John Furlong has come full circle.
The chief executive of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics was announced as the Vancouver Whitecaps’ executive chairman Thursday. The Major League Soccer (MLS) franchise’s offices in Gastown’s Landing are next door to where Furlong led the successful 2003 bid for the Games.
“It is a little different to walk in there, but exciting too,” Furlong said after a news conference at the Hyatt Regency.
Furlong fills a position left vacant after the February 29 departure of chief executive Paul Barber. The former Tottenham Hotspur executive announced his resignation in December after guiding the Whitecaps through their transition into MLS.
“He has a one of a kind, unique, huge IP knowledge base that he has in his head,” part owner Jeff Mallett said of Furlong. “A highly connected football lover, and he wanted to come work for us.”
Post-VANOC, Furlong became the chairman of the Own the Podium advisory board and a director of Whistler Blackcomb Holdings and was recently promoted to chairman of Rocky Mountaineer Railtours.
The Whitecaps, however, will be his full-time job and president Bob Lenarduzzi and chief operating officer Rachel Lewiswill report to him.
Furlong is not taking an equity stake in the club but will work closer with Greg Kerfoot, the club’s media-shy principal owner, and Mallett than did Barber.
“Greg and I are involved, pretty well hands-on, in the business,” Mallett said. “Greg will see him on a weekly basis.”
A priority for Furlong will be to solve the Whitecaps’ year-overdue search for a multi-pitch training facility. Before he left, Barber told Business in Vancouverthat talks had taken place with Surrey, Burnaby and the University of BC.
“What the club wants to be is a jewel, to be a standard, punching well above its weight in the community,” Furlong said.
“More kids are playing this game than any other game in Canada, so we have the opportunity to make this very special and that’s going to be our life’s work.”
Compensation games
The release of the “sunshine list” is a rite of spring in Ontario. The list of public-sector salaries offers something British Columbians didn’t have when their government was planning the Olympics: executive compensation disclosure.
Former premier Gordon Campbell slyly shielded VANOC from freedom of information laws, though CEO John Furlong did reveal his $300,000-a-year salary when he was hired in 2004.
Furlong’s equivalent at the Toronto 2015 Pan American Games organizing committee (TO2015) is Ian Troop, a former Procter & Gamble vice-president and ConAgra Foods president who is living high-on-the-hog in “Hogtown.” Troop was paid a whopping $552,065.30 in 2011!
At the low end of the 17 salaries disclosed was finance director Eddison Doyle at $101,653.86. Former VANOC manager Allen Vansen, the TO2015 senior vice-president of Games operations, was paid $291,608.30.
Vansen oversees transportation, security and the athletes village.
TO2015 has just two private-sector sponsors (CIBC and General Motors).
As a regional event with limited interest from U.S. broadcasters, the revenue potential is a fraction of Vancouver 2010. The number of athletes expected in Toronto in July 2015 is double and the events triple what Vancouver had in February 2010.
The federal government announced $450 million for TO2015 in last month’s budget. TO2015 has not published its business plan.
Sport tourism
TO2015 senior vice-president of sport and venues Bob O’Doherty and sport director Blair McIntosh join Furlong and Commonwealth Games Canada CEO Brian MacPherson at the Canadian Sport Tourism Sport Events Congress April 18 to 20.
Richmond’s River Rock Casino Resortis hosting. Go to CanadianSportTourism.com for information.
Grey Cup costs
Documents obtained from BC Pavilion Corp. show it cost the BC Lions $168,000 to rent BC Place Stadium for Grey Cup week. The contract wasn’t signed by Lions’ president Dennis Skulsky and stadium general manager Howard Crosley until November 25 – two days before the Leos beat the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. •
