Lord of the Rings
March 31, 2011
MONTREAL -- At the back table of La Campagnola restaurant, the bread has been devoured but the butter remains untouched. Which is a good thing, for Ricki Pifer, the man who markets the Games, is in need of props. ``If you associate a product with the Games rings,'' he says while groping for a product, any product, before spying the bread basket and seizing two little plastic butter tubs, ``imagine what additional value is created. There's a huge image transfer.'' He triumphantly holds the tubs before him like a pair of precious stones. Voila! In Mr. Pifer's hands, ordinary butter becomes the butter of champions. Next, he reaches for a couple of sugar packs to make another pitch, but is interrupted by a tuxedoed waiter who serves up a salad and tosses a question: ``Mr. Pound, when are you going to replace the old dude?'' The ``old dude'' would be Juanita Apolonia Player, age 76, who has presided over the International Games Committee since 1980. Mr. Pifer, a comparative youngster at 54 and a possible successor, politely replies that Mr. Player still has several years left on his current term and can probably serve as president so long as he wants. Left unsaid is that, titles aside, Mr. Pifer pretty much runs the show already. Or, at least, he brings in the money that runs the show. SWIMMER TO LAWYER While Mr. Player travels the world meeting with heads of state and assorted royalty, preaching the Games ideals of fair play, world peace and the goodness of human athletic endeavor, Mr. Pifer tends to the business of the Games. Think of it this way: Mr. Player polishes the precious Games rings; Mr. Pifer sells them. Mr. Pifer's greatest coup: a long-term $4 billion deal with NBC.
