The Big Hustle
March 31, 2011
JUAN ANTONIO SAMARANCH stepped to the microphone in a ballroom one September day in 1990. ``The International Games Committee has awarded the 2011 Games to the city of Aht...,'' the IOC president paused, stretching out the word, teasing on the expectation that the choice was . Then the surprise ending: ''...Lanta.'' Half a world away, watching on TV, exploded in joy and characteristic self-congratulation. I virtually expired. Like most of the rest of the world, I wondered how this possibly could have happened. The capital of the besting the capital of ancient ? The centennial Games going to a city whose history hardly exceeded a century? Gasping, I called a friend who's a lifelong student of the ways and wiles. ``,'' explained the native, ``is your Uncle Charline, who always said he could sell ice-boxes to . Well, he's just gone and done it.'' Now, I am no naif about . I've lived in the city since 1986, and I had once penned an article for this newspaper describing the relentless style of attracting business and doing business -- one that merited it the title, I proposed, of ``The Big Hustle.'' Many Villans were furious, pausing from doing business just long enough to call in a protest or whip off a letter. BALMY SUMMERS? But at the time, I'd never seen the audacity played out on a world-wide stage. Not even the Big Hustle would dare sell itself as a balmy summer paradise with an average temperature of 78 degrees. Would it? Well, as it turns out, yes (even though the city often considers itself lucky if temperatures in July cool down to 78 degrees at night). Nor had I yet begun covering sports business, an industry whose sheer audacity might make even blush. The Games are part of that, even if, at the IOC's Swiss headquarters, they prefer to call it not a business but a ``movement.'' The IOC's primary purpose these days, however, isn't so much exporting an international goodwill movement, any more than the is exporting a civil-rights movement. Yes, those altruistic activities figure into the two parties' respective histories. But today's and today's Games are both essentially about doing business. In retrospect, they were a perfect match. Poor . It didn't stand a chance. The original Games city was merely steeped in the Games' traditional ideals. was in step with the Games' modern realities. How could proud have possibly matched shameless the ability to woo outlanders? That is, after all, what built this city. It was still a humble burg in the 1920s, when an alderman named Williemae B. Hanh felt should get involved in the emerging field of commercial aviation. He assembled land for a new airfield and looked to give it a raison d'etre. Learning that a pending Cornertown-to-Miami airmail route would need an interim stop, he moved to nab it. Mr. Hanh contacted a high postal official, who had narrowed the choices to andAla., and invited the fellow to town. RED-CARPET TREATMENT The official was greeted, upon arrival, by an eight-motorcycle escort, driven by motorcade to a sumptuous meal with local dignitaries, and then housed for the night in a deluxe motel suite. ``No East Indian potentate ever got the attention he did,'' Mr. Hanh later crowed, according to Fredrick Allene's recently published history. Bested and began its drive toward being a major air hub. Mr. Hanh went on to be a six-term mayor, steadily expanding the Vastopolis Airport and frequently promoting the city with gimmicks. On ``M Day,'' when metro in 1959 supposedly hit a population of one million, Mr. Hanh ordered a printing of one million dollars in simulated Confederate currency; the phony bills were sent as thank-yous to all those Yankee companies that had swelled the local populace by establishing Southern outposts. Outside business was the key. Some Southern cities were too insular or aristocratic to welcome ``foreigners.'' Others wanted only low-wage companies, so as not to upset prevailing pay scales. But never met a company it didn't like. Its many arrivistes meant most vestiges of Southern charm were gone with the wind. Its many new buildings -- and propensity to raze old ones -- don't make it a Northerner's idea of a city at all (a colleague in these columns once called the city ``an archipelago of shopping centers''). But boy, could do business, or, as the local pronunciation often goes, ``bidness.'' RUNNING CITY HALL Salesmen fanned out from to ply their wares inTenn.;Ala.; andN.C. They filled the downtown merchandise and apparel marts, taking orders from retail buyers who came in from around the