Updated NGB Scorecard Values for US Ski and Snowboard, Moves to the Top of the Rankings

Note: I am posting this update here as we work through some technical issues with our NGB project site at the Sports Governance Center at CU Athletics. We will update that site with the new scores ASAP, thanks for your patience.

Last year, we released the first set of scores for the governance of US Olympic national governing bodies (NGBs) based on evaluation metrics developed by the 2015 Sports Governance Observer of Play the Game. We applied these metric to 22 US Olympic Sport Federations. We will be releasing the scores for the remaining NGBs later this spring.

Since releasing the initial set of scores, we have received feedback from the U.S. Olympic Committee and more than a dozen NGBs. One of the organizations that we heard from was US Ski & Snowboard which provided us with an update on their governance practices, the information that they make available on their website and several challenges to our rankings. You can see their response here in PDF.

Our team used the Ski and Snowboard response as the basis for an updated scoring of Ski & Snowboard with respect to the 36 SGO indicators. Our methodology was the same as first applied: A team of three researchers independently evaluated and scored each of the 36 SGO indicators. Then, for the few indicators for which there was a significant difference in scores among the team, the team met to reach a consensus score.

The full set of rankings can be seen on our homepage and the Ski and Snowboard update is summarized in the table below.

The original aggregate score for Ski and Snowboard was a 66.1, for which we gave a D. The updated score is 80.1, earning Ski and Snowboard a B-. Perhaps more importantly, the updated score vaults Ski and Snowboard to the top of our initial rankings.

Here is how Ski and Snowboard ranks in each of the four categories:

• Transparency = 92%, A-
• Democratic Processes = 79%, C+
• Check and Balances = 86%, B
• Solidarity = 64%, D

We have learned from the USOC that many of the SGO indicators overlap in important respects with the USOC internal compliance standards checklist for the NGBs, but there are also SGO indicators which are of less relevance to USOC and the NGGs. Further, the SGO indicators were originally designed for evaluating international federations and are being applied to US Olympic NGBs. Even with these limitations, the SGO evaluation framework provides a useful, high level tool for evaluating governance from an independent perspective, based solely in publicly available information.

We are in contact with other NGBs and look forward to future updates for other US Olympic organizations.

UPDATED SCORES

US Ski and Snowboard	22-Mar-18
	Old Scores	New scores
Transparency
1.01	4	5
1.02	5	5
1.03	5	5
1.04	1	3
1.05	4	5
1.06	3	5
1.07	2	4
1.08	5	5
1.09	5	5
1.1	5	5
1.11	5	5
1.12	3	3
Average:	3.92	4.58
Sum:	47	55
Democratic Process
2.01	5	5
2.02	5	5
2.03	3	3.5
2.04	1	2
2.05	3	4
2.06	4	3
2.07	5	5
2.08	2	5
2.09	1	2
2.1	4	5
Average:	3.3	3.95
Sum:	33	39.5
Checks and Balances
3.01	4	4.5
3.02	4	5
3.03	4	4.5
3.04	4	4
3.05	2	4
3.06	3	3
3.07	5	5
Average:	3.71	4.29
Sum:	26	30
Solidarity
4.01	3	3
4.02	1	5
4.03	1	1.5
4.04	1	2
4.05	4	5
4.06	1	1
4.07	5	5
Average:	2.29	3.21
Sum:	16	22.5

The Revenue Red Herring in the US Soccer Equal Pay Dispute

Yesterday, Hope Solo visited my big class at the University of Colorado, Introduction to Sports Governance, and discussed the equal pay issue that is currently the subject of an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission dispute between  a group of US women soccer players and the US Soccer Federation.

In this post I'll discuss what I believe to be the central red herring at the center of this dispute: the idea that differential revenues attributed to men's and women's teams should be used as a basis for the differential compensation of individual athletes under US Olympic sport national governing bodies. Before I proceed, let me emphasize that this post reflects a policy analysis, and not a legal analysis. I'm a policy professor, not a lawyer.

The issues are complex, but let's start with the relevant organizations. The US Soccer Federation is one of 47 organizations in the United States that serve as a "national governing body" for an Olympic sport. USSF exists under US law, the so-called Ted Stevens Olympic Act (or Amateur Sports Act of 1978).  The Stevens Act (here in PDF) created an organizational framework for Olympic sports, centered on the US Olympic Committee and the establishment of national governing bodies for individual sports.

Among the goals of the Stevens Act are:

to obtain for the United States, directly or by delegation to the appropriate national governing body, the most competent amateur representation possible in each event of the Olympic Games, the Paralympic Games, and Pan-American Games.

It would seem fairly obvious that by "most competent representation possible" the law is referring to sporting competence as exhibited in international competitions. We want athletes who are the world's best, who can win tournaments and medals. That is what the Olympics are about and medal counts are, for better or worse, an important criterion in how national governing bodies are judged.

In their pursuit of sporting success, the Stevens Act imposes certain legal requirements on the USOC and national governing bodies, among them:

For the sport that it governs, a national governing body shall provide equitable support and encouragement for participation by women where separate programs for male and female athletes are conducted on a national basis.

This requirement is unambiguous, though lawyers surely will no doubt parse the precise meaning of "equitable support and encouragement." For purposes of this discussion, let's define "equitable support" in financial terms as "roughly equal" with "equal" defined as a mathematical term that can be measured in dollars and cents.

