Over the next two weeks, the Olympic Village in Paris’ suburbs will house more than 14,000 athletes—but LeBron James won’t be one of them. Neither will Stephen Curry, Breanna Stewart or any of the other men’s and women’s basketball players representing Team USA at the Paris Games. Forbes staff writer Justin Birnbaum joins "Forbes Talks" to break down just how much it costs for USA basketball to make their own arrangements.
Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/justinbirnbaum/2024/07/27/team-usas-basketball-superstars-are-staying-outside-the-olympic-village-at-a-cost-of-15-million/
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Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/justinbirnbaum/2024/07/27/team-usas-basketball-superstars-are-staying-outside-the-olympic-village-at-a-cost-of-15-million/
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a reporter here at Forbes. Joining me now is my Forbes
00:07colleague, staff writer, Justin Birnbaum. Justin, thanks so much for coming in.
00:11Thanks for having me, Brittany.
00:13The Olympics are underway, and at the Olympics, thousands of athletes historically stay in
00:18the lodging known as Olympic Village. Your reporting, USA Basketball, is opting out with
00:23a really heavy price tag. But first, take us inside Olympic Village. What are the accommodations
00:29like?
00:30Yeah, so like you said, I believe the number here this year is over 14,000 athletes are
00:35staying in the Olympic Village, and this is a common thing at the Games. You know, they
00:39put them up in this kind of communal environment. I think the best way to think of it would
00:44be like a really nice kind of college dorm situation. You know, at the Olympic Village,
00:49you know, you share a room. You know, there are suites, common bathrooms. The kind of
00:55conditions have been all over social media, so, you know, it's not like we have to leave
00:59it to the imagination. I think the two things that have kind of stood out the most were
01:04the cardboard beds that a lot of Olympic athletes have pointed out. Also, the battle over air
01:10conditioning, because originally the Paris Olympics was set, they wanted to kind of make
01:13an effort to be environmentally conscious, and they weren't going to have air conditioning,
01:17and there was a battle that kind of went back and forth with a lot of athletes wanting to
01:20bring their own air conditioning units in. So, you know, from the outside looking in,
01:25it seems relatively nice, you know, beyond that, putting those things aside, and yeah.
01:30I don't know what your college dorm room looked like, but mine certainly had air conditioning
01:35and a bed that wasn't made of cardboard. But has the U.S. basketball team always opted
01:40to stay out of Olympic Village, and what has their lodging looked like in previous years?
01:45So this dates back to 1992, the first time the NBA sent its stars to the Olympics, and
01:51everybody will remember that as the dream team, with Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson,
01:56in Barcelona. So back then, having such high profile athletes with them, they put them
02:01up with their own accommodations, luxury hotels. It's been that way ever since. There's been
02:06a few interesting outliers. For Athens 2004, they stayed on a cruise ship that was docked,
02:13and they did the same thing again for Rio de Janeiro in 2016, another cruise ship. So
02:17generally speaking, USA Basketball is putting up its players in some pretty nice accommodations
02:23for the Olympics. So we know the price tag, or you're estimating the price tag, rather,
02:28and we'll get to that in a second, but what is known about their accommodations this year?
02:33So for this Paris Olympics, USA Basketball is staying in a hotel in the city center of
02:38Paris. They contracted for the entire hotel. I'm told it has about 800 rooms. It's unclear
02:45if they're going to use all 800, but they have the option to kind of give some back
02:48or move another sport with a similar lifestyle in, like golf, for example. At the Tokyo Olympics,
02:53they shared a hotel with USA Basketball. And also, they're playing their group stage games
02:59in Lille, which is about two hours north. So they do have a five-star hotel up there,
03:05and they're staying there the night before games.
03:07What's this price tag look like to transport the entire USA Basketball teams, both men
03:12and women, to the Olympics, pay for lodging, and all of those costs?
03:16Yeah, so we estimate that the total cost there is about $15 million. It's like you said,
03:22it includes all these different things like travel, chartering, lodging, transport. When
03:28you're not inside the Olympic Village, you have to arrange a lot of your own logistics,
03:31whether it's getting the practices and games. There's a lot of associated costs. The USOPC
03:36helps out in different ways. For one, they have the High Performance Training Center,
03:40which Olympic teams train at while they're in Paris. And USA Basketball obviously gets
03:44access to that as well. And there are other areas where they contribute or lend resources
03:49and this and that. And also, the State Department lends some security help, as does the NBA.
03:54So the kind of combination of all these things extrapolated together is how we arrive at
04:00our estimate.
04:01$15 million, though, is just an enormous amount to send two teams from one country on over
04:07to the Olympics. So who's paying this and is it breaking the bank?
04:11Yeah, so like I said, part of it runs through the governing body of USA Basketball and part
04:17of it factors in more intangible contributions that the USOPC and the State Department are
04:24contributing as well, even kind of the NBA's role in it also. You've got two teams, you've
04:30got the three-on-three teams as well, but they're a large traveling party. I mean, you've
04:33got teams, support staff, coaches, families. You know, there's a lot of people that travel
04:40to executives, support staff. So the traveling party is big and also just kind of from a
04:46security and privacy standpoint, you kind of want them isolated to a degree as well.
