Final Preparations Underway For First Outgames

by Rex Wockner, Special to 365Gay.com


(Montreal, Quebec) Is French flair grandiose? Or is it magical?

Gay sports aficionados will have their answer in a few weeks.

The Gay Games were supposed to be in Montreal this summer.

But the Federation of Gay Games and Montreal organizers couldn't agree on size,
scope,
vision and control of money.

An acrimonious, public divorce ensued.

The Gay Games moved to Chicago and will roll July 15-22 with more than 12,000
athletes
competing in 30 sports.

But Montreal organizers plunged ahead after the divorce, refusing to throw in
the towel.

The result: The 1st World Outgames will roll here July 29-August 5 with more
than 12,000
athletes competing in 35 sports.

And with a budget of $16 million (US$14.4 million), offices in the Olympic
Stadium and 59
full-time employees, the Montreal games appear good to go.

The opening ceremonies at the stadium will feature Martina Navratilova, k.d.
lang and
Weather Girl Martha Wash.

While the Gay Games have a history of ending in debt, Outgames General Director
Louise
Roy says that won't happen in Montreal.

"We'll break even," she said. "And we'd like to have some legacy."

"There's no way we're going to lose money," agreed Outgames Press Secretary
Pascal
Dessureault.

"Our budget forecasts a small surplus. Our financial statements are being
audited every
month by the federal and provincial governments. We're really conscious not to
have any
deficits at all," he said.

Openly gay Olympic gold medalist Mark Tewksbury, the Outgames' co-president,
said it is
critical that the Montreal games not end up in the hole financially.

"There's much riding on our success -- the Outgames future and, I would argue,
maybe
LGBT sport future," he said. "If everybody keeps coming up with these models
that leave
deficits and destruction in their path, I don't see much future there. ... I've
been
enormously preoccupied with delivering a successful games -- not just a great
games, but
a legacy."

More than a quarter of the Outgames budget has come from governments -- $1.4
million
from the Canadian government, $1.6 million from the Quebec government and $2.2
million from the city of Montreal, organizers said.

The remainder flows from registration fees, from what French-speakers call
"commercial
exploitation" (sale of merchandise, for example), and from corporate sponsorship
from the
likes of Labatt, Bell Canada, VIA Rail, CGI, Air Canada and others.

Control of that $5.2 million of taxpayer money, Outgames organizers explained,
was one
of their sticking points with the Federation of Gay Games.

"It was about budget control and the scope of the games -- those are the two
most big
reasons [for the split]," Roy said. "We could not accept people controlling the
budget of
Montreal because we are subsidized by the Canadian, Quebec and Montreal
governments.

"Also, we know it wasn't so easy for [past Gay Games host cities] Amsterdam, for
New York
and for Sydney to work with this organization," she said. "They wrote to me and
were very
understanding of what happened [to us]."

"The Montreal organization had a difference of vision," echoed Dessureault.
"There are two
different ways to tackle organizing an event that has had financial difficulties
in the past.
You can either downsize it ... or you can go the way Montreal is going, with
more
participants, a different business model, and create a movement that reaches to
the entire
community and the entire host community as well.

"The FGG didn't want to evolve, or adapt itself from its traditional model," he
said.

Tewksbury, who has been involved since day one, agreed that financial control
was a key
disagreement with the federation, but he said the disconnect didn't stop there.

"There was a fear of Montreal as a host city," he suggested. "There was a fear
of our
business plan, of financial-monetary competence. There was a fear of partnering
with
tourism and government. There was a fear that we were just one big party. There
was a
fear that we didn't know sports, and there was a fear that we were just going to
be lost
within a pride celebration [taking place the same time].

"There was a fear on our numbers [of participants]," he said. "I think we've now
been able
to debunk every one of those fears. And it makes me still a bit sad. I think we
could have
been the greatest Gay Games host city ever, that would have fulfilled the
federation's
dream of what the games could be and leave such a positive legacy for the future
in terms
of the business model.