The EEOC complaint filed in 2016 (here in PDF) by several US women soccer players alleges that the compensation for women US national team players "pales in comparison" to that of US men's national team players. The complaint lists a long set of issue for which men and women are compensated differently (at the time of the filing), ranging from the World Cup competitions to daily per diem rates (e.g., men get $75 per day internationally, women get $60).

In a response to the EEOC filing, lawyers for the USSF focused on the relative revenues generated by each team of players as a primary basis for their argument against the complaint. The USSF acknowledges that there may be disparities in pay, but argues that these differences are justified based on differential "production."

. . . to the extent that there are differences in compensation paid to WNT and MNT players, those differences do not establish a violation of Title VII or the Equal Pay Act. Under both statutory schemes, where a payment that differs by gender is being made “pursuant to … (iii) a system which measures earnings by quantity or quality of production[] or (iv) a differential based on any other factor other than sex,” there is, by definition, no violation.

This is important.

The USSF is defining "production" in terms of dollars generated by each team, and not by sporting success. The primary justification offered by USSF for any differences in compensation is: "the greater amount of revenue produced by the MNT."

Further, the players, both men and women, seem to have accepted through their players associations that negotiate collective bargaining agreements governing compensation that revenue should be used as a metric of compensation. The USSF response to the EEOC complaint explains:

With respect to the MNT and WNT, the compensation paid each team is based, in part, on predictions regarding the revenue that each team will generate over the course of the collective bargaining agreement.

The USSF invokes an analogy to make its point:

[A]ssume that Player A and Player B are wide receivers of different races playing for the same professional football team. Suppose further that Player A had consistently produced more yards and touchdowns than Player B, and received a more lucrative contract as a result. The fact that Player B came to outperform the Player A over the term of the contract would not remotely suggest in hindsight that the original contracts were the product of a racially discriminatory motive.

From its response, it seems pretty obvious that the USSF is overseeing the US men's and women's national teams as if they were independent professional franchises. (There are important legal points about employees of the same organization doing the same work, that I won't get into here.)

The professional sports analogy used by USSF is simply misplaced. The USSF is a non-profit which operates under the Ted Stevens Act. While it needs revenues to do its work, such revenues are always to be a means, not an end. Under the Stevens Act (here in PDF) the USOC can provide "financial assistance to any organization or association, except a corporation organized for profit" and "may not engage in business for profit." From a legislative perspective, profits are not the point of Olympic sport.

To the extent that USSF views US national soccer teams as businesses generating profits, and uses those profits as the basis for compensation, it may be in violation of the legislative intent of the Stevens Act governing Olympic sports. Recall that among the legislated goals of a US Olympic sport national governing body are to provide "competent representation" (which means success in the World Cup, the Olympic games and other competitions under the Olympic Movement) and "equitable support and encouragement."

With apologies to Gene Hackman in Unforgiven, revenue's got nothing to do with it.

The relative revenues generated by men's and women's national team should have no bearing on their relative compensation. USSF is not a for-profit business. Soccer players who compete in international competitions produce primarily sporting successes (and losses). The revenues that they generate contribute to support the work of the non-profit, but the revenues should always be viewed as a means to achieving "competent representation." It is worth noting that US Soccer has as much as $140 million sitting in reserve, which dwarfs the size of both the EEOC claim and providing the futureequal compensation.

And crucially, under the law, men's and women's national soccer teams are legally required to be treated equitably from a sporting perspective, with no footnote or clause that says equity can be ignored due to revenues or anything else.

So the bottom line here is that the women soccer players' EEOC complaint is in fact flawed. It is flawed not because they are wrong about equal compensation -- they got that right. The complaint is wrong because it has not gone far enough.

Consider overall investment in men's and women's national teams: The data below come from 2013 and  2014, but they are illustrative.

Whatever the relative profits of the US MNT and WNT, data consistently show that the USSF invests less in the WNT versus the MNT. This disparity would seem to be fundamentally at odds with the legislated objectives of the Ted Stevens Act which governs USSF.

To sum up, issues of equal pay in US Soccer are currently playing out in the legal system. However, with Congress now paying greater attention to USOC and its associated national governing bodies, a more appropriate venue for resolving this issue may be through the legislative process. 

US Soccer is treating the US men's and women's national teams as cost centers that generate profits to justify differential treatment. Not only is this possibly illegal (we shall see in due course), it is all but certainly in violation of the intent of the Ted Stevens Act. 

If athletes also treat the USSF as a professional sport organization, they cede important ground. Consider for instance a court decision in response to a call for dismissal of the EEOC complaint only references the Ted Stevens Act in passing, here in PDF, and proceeds to characterize the USSF as if it were a professional franchise owner.. 

National soccer teams are not professional franchises. Their relative revenues and profits are a red herring. Athletes and their representatives would be on firmer ground if they rejected relative revenues as a legitimate basis for securing athlete payment. USSF is a non-profit under the Stevens Act and is bound to treat men and women equitably. That is the legislated intent of the US Congress and it is time for USSF to be held to that standard. 

Sexual Abuse Allegations at US Olympic Sports Organizations

There are a large number of sexual abuse allegations against officials in US Olympic sports bodies. While those against Larry Nassar and USA Gymnastics are the most widely publicized, there are many others. This tabulation is for my own use, but hopefully of use for others as well.