04:51So like I said, you know, a lot of it's run through the governing body. USA Basketball
04:56is a pretty well-resourced organization. I believe, you know, they were just shy of $80
05:00million in revenue over the last four fiscal years and a large chunk of that comes from
05:04its licensing, excuse me, and marketing agreement with the NBA, which in the last Olympic year
05:10netted them in revenue $15.5 million.
05:13The Olympics, I mean, is probably one of the biggest events in the world. So what does
05:18the booking, the coordination, the logistics look like to travel with Team USA Basketball
05:23to book this lodging? Tell us that.
05:26Yeah, so it's a process that starts, you know, years in advance. I mean, I spoke with a former
05:30director at the USOPC and, you know, they go down, I think it's around six years in
05:36advance and they start doing a site visit basically once, you know, they know where
05:40the next Olympics is going to be. And they lay out scenarios, situations, you know, what
05:44would work best for certain teams. In the case of basketball, because USA Basketball
05:49is such a well kind of resourced organization, it's more of a collaborative process where
05:54the USOPC will probably do the initial scouting, they'll have them come down for a site visit,
05:58they'll go through options and narrow it down, and then USA Basketball will ultimately make
06:02the final decision. And then, you know, there are a lot of little things that go with that.
06:06Like for example, if you're keeping them outside the Olympic Village, you got to arrange busing
06:10or other forms of transportation, communication to get them where they need to go and all
06:14these other different factors unfold as you kind of get toward the Olympics. So what this
06:20former director had told me is that you basically want to have an understanding by the time
06:26the previous games end. So, you know, as soon as Paris ends, they're going to already
06:29start looking towards Los Angeles for 2028.
06:32USA Basketball obviously has tremendous star power. They're paying $15 million estimated
06:39to bring these teams on over and everything in between. But how does that compare to what
06:43other US teams are paying for their teams to compete?
06:47Yeah, to be clear, our $15 million estimate is not solely USA Basketball. It does include
06:52the other factors in from the US OPC and the State Department, the other intangible costs
06:57in there as well. Generally speaking, we took a look at weightlifting, we took a look at
07:01fencing, and these were six-figure investments. I mean, in some cases, they are in the Olympic
07:07Village. I know in 2021 for Tokyo, USA Weightlifting was not in the Olympic Village. But,
07:13you know, they're much smaller costs in terms of what they're outlaying for their Olympic
07:19spends. And, you know, it's kind of reasonably so. I mean, again, the NBA, not the NBA, excuse
07:24me, USA Basketball, you know, carry some pretty high profile stars with it. So they have to,
07:29you know, make some pretty, pretty luxurious arrangements. So, yeah.
07:33Talk about that a little more for us. How does how do the needs of the USA Basketball
07:38teams compare to teams like fencing, weightlifting, those lesser known teams?
07:44USA Basketball features some of the highest profile athletes on the planet. It features
07:48some of the best earning athletes on the planet. For the men's team, the 12-man roster
07:52collectively earned over 600 million dollars for the 12 months ending in May.
07:58So you're talking about some very, very famous and very rich individuals. Security is a
08:02massive, massive concern. You know, I remember seeing from, you know, years ago when the
08:08team was in Beijing for the 08 Olympics, Kobe Bryant was mobbed anywhere he went on the
08:13streets. You know, this is this is an important thing. I mean, you obviously want to keep
08:17them safe, but there are other factors as well. When you make your own arrangements, you
08:21have more control over certain things, whether it's practice and schedule times, having
08:26your family around, being able to see family, nutrition, and also it creates a
08:31distraction-free environment. You know, many of the USA Basketball players have talked
08:36about, you know, visiting the Olympic Village and interacting with some of their fellow
08:39Olympians. And they get mobbed, you know, autographs, pictures.
08:43I mean, these guys are massive, massive celebrities. And, you know, to some degree, I'm
08:47sure it's nice and they enjoy it and meeting other people of kind of, you know, different
08:51expertise. But they are there to do a job and they want to win gold and keeping it
08:55distraction-free is probably, you know, a really high priority.
08:59In that vein, do athletes with similar name recognition or star power always opt out of
09:04Olympic Village?
09:05I don't know if always is the correct term, but it does happen.
09:09Novak Djokovic, for one, who's representing Serbia and is a massive, massive star, he
09:15is not staying in the Olympic Village, reportedly.
09:18So, I mean, he's someone who, you know, has earned millions and millions of dollars, is a
09:22massive celebrity. And, you know, when you can afford that and also when you want to
09:25eliminate distractions and focus on winning gold, I'm sure that kind of comes as a high
09:29priority. I can't definitively say it always happens, but I can say that a lot of cases
09:35where athletes have the means and want to create an environment for them where they can
09:38focus, it does happen.
09:39Justin Birnbaum, thanks for coming on in.
09:41Thank you, Brittany.