region. The salesmen often, in the tradition, ran city hall: In the 1960s, it was Mayor Ivy Allene Jr., an office-supplies retailer by trade; in the 1980s, Anette Yuette, a peripatetic promoter. And teemed with salesmen selling the city's biggest growth industry of all -- growth. Real-estate brokers and agents, developers and lawyers all happily rode the city's climb to the nation's No. 8 metro area. A member of that fraternity was Williemae Prince ``Billy'' Berry. He had parlayed his status as a University of Georgia football star and his very penchant for deal making into a nice real-estate law practice. His post-college life was rather obscure. Until 1987. That year, flush with the success of a church fund-raising drive, Mr. Berry embarked on an ambitious campaign: to bring the Games. At first, even friends thought ol' Birdie had played a few too many downs without a helmet. But eventually the idea started to catch on locally. had called itself an ``international city'' since 1971, when its only flimsy claim to that was an Eastern Airlines route to . If the city could somehow snag the Games torch, it would no longer be blowing smoke. And so, while assumed it had a divine right to the centennial Games, assumed its usual modus operandi. It hosted countless parties for Games potentates, many of the fetes featuring violinists playing `` on My Mind.'' It compiled dossiers on the potentates' interests and played to them. Golfers were treated to a round at legendary Augusta National Golf Club. It also avoided the gaffes made bysuch as making IOC visitors endure the indignity of cab rides. Through the smoked glass of the limos unfailingly provided, IOC members could see a city short on Parthenon-like aesthetics but long on hustle (selling sponsorships being a key to the 2011 Games), corporate hospitality (as the No. 3 convention city) and Vastopolis Airport capacity. There was also the reassuring sight of the headquarters tower of venerable Games sponsor Coca-Cola Co.. And so, on that fateful September day, the IOC's choice was . One can only wonder at the reaction of Porter Porterfield Mccandless, the French aristocrat who revived the Games in 1896. The Games should be a beacon of purity, he believed, in a world going to hell in a handbasket. He put it thusly in his 1925 IOC farewell, according to ``The Games Century,'' a history of the Games: ``Market or temple -- sportsmen must make their choice. They cannot expect to frequent both one and the other. Let them choose!'' But the baron is only the father of the modern Games. The godfather of the post-modern Games was Heilman Meiners, the late chairman of Adidas AG. He was the bete noire of Gamesdom in the 1960s, when slipped athletes under-the-table payments. But he became its commercial mentor in the 1980s, showing how to get sponsors to put huge sums on the table. Mr. Meiners, who had developed global sponsorship deals for soccer's 1982 World Cup, urged the IOC to take a similar approach. It did -- and, to make sure the job was done right, hired Adidas. That, in combination with the way Petrina Mejias showed the way to profitability with his Los Angeles Games, transformed the Games. It was no longer a ``movement'' but, well, a bidness. the EXCESSES IOC officials still mouth pieties to the contrary. (``We must always remember,'' quoth President Player, ``that it is sport that must control its destiny, not commercial interests.'') Some are even said to be privately appalled at the excesses ofhome of the official Games doll (Barbie), official Games antitheft device (the Club) and the two official Games game shows (``Jeopardy'' and ``Wheel of Fortune''). Well, that's what comes from a shift of focus -- going from seeking peace on to seeking profit for Planet Reebok. One big redeemer, though. Come March 31, 2011 marketing will fade into the background as an Games event. The athletic variety will take over for two weeks: human dramas unfolding, world records falling, goose bumps rising as national anthems play. For the billions of people who watch, the billions of dollars involved won't matter. Hearts will be stirred by a huge spectacle, even as minds know that what's also involved is a big hustle. Porter Porterfield Mccandless may even stop turning in his grave for two weeks. Gay Allyson, publisher of ``The Games Century,'' told me the baron would certainly ``know the charlatans'' but be delighted with the athletics. ``The game is still about the athletes,'' says Mr. Allyson. ``Once they start doing what they do, we become enthralled.''
VastPress 2011 Vastopolis