The Washington Post reports:

More than 290 coaches and officials associated with the United States’ Olympic sports organizations have been publicly accused of sexual misconduct since 1982, according to a Washington Post review of sport governing body banned lists, news clips and court records in several states. The figure spans parts of 15 sports and amounts to an average of eight adults connected to an Olympic organization accused of sexual misconduct every year — or about one every six weeks — for more than 36 years.

Here is an initial tally of media reports (updated 15 March 2018):

• USA Volleyball
• Chicago Sun Times
• Buzzfeed
• USA Gymnastics
• Original IndyStar reporting
• USA Swimming
• Orange County Register
• ABC News
• USA Speedskating
• NPR
• Chicago Tribune
• Daily Mail
• USA Taekwondo
• Washington Post
• US Figure Skating
• Nancy Hogshead-Makar 
• USA Today
• USA Track and Field
• Champion Women
• Orange County Register

If you have further pointers, please suggest in the comments or send me a DM, and I'll update.

Further reading:

Haley O. Morton, License to Abuse: Confronting Coach-Inflicted Sexual Assault in American Olympic Sports, 23 Wm. & Mary J. Women & L. 141 (2016). (PDF)

Critiques of Bermon and Garnier 2017 (related to Chand vs IAAF)

A new paper was published today with a strong critique of the IAAF study on testosterone and female elite athletes. 

Franklin S, Ospina Betancurt J, Camporesi S What statistical data of observational performance can tell us and what they cannot: the case of Dutee Chand v. AFI & IAAF Br J Sports Med Published Online First: 23 February 2018. doi: 10.1136/bjsports-2017-098513

That paper concludes:

we believe that it is scientifically incorrect to draw the conclusions in the Bermon and Garnier paper from the statistical results presented. Their paper claims that certain athletes have an advantage in precisely the five events where a significant effect was found: we calculate that a high share of those five significant effects are likely to be false positives.

An earlier critique was provided by statistician Andrew Gelman:

the statistical analysis data processing in this paper is such a mess that I can’t really figure out what data they are working with, what exactly they are doing, or the connection between some of their analyses and their scientific goals. 

Gelman was motivated by Simon Franklin, a post-doc at LSE, who emailed him that:

There are more than a few problems with the paper, not least the fact that it makes causal claims from correlations in a highly selective sample, and the bizarre choice of comparing averages within the highest and lowest tertiles of fT levels using a student t-test (without any other statistical tests presented).

But most problematic is the multiple hypothesis testing. The authors test for a correlation between T-levels and performance across a total of over 40 events (men and women) and find a significant correlation in 5 events, at the 5% level. They then conclude:

Female athletes with high fT levels have a significant competitive advantage over those with low fT in 400 m, 400 m hurdles, 800 m, hammer throw, and pole vault.

These are 5 events for which they found significant correlations! And we are lead to believe that there is no such advantage for any of the other events.

I also have written two critiques. First, a post-publication peer review:

My bottom line: The paper has some significant methodological issues, most notably the inclusion of female athletes who doped with those with naturally high levels of T. There is some double counting of athletes in 2011 and 2013. There is also speculation that the male findings are contaminated by doping. Methodological issues notwithstanding, the paper nonetheless strongly reinforces the 2015 CAS Chand decision. 

 And second, a short data analysis of their reported findings.

The Bermon and Garnier paper clearly has some methodological issues. However, even taken at face value it does not support the IAAF case against Dutee Chand. CAS continues to dither over the arbitration nonetheless. It is time to send it back to IAAF and ask them to start again.

ISG 2018: Bonus Class Materials #2

This week -- meetings 9 & 10 -- we continue a short unit on sport and social movements. Here is some material from the syllabus plus bonus material for the week ahead.

Our class is a part of the Inclusive Sport Summit taking place on campus this week (props to Medford Moorer for making it happen with CU Athletics and Recreation Services). Here is the schedule for the ISS on Wednesday and Thursday. Note that it is open to the general public.

The Thursday closing session will feature Solomon Wilcots (CU Buff, NFL, CBS and now Sky Sports) and Jim Trotter (ESPN, Sports Illustrated), along with Professor Nancy Lough (UNLV). NOTE that it will be in the Touchdown Club in Dal Ward.

On Tuesday, in addition to a scheduled quiz, we will have a final look at the Russian doping saga with a discussion of tonite's 60 Minutes episode featuring Grigory Rodchenkov.

We will also start a discussion of Colin Kaepernick, Donald Trump and the NFL. I'll give a mini-lecture on propaganda.

Here are this week's readings:

• Gibbs, L, 2017. A high school football team took a knee and then all hell broke loose, Think Progress
• Seth Wickersham and Don Van Natta Jr., 2017. Gaffes, TV ratings concerns dominated as NFL, players forged anthem peace, ESPN
• G. E. Gilmore, 2017. Colin Kaepernick and the myth of the “good” protest, The New York Times
• Sherman, R. 2016. Common Sense, The Players Tribune, Oct 27.
• Lauricella, A. & D. Werly, 2016 The NFL and Domestic Violence: All Talk, No Walk, Feb 16.
• Tech Times, 2015, Interview: 'League Of Denial' Authors Mark Fainaru-Wada And Steve Fainaru Talk Concussion Crisis In NFL, 5 Oct.

