when the second sled was denied entry over other technicalities. Complicating matters for all countries coming in, the historic track in Cortina needed major improvements and Lake Placid, New York, was a viable alternative for the IOC if the work didn’t get done, which is eventually did.
Despite that, the national governing body has made some good progress as an organization with creative sponsorships and promotions, including with Raising Cane’s and Flavor Flav, who appears to battling Snoop Dogg for cultural hip hop Olympic relevance having also supported USA Water Polo at the Games in Paris.
We caught up with McGuire in Cortina on the cusp of his teams’ competitions to discuss the sports, the efforts to market the competition and whether Flavor Flav’s ever-present clock would slow him down on the track.
SportsTravel: You’re coming to an area here in Northern Italy that you are familiar with. Let’s talk about the track. There was a moment where it looked like we would be having this conversation in Lake Placid. But we’re here in Cortina. What was your level of concern about getting that track up to speed, if you will?
McGuire: I mean, we didn’t really know what was going to happen until we took that first trip. And so until we did the pre-homologation just about a year ago, up to that point we didn’t we didn’t know if we were going to be here or Lake Placid. I’d say there are advantages to both. It’s always nice to be on a home track, but it’s always nice to have that international experience of being somewhere else for the Olympic Games. So once we got confirmation that the athletes went down the track and during that test event, we knew we’d be here. For us, it was more about the uncertainty, and then at that point, knowing the certainty of being in Italy. So we were certainly excited. For me, it was a track that I competed on. And so it’s nice that part of the track replicates the older track and part of it’s new. It’s definitely a special, special place here.
SportsTravel: For those unfamiliar, what were the main changes made to the track that’s different than what it was historically?
McGuire: So about half the track follows the original track. The other lower part is new. They’ve made it a bit more technical, which is great. They’ve made it a lot safer, which is really good. And for the athletes, it created a level field because they all get to go down to a certain number of times, other than Italians who have that home track advantage of getting to go down as many times as they want. But for us it’s about who can learn the track the fastest. And for our athletes so far, we’ve had some really good runs and we’re excited about it.
SportsTravel: Both your skeleton and bobsled teams have had some drama coming into the Games. As CEO of the national governing body, how challenging was the lead-up to these Games?
McGuire:It has been a challenge. Obviously, athletes always have the right to challenge decisions. Certainly it’s important that athletes do have those rights. In this case, we wanted to have the team set as quickly as possible since that creates certainty in the athletes’ minds. We want to reduce those distractions and focus on preparing for the Games.
SportsTravel: You’ve done a great job with marketing leading into the Games, including some deals with Raising Cane’s and even Flavor Flav. Talk to me about the effort involved to raise the profile of the sports…
McGuire: That’s an area that we recognize that we really needed to focus in on about five years ago. The previous CEO, Darren (Steele) hired Michelle Knous, and she was an Olympic bobsledder who didn’t formally come from a marketing background, sponsorship background, but was extremely passionate about the sport. And so we were able to get her connected with a few mentors on our board of directors and connections for our board. And she’s done a great job of really building great relationships with folks to get them excited about sponsoring the team.
Raising Cane’s has been a great one that she’s brought in. We’ve really put together a great partnership with them. We’re not only raising awareness for the sport, but selling the plush puppy dogs, which people love and they’re in over 900 stores across the country. They’ve also got flyers at each of the stores that have a QR code for recruiting. So we’re hoping to leverage the next Olympian from Raising Cane’s — you never know where they might come from.
And then with Flavor Flav, one of our one of our development athletes ran into [his people] and encouraged them to know about his support for water polo and encouraged them to want to get involved with bobsled and skeleton and introduced us to his manager and he was certainly excited right away. He came out to Park City, tried both bobsled and skeleton and really got excited about skeleton once he could come out and learn technique and go through a training camp. He did great at both bobsled and skeleton, but I’ll tell you, his skeleton technique was great right from the beginning.
Then we’ve been fortunate to also add a couple new sponsors, like Snowflake and Honda, who are both LA28 sponsors, and then we’ve also been fortunate for many of our long-term partners like Under Armour to be on the team for years.
SportsTravel: Back to Flavor Flav for a minute — that clock can’t be good for aerodynamics …
[Laughs] We did ask him to take the clock off when he went down the track, but you know, he might be replacing Omega as the official timing system for USA Bobsled/Skeleton.
SportsTravel: You also have an interesting fundraising promotion with a state-by-state competition. Tell me about that.
It’s one of the areas that we see opportunity. We’re seeing a lot more donors getting involved in the Olympic movement and the Paralympic movement. And so for us, we’ve had some great donors in the past. We haven’t really had a structured program. We never really had a grassroots program because we’re not a membership-driven organization. But this is a concept that we came up with and called 50 States Strong, and it was really about rallying all of these states to get behind the bobsled and skeleton team. There’s also a little bit of rivalry as well because every time you get a donation, you identify where that donation is coming from, which state. And we’ve got a scorecard and a ticker on which states are out front. This is going to be ongoing, not just for the Olympic Games, but it’s going to be an ongoing donor program that we’re going to have for a period of time. And hopefully we have some competitions on who can be the first state to raise $5,000 or $10,000. Who can be in the top three when it’s all said and done?
SportsTravel: Lastly, your sports get so much great exposure during the Games. How do you best keep that going until the next Games?
It’s tough. People love watching bobsled and skeleton during the games. We’re no different from any other NGB. How do you keep that relevance and keep people engaged? For us, this has been a great year in terms of bringing partners in, bringing sponsorships in and sales. We’re going to try and do everything we can to minimize that dip after the Games. But our hope is that we’ve gotten some new partners, some new fans, some new donors that understand the sport that have greater appreciation for the sports. They can get to know the athlete stories and really get connected to those athletes and want to stay involved for the next four years, especially leading up to that home Games in 2034.
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