The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee is weighing a landmark plan to sell a minority stake in Team USA’s commercial rights, an idea that would open up private investment options for funding ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
Key Facts
The Olympic committee (USOPC), which relies heavily on sponsorships and licensing deals for funding, has reportedly hired the Raine Group to explore several different options.
The frontrunning plan would create a proposed commercial entity called United States Olympic and Paralympic Ventures, part of which could be sold to private investors.
Sarah Hirshland, the committee’s chief executive, told Reuters the commercial model for the USOPV is “very much in progress” and called it “a natural transition point.”
Sources told Sky News the deal could value the USOPC’s commercial rights at several billion dollars.
Jon Mason, vice president of strategic communications for USOPC, told Forbes the committee “is evaluating a range of commercial models to generate greater resources in support of its mission.”
Surprising Fact
The USOPC receives zero direct annual funding from the federal government, which substantially separates it from other national committees that are primarily funded by their governments’ sports ministries.
Key background
The USOPC is a nonprofit that oversees American participation in the Olympics, from selecting the athletes that go to the Games to certifying individual National Governing Bodies for each sport and enforcing federal mandates. The committee is self-funded primarily by three main revenue streams: Olympic broadcast rights, domestic sponsorships and licensing for things like apparel bearing the “Team USA” name, and private donors. Creating a separate commercial subsidiary and selling a minority stake would mark a fundamental shift in Olympic financing and could create a long-term, sovereign-style endowment that isn’t dependent on the four-year Olympic broadcast cycle. The cash infusion could help to support smaller sports like speedskating and rowing, which often operate near insolvency, and modernize licensing, digital media and direct-to-consumer merchandising leading up to the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
Contra
Inviting private investors to the table also creates a new chain of accountability. Private equity investors would expect a return on their investment which could push the commercial arm to prioritize high-visibility, lucrative sports at the expense of non-televised Olympic and Paralympic disciplines. Congress has granted the USOPC a unique legal monopoly over Olympic intellectual property meant to explicitly support amateur athletics in the public interest in a copyright arrangement unique to the U.S. Allowing private funds to profit off of federally protected IP could raise legal concerns with lawmakers. Such an arrangement could also support athlete calls for collective revenue sharing—similar to ongoing labor and compensation transformations across college sports and professional leagues.
Big Number
159. That’s how many medals Team USA won at the last two Olympic games—33 at the Milano Cortina winter games in 2026 (a new national record for Winter Games) and 126 at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
Tangent
The news of a potential privatization of Team USA comes months after FIFA president Gianni Infantino proposed a similar plan—and was immediately forced to abandon it after substantial global pushback. FIFA in July said it was planning to raise an estimated $4.2 billion by selling a reported 20% minority stake in a new subsidiary—called FIFA Forward Enterprise—at an equity valuation of $20 billion. The backlash to the idea was immediate, with critics saying soccer “is not FIFA’s to sell” and predicting the World Cup (which FIFA is already considering expanding to 64 teams) would become nothing but a money grab for investors. The process itself also infuriated soccer confederations, which said they weren’t consulted about the plan before it went public, and Infantino’s job is still hanging in the balance.
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