Bonus material will be suggested in class.

ISG 2018: Bonus Class Materials #1

I have promised my students in Introduction to Sports Governance some bonus materials related to class discussions that we won't be able to get into in any depth. There is a lot going on in sports governance right now (safe understatement). Here are some bonus items:

• On the Jamaican sprinters clenbuterol positives, buried by WADA, mentioned in class, here is the original ARD report and a discussion by Ross Tucker;
• The Pyoengchang Winter Games start later this week, and in advance the IOC, WADA and CAS are on the brink of all out war with one another. Very good analyses can be found at Inside the Games, Sport Integrity Initiative, and 3 Wire Sports.
• CU Athletics and Recreation Services are holding the first Inclusive Sports Summit next week. This class is participating in the event. I'll discuss further in class. Details here and schedule here.

We have three Olympians visiting class tomorrow, here are some highlights of their careers in and out of sport:

Casey Malone on discus:

Mara Abbott on her broken heart following Rio:

Kara Goucher as an anti-doping whistleblower:

Powerful, Short Documentary on Flawed Doping Conviction of Steven Colvert

Unsolicited Advice for USOC After Nassar

The events today in a Michigan court room were remarkable, as sexual predator Larry Nassar was sentenced to up to an additional 175 years in prison. In the aftermath of the sentencing the US Olympic Committee, which has oversight responsibilities of USA Gymnastics under us law (the so-called Ted Stevens Act of 1978), released a letter to athletes.

In the letter USOC says the following:

The USOC has decided to launch an investigation by an independent third party to examine how an abuse of this proportion could have gone undetected for so long. We need to know when complaints were brought forward and to who. This investigation will include both USAG and the USOC, and we believe USAG will cooperate fully. We will make the results public.

Nobody asked me, but here is some independent advice to USOC.

1. How USOC handles this investigation is incredibly important, for making things better, for its reputation and for its legitimacy in the eyes of athletes.

USOC gets one shot at this and one shot only. The way forward is a minefield with lots of potential for missteps. Here are some recommendations based on my observations of many, many investigations by sports organizations.

2. The choice of "independent third party" is absolutely essential.

No details are provided, but it would seem obvious that absolutely no one from the Olympic "family" should be involved in the investigation. No one. Independent must mean independent. USOC should have no role in selecting the members of the investigative team. USOC should pay the full cost.

One suggestion is to follow the model of the Mitchell Report (full name: "Report to the Commissioner of Baseball of an Independent Investigation into the Illegal Use of Steroids and Other Performance Enhancing Substances by Players in Major League Baseball") which was called for and paid for by Major League Baseball.

George Mitchell recently explained how it came together in a way that was truly independent:

[MLB commissioner] Bud Selig deserves great credit for his courage. He was the only commissioner of a professional sport in the United States who had the courage to authorize a completely independent investigation. I made it clear to him in our first conversation that I would do this only if I had his commitment to my full and total independence. He unhesitatingly gave it, and he kept his promise. That's to his great credit.

It also worked because, well, George Mitchell is George Mitchell. (I had the pleasure of spending a day with him a few years ago when I was the "George Mitchell lecturer" at the University of Maine. He is the real deal.)

Who might USOC turn to? Some suggestions:

Condoleeza Rice is at the top of my list. She is a diplomat, knows sports and is above reproach. If not her, then someone of similar stature (of which there are very few). George Mitchell is on the list also.

Alternatively, USOC could turn to Congress for help, for instance by making an appeal to the two senators from Colorado (where USOC is headquartered), one a Republican and one a Democrat. Congress has ultimate oversight responsibilities for USOC and could empanel and support the work of an investigation (e.g., via hearings). The risk of course is that involving Congress could lead the issue to become politicized in today's hyper-partisan environment. Another risk is that Congress is just too dysfunctional to take it on .

Of course, Congressional action might preempt USOC anyway (in which case it would be in USOC's interests to just get out ahead). Senator Jean Shaheen (D-NH) has already suggested such, and the train may be leaving the station.

Either way, I'd recommend Condoleeza Rice, regardless who empanels the committee.

3. The investigation must be about more than who knew what, when.

Yest, that should be part of it, of course. But an equally important question is who didn't know what, when. If USAG or USOC officials did not know about the years of abuse, then why didn't they? What went wrong? Clearly, both organizations should have known a long time ago and stopped it.

A limitation to such an investigation is that absent a Congressional role, there will be no subpoena power or ability to compel evidence from witnesses. Mitchell had this problem in his steroid investigations, but his efforts were was helped along by a few athletes who were willing to speak and a parallel federal investigation.

If USOC has not already acted to secure official communications of (all) USAG and (relevant) USOC staff, such as emails, phone messages etc. then it is already too late. USOC needs to be acting as if a major investigation is already underway, and not wait until it is.

4. Finally, USOC should go ahead and decertify USAG. 

In its letter today USOC said:

We have strongly considered decertifying USAG as a National Governing Body. But USA Gymnastics includes clubs and athletes who had no hand in this and who need to be supported. We believe it would hurt more than help the athletes and their sport. But we will pursue decertification if USA Gymnastics does not fully embrace the necessary changes in their governance structure along with other mandated changes under review right now.

This is weak.

Given the scope of the abuse, USAG needs to be rebuilt from the ground up in the aftermath of an independent investigation. Decertification would mean, in effect, putting USAG into a form of receivership and managed by USOC. Yes, this would be challenging and take a lot of effort.  However, it could be done in a manner that limits impacts on athletes and the sport.

Crucially, it would be the right thing to do, and help to restore credibility in the sport and the institutions that govern it. It would send a signal that fixing things is ultimately more important than sport victories. If there is some disruption involved in making things right, then that is a price worth paying.

USOC can be sure that people like me -- well outside their "family," and people like Aly Raisman -- who has called for such an investigation as someone well inside the Olympic "family," will be paying close attention to how this independent investigation proceeds. There won't be a lot of generosity towards USOC if they botch this.

What they do next really matters. We are all watching.

Regulatory Re-Writing via Arbitration? Chand at CAS

Last week the Court of Arbitration for Sport provided an update on its arbitration proceedings in Chand vs. CAS (here in PDF). This is the case that involves the IAAF testosterone regulations governing eligibility of female athletes. I won't go into the (substantial) backstory here, but if you are interested see my recent paper on "sex testing."

In this post I argue that CAS should not allow IAAF to re-write its regulations through this arbitration case.

This is an odd arbitration. Several years ago CAS had suspended the IAAF regulations with a request for IAAF to return with evidence in support of them (if this seems backwards, it is). IAAF commissioned research, presumably to support their regulations, which were published last year (Barmon and Garnier 2017).

The IAAF data do not support the IAAF regulations. Everyone seems to agree with this, as IAAF has asked CAS to present new regulations as part of the Chand proceedings. CAS agreed to this request and in response IAAF submitted to CAS "draft revised regulations that would only apply to female track events over distances of between 400 metres and one mile."

This is an unusual arbital decision. IAAF is engaged in regulation re-writing as part of a CAS proceeding.

Even more odd, the evidence from IAAF in Bermon and Garnier (2017) shows that as the 100m distance -- that Chand specializes in -- high testosterone women are slower than low testosterone women, shown in the figure below.

As a matter of the CAS arbitration in this case, that should be the end. Even if one were to privilege testosterone as a proper object of regulation of female athletes (which to be clear - I do not), the IAAF data does not support such regulation in the case of Chand. End of story. Case closed. Send IAAF back to the regulatory drawing board.

But for whatever reason (and I'm not sure, but I'd guess the reason's initials are CS), CAS is allowing IAAF to re-write its testosterone regulations via the Chand case. You've heard of "activist judges"? Well, these are "activist arbitrators" working on behalf of those in IAAF who have expressed a desire to ban certain women from sport.

But here as well the IAAF data of Bermon and Garnier (2017) don't support the proposed regulations of testosterone in women at distances of 400m to one mile. Consider the figure below:

These IAAF data (pink bar) indicate that over distances of 400m, 800m and 1500m high testosterone women are on average 1.1% faster than their low testosterone counterparts. Unfair, IAAF might scream.

But look at the data for men at 400m and 1500m (blue bar). These data indicate that high testosterone men are on average 1.1% faster than their low testosterone counterparts. Surely if high T in women in selected events where performance differs is to be regulated, then high T in men in selected events where performance differs is also to be regulated?

If IAAF responds that the T standard applies only to women but not men based on performance data, then this is the very hallmark of sex discrimination. This only scratches the surfaced of flawed T regulation (see my paper for more nails into this intellectual coffin).

T regulation is simple in theory. But when theory meets the real world, T regulation fails comprehensively, taking IAAF's own data at face value. Dig a little deeper the IAAF study falls apart (e.g., it includes dopers).

Bottom line: CAS should not be engaged in regulatory re-writing via the Chand case. Chand should be permanently reinstated immediately. IAAF T regulations should remain voided. If IAAF wants to keep trying to regulate women's bodies, then they should start again.

Caveat Lector: How Kathy Carter Wins the US Soccer Presidential Election

I'm not an insider. Far from it. I have nowhere near the insight and knowledge of long-time observers like @duresport or @pkedit (and of course there are others). I'm just a professor with a blog. I used to work at 538 for Nate Silver so I do have a license to speculate irresponsibly about elections.

So with that caveat lector out of the way, here are some scenarios for how the US Soccer presidential election might play out, with my expectations for how things will occur.

This post will make the most sense if you have a bit of background in the election and its candidates (here is a good place to start). There are at present eight candidates who I'll divide into three categories (and each has impressive resumes, I just list their primary present occupation below):

Status Quo Candidates

• Kathy Carter, president of Soccer United Marketing
• Carlos Cordeiro, USSF vice president 

Reform Candidates

• Kyle Martino, TV analyst
• Eric Wynalda, TV analyst

Others

• Steve Gans, attorney
• Hope Solo, professional player
• Michael Winograd, lawyer 
• Paul Caligiuri, coach

Conventional wisdom (i.e., what you'll see in the MSM and on Twitter) holds that the "others" don't really have a great shot at winning, but could have an impact. This seems right to me.

The electoral process and math are somewhat complex and opaque (described a bit here and formally here in PDF). In a nutshell, the goal of the election is for a candidate to secure half of the vote, defined as "a majority of the weighted vote of eligible votes cast in that round of balloting." This may be important in a close election, as it means that abstentions reduce the number needed to attain a majority. (Oddly, abstentions are not recorded votes, but non-votes: "members who wish to abstain from voting should refrain from voting and not press any number on their electronic keypad vendor.")

In the event that no candidate secures a majority, there is a 10 minute break and the vote is re-run. After this happens three times with no majority (if delegates decide to do so in advance) the lowest vote-getter will be removed from the listing, and can still be voted for as a write-in. Candidates may also decide to voluntarily drop out. I don't think they get to that contingency.

If all that makes sense, well, you are doing better than me. Let's now look at how things might play out in the election.

Round 1

I'm not convinced that there will still be 8 candidates still running when the voting starts. Candidates might yet choose to drop out ahead of the vote. But let's assume that there are all 8.

MLS interests (for lack of a better term) will have more than 20% of the overall vote and perhaps, speculatively, as much as 35%. Conventional wisdom, which I won't get into here, holds that MLS interests favor the status quo candidates. 

It is perfectly conceivable that one of the status quo candidates (Carter or Cordeiro) wins outright in a first ballot, but probably unlikely if both are in the mix. Watch out if one drops out ahead of the vote -- a sure sign that they have the votes for a 1st round victory. 

But let's say both stay in and give the two of them 25% of the vote up front, based solely on the votes held by MLS interests.

That leaves 3/4 of the vote, which we can split 3 ways equally in the absence of further information to the contrary: 1/3 to Status Quo, 1/3 to Reformers and 1/3 to the others. That would give a first round result of:

• Carter/Cordeiro - 50%
• Wynalda/Martino - 25%
• Field - 25%

I have more confidence (gut feeling, or maybe indigestion, whatever) in the 50% for the Status Quo than the breakout of the other 50%. Some of the vote for Others might also be tactical in the sense of seeing the lay of the land in Round 1 and encouraging a Round 2 (losta game theory dynamics here for sure). But even if each of these guesstimates of mine is off by +/-10% I don't think it changes the calculus (political and electoral) that follows.

Horsetrading Post-Round 1

I'd guess that most if not all of the Others leave the race at this point. They made their points, had their impact and see things are getting real. I'd further speculate that most of this support then goes to the Reformers- why would you vote for a dark horse if you wanted the Status Quo?

The most important question now is whether Carter or Cordeiro drops out in favor of the other. Cordeiro is already USSF VP, and electing Carter locks in the Status Quo candidates in the top two positions. What happens if Cordeiro gets voted in and the Board has to install a new VP during the next year? Politically, that VP might need to be the losing Reformer - Wynalda or Martino. Its a risk for the Status Quo to open Cordeiro's seat. 

On the other hand, Carter has drawn a lot of criticism due to her role at SUM, among other things. From a purely political tactics perspective, her dropping out in favor of Cordeiro would surprisingly eliminate these negatives and maybe push him over the top. Soccer politics isn't really known for its cleverness, so I am going to say that greed wins and Cordeiro drops out in favor of Carter.

Either way, if Carter or Cordeiro drop out, this would necessitate a similar deal between Martino and Wynalda, with very much a similar calculus to be made. Wynalda has run the higher profile campaign, but also has higher negatives than does Martino. I'd guess that this decision would be based on who gets the most votes in the first round. But I don't know if both or either would set aside ego for the other. Regardless, if the Status Quo center on a candidate the Refomers will have to as well.

Round 2

So let's say Round Two starts out with one of Carter and Cordeiro versus one of Wynalda or Martino, with the possibility of a straggler Other still hanging around. I don't think it matters which of the Status Quo candidates or Reformers are on the ballot at this point. The lingering uncertainty will be whether the Status Quo candidate can get over 50%. I think it'll be close, but ultimately the Status Quo will win.

As long as I'm making all this up, I can be even more precise. There will be a significant protest vote in the form of non-votes (which is actually why a remaining Other might be important). The resulting smaller number of delegates who vote will allow Kathy Carter to win the presidency with more than 50% of the vote but less than 50% of those eligible.

• Carter - 47.34% of eligible votes
• Martino - 43.86%
• Other - 3.61%
• Non-votes - 5.19% 

There you have it. Two decimal places. I hope it adds up to 100%.

Irony Alert

For reformers, a Carter/Cordeiro regime would not be all bad news, as it would all but guarantee a far more significant reform agenda would get pushed through USSF in the years to come. The reality is that this election is only the start of change coming to USSF. Buckle up.

Introduction to Sports Governance: Spring 2018 Syllabus

My spring syllabus for Introduction to Sports Governance (ETHN 3104) at the University of Colorado is now available here as a PDF.

This spring we have another impressive list of guest speakers lined up: Hope Solo, Vitaly and Yulia Stepanov, Kara Goucher, Casey Malone, Mara Abbott, Jim Trotter, Solomon Wilcots, Ceal Barry, Jay Smith, Phil DiStefano, Rick George, Jor Jupille, Mike Macintyre, Tad Boyle, JR Payne, Valerie Simons and several possible surprise guests.

For locals, we will have some evening events associated with the class open to the public, so stay tuned.

We are reading three books:

• The Edge (by me)
• The Sports Gene (David Epstein)
• Cheated (Jay Smith and Mary Willingham)

Lots of other readings - academic, journalism, official reports, etc. We are also watching several films, including Icarus, Venus Vs. and Let them Wear Towels.

It will be a great class - the best ISG so far. I am really excited for the semester. 

Comments welcomed!

Making Sense of USSF Electoral Math

OK, I'm diving into the challenge of trying to understand that incredibly arcane mathematics of the upcoming US Soccer Federation presidential election. As a reminder and disclaimer, I am the co-President of the Board of Directors of FC Boulder, a member of the Colorado Soccer Association, which in turn is a member of USSF. This analysis however is done in my professional capacity as a professor who studies arcane things like US Olympic NGB elections.

The below analysis is preliminary and I welcome corrections or clarifying information. I'll update this post as new information becomes available. Some details on the election process can be found in the Office Election Abstract (here in PDF) prepared by US Soccer. This post by Anthony DiCicco is also a useful resource. Paul Kennedy has some similar data from the 2017 USSF AGM here.

Those eligible to vote in the upcoming USSF election are called "delegates" as members of the USSF "National Council" as defined by the 2017-2018 USSF Bylaws. In 2016 USSF identified 534 delegates eligible to vote, as indicated in the memo reproduced below. These numbers will no doubt be slightly different for 2018, but they give us a basis to explore weightings.

US federal law (Ted Stephens Amateur Athletics Act 1978) under which USSF operates as an Olympic sport governing body requires that athletes have at least 20% of voting authority. To fulfill this requirement USSF employs weights to the votes of its delegates. Not every individual delegate's vote is equal to another's - a shocker, I know.

There are five categories of delegates, listed below with their allocated 2016 delegates, each represents a person:

• Youth Council (291)
• Adult Council (191)
• Professional Council (14)
• Athletes (4)
• Other (34)

These totaled 534 delegates. 

Because athletes have only 4/534 of the delegates (0.75%) USSF in 2016 implemented a weighting system that gives 20% of the vote to the athlete delegates as follows (USSF uses two decimal places so I will also). Each number below represents a vote:

• Youth Council (291 - 25.64%)
• Adult Council (291 - 25.64%)
• Professional Council (291 - 25.64%)
• Athletes (228 -20.09%)
• Other (34 - 3.00%)

After the 2016 weighting, there were 1135 possible votes. The three councils each get 25.64% of the vote and are tasked under USSF Bylaws with determining how each allocates the votes of their delegates. 

For the Professional Council's 25.64% share, the vote weighting inside the Pro Council is interesting:

• MLS 9 - 64.29%
• NWSL 3 - 21.43%
• NASL 1 - 7.14%
• USLPRO 1 - 7.14%

The MLS and its minor league USL together get 71.43% of the 14 votes that it uses to determine the overall Professional Council vote. This means that MLS/USL is responsible for 18.31% of the overall presidential vote (that is 71.43% of 25.64%). The NWSL (the professional woman's league) gets 5.49% of the overall presidential vote (a bias pointed out by Anthony DiCicco among others).

We can do some rough math as to how many other votes are possibly controlled by MLS. 

Consider:

• Among the "Other" votes (which include USSF Board members, past presidents, life members etc.) MLS clearly has 3/34 and could easily have half or more of the total, or between 0.26% and >1.5% of the overall presidential vote.
• Each of the 4 Athlete delegates is responsible for about 5% of the overall presidential vote. There are 8 of 20 members of the USSF Athlete Council who played in the MLS pyramid. While it is not clear how the council allocates its votes or who (or how many) the delegates will be (or who they might vote for), it is reasonable to assume that half or more of the delegates (maybe as much as 15% of the overall presidential vote) will come from former players in the MLS pyramid. It is not difficult to imagine an interest among some in supporting MLS priorities.

So without even considering the Youth or Adult Councils we can estimate that MLS interests control 18.31% + 1.5% + 15% or about 35% of the overall vote (on the lower end this is about 29%).

If so, this would mean that MLS may only need 24% of delegates among Youth and Adult Councils to secure a 50% majority for its preferred candidate. Put another way, 75% of the Youth and Adult Councils could vote against MLS interests and still lose the election. That is just math.

Some initial conclusions:

• The USSF election procedure is ridiculously and unnecessarily complicated;
• There is a huge bias against women;
• There is a huge bias in favor of MLS;
• Some of the potential problems in the arcane process could be mitigated with open (not secret) ballots. Let's see who everyone votes for;
• I'll be surprised if MLS does not get their preferred candidate.

Comments welcomed!

The Case for a Lessons-Learned Review of WADA & Russia

As we move toward the denouement of the IOC's sanctioning of Russia leading up to the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, I'd like to raise a broader, and arguably even more significant issue. That is the role that WADA (and IOC, IAAF and other IFs) has played over the past decade with respect to the allegations of institutionalized, systemic or even state-sponsored doping in Russia.

WADA and sport will be improved by an independent look back at what went right, what went wrong and what can be learned.

Consider this partial timeline:

• 2008: Seven Russians are caught with swapped urine samples, according to a scientist working for WADA: "it raises a flag as to some sort of organized initiative to evade detection" and also a WADA VP and head of IOC medical commission, "This does seem to be an example of systematic planned doping."
• 2009: IAAF was aware of massive doping among Russian athletes: "But in 2009, as a sophisticated new blood-testing program was launched, IAAF tests were already providing shocking insight into the scale and gravity of Russian doping."
• 2010: "From the beginning in 2010, [Vitaly] Stepanov said, he told WADA officials that Russia’s doping problem was not simply individual athletes and coaches trying to get unfair advantages but a systemic, state-supported effort to cheat."
• 2011: Data collected by IAAF from 2001 indicates that "Country A" had an incidence of blood doping of 50% and possibly as high as 99%. The authors of that study were employed by WADA which also funded the study. They were thus aware of the identity of "Country A."
• 2012: Based on reporting from Nick Harris and Martha Kelner: "another source in Russia came forward to us, on condition of anonymity, and claimed that WADA – specifically three named WADA officials – had not only been told about Russian doping in 2012, but also been informed that Rodchenkov was party to the conspiracy."
• 2013: The Mail on Sunday expose: "almost two months of investigative work established beyond what seemed to be reasonable doubt that there was a state-sponsored doping programme in Russia... Furnished with these details and with corroborating evidence and offers of further assistance, the IAAF ignored us, the IOC said they’d come back to us and never did, and WADA said it wasn’t in their remit to act."
• 2013: WADA identifies manipulation going on at its Moscow lab, Rodchnkov thinks the gig is up:  "I believed our day of reckoning had come" (from his Schmid affadavit). In the second Pound WADA IC report, it is noted that Russia was given a free pass of sorts: "despite the substandard performance of the [Moscow] laboratory, there was a distinct desire not to revoke the accreditation of the laboratory prior to the Sochi Olympics" (PDF). Rodchenkov observes: "This was another critical moment when the endemic corruption [ie, Russian doping scheme] should have been recognized, but we escaped it."
• 2013: WADA and IAAF attempt to bury an expert analysis that they commissioned on doping prevalence: "after a final draft of the study was submitted to the antidoping agency, the organization ultimately told the researchers they could not publish their findings at this time"
• 2015: WADA president Craig Reedie sends an email to Natalya Zhelanova, assisteant to Vitaly Mutko: "I wish to make it clear to you and to the Minister that there is no action being taken by WADA that is critical of the efforts which I know have been made, and are being made, to improve anti-doping efforts in Russia."
• 2016: On the WADA IC investigation reports, Jack Robertson, former WADA investigator said: "Craig Reedie, he had to be literally pressured into every investigation. Even the first one, he was reluctant despite the allegations, then the [German broadcaster] ARD documentary forced him into it."

The focus of the Russian doping scandal has been, understandably, on Russia. After the 2018 Olympics it is time to take a step back and take a look at WADA and the sports organizations that it supports. There are lessons to be learned here ... if we actually want to learn them.

Update on NGB Evaluation Project: SGO Criteria and Next Steps

Earlier posts on this project can be found here and here. Now some updates . . .

We employed 36 criteria from the Sports Governance Observer (2015) framework (available here in PDF), to an initial set of 22 US Olympic national governing bodies to arrive at a preliminary governance scorecard for these organizations. You can find our aggregate rankings here and a detailed breakdown by criteria here.

To facilitate understanding the methods and criteria, below please find a summary set of images with the 36 criteria briefly listed (please consult the full SGO 2015 report for considerably more details on the criteria and their application). Each organization is given a score of 1 (poor) to 5 (state of the art) for each of the criteria, which are then aggregated. Each dimension is equally weighted under the SGO scoring methodology.

To get a sense of the magnitude of the evaluation task, consider that there are 72 US NGBs (39 summer, 8 winter and 25 Paralympic federations). Thus, evaluating all of them requires assigning a score across 72 * 36 categories, or 2,592 individual scores. Our methodology requires that two people independently score an organization, and a third performs a final check.

If that process takes, conservatively, an hour of effort, then creation of our overall scorecard is the result of about 2,600 hours of work - or 1.2 years of people-effort. It is a huge task. In the spring will will roll out a website and a mechanism for people (including NGBs to) contribute to or scoring by proposing scoring changes based on evolution in governance. COnsequently, any such scorecard is a snapshot and governance is fluid. So score will (and should) change over time -- ideally towards better governance.

We've been really encouraged by the positive reactions to our project from across the NBGs. In coming weeks we will be announcing additions to the research team, more scores and the dedicated website.

Full Preliminary SGO Rankings: US NGBs

There has been a tremendous amount of interest in our scorecard of the governance of national governing bodies for Olympic sports. This interest has been overwhelmingly positive.

To share further details of our rankings, below is a figure showing the full set of preliminary rankings of 22 national governing bodies for Olympic sports. You can read more about the details of our methods and see my presentation at the Play the Game conference at this post.

You can click on the figure above to obtain a higher resolution image. If you'd like the spreadsheet with those data, that can be found here in XLS. To interpret the rankings, you will need to cross-reference the 36 criteria under the 4 diemnsions (listed by number in the left-most column) developed in the Sports Governance Observer, available here in PDF.

Do note that these are preliminary rankings. In 2018, we expect to complete rankings for all NGBs and develop a comprehensive website with all of the details. It is our hope to produce such rankings periodically to aid in evaluation of governance.

Please share questions, comments, suggestions in the comments below.