"Given the history that the federation inherited ... when you have city after
city making
promises that don't get delivered, I guess it erodes your sense of trust pretty
heavily,"
Tewksbury said. "I think between Montreal's incredible enthusiasm and support
coupled
with a very cynical, distrustful organization, based on history, there was a
real disconnect.
It's a real shame."

Chicago Games, Inc. Co-Vice Chair Tracy Baim, who also is publisher and editor
of the gay
newspaper Windy City Times, doesn't quarrel with much of Montreal's take on the
divorce.

"We understood that as a Gay Games licensee, there has to be oversight and
control," Baim
said. "I don't fault Montreal for having an issue with that control.

"It was kind of a Catch-22 for the federation," she said. "They're trying to
learn from the
past and set boundaries so that the same mistakes are not made again. ... They
were
being stricter with the 2006 host based on what they learned did not work in
previous
models. ... They weren't about to feel like they were going to lose control of
the brand in
another city that was going to run out of control.

"The federation has to try to evolve and make change for the good," Baim said.
"Some
board members are jaded and burned out and don't want to change. ... I'm not
saying our
relationship with the Federation of Gay Games hasn't been a struggle either. To
try to deal
with them is not an easy task."

The Chicago games have a budget of $10 million and a paid staff of 30. A third
of the
money is from athletes, a third from ticket sales and a third from fundraising.
The only
government funding is $125,000 from the state of Illinois.

"The Chicago model is significant resources from corporate America and the donor
community in Chicago [and] a tremendous amount of barter," Baim said.

The Chicago Cubs donated Wrigley Field to the games.

"The minimum is that we will break even," Baim said. "Our goal is to have a
surplus. We
have a tremendous amount of money in the bank right now, great ticket sales, and
registration numbers are beyond what any previous Gay Games has had."

Asked for the federation's take on the messy divorce with Montreal, FGG Vice
President of
Operations Charlie Carson declined to revisit the issue.

"We don't have any comment about it," Carson said. "We just don't think it's
beneficial at
this point to go over it again. Montreal went the direction that they went in,
so we just
don't have any interest in adding to that. ... They're the ones that made the
decision [to go
it alone]."

Asked to comment on Baim's statement that Chicago organizers have found it "not
an easy
task" to work with the federation, Carson said: "It's human relationships. ...
It would be
naive of anyone to think there aren't going to be areas of discussion between a
governing
body and a host city. ... The difference here was the willingness to engage in a
partnership, and that's been the positive thing we found with Chicago."

Athletes from 109 nations are registered for the Montreal games, organizers
said. In
Chicago, participants will come from 70 countries, organizers said.

"Eighty percent of European participants [in either games] are coming to the
Outgames,"
Montreal's Roy claimed.

"If you want to play international, come to Montreal," she urged.

Indeed, the list of nations represented in Montreal contains entries that might
surprise
some people: Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Bulgaria, Cameroon,
China,
Congo, Cuba, Democratic Republic of Congo, French Polynesia, Gabon, Ghana,
India,
Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Lebanon, Morocco, Nepal, New Caledonia, Nigeria,
Pakistan,
Reunion, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Syria, Togo, Uganda, Ukraine, United
Arab
Emirates and Zimbabwe.

The Outgames was able to provide free registration and lodging to 250
participants from
poorer nations.

Chicago's Baim said it's not surprising the Montreal games will be more
international.

"There's a lot of anti-American sentiment and I don't blame the Europeans for
that
sentiment," she said. "There are certain people that will never come to the
United States
while we have George Bush in power.

"The Gay Games has always been dominated by the United States," she added.
"There were
more athletes [in 2002] in Sydney from the U.S. than from Australia."

Prior to the Outgames, Montreal organizers are staging an International
Conference on
LGBT Human Rights, from July 26-29. It is being promoted as the largest
gay-rights
conference ever.

Two thousand delegates are expected to hammer out a "Declaration of Montreal,"
which
will be presented at the games' opening ceremonies and, later, to the United
Nations.

"The high commissioner for human rights at the United Nations is coming," Roy
said. "We'll
adopt the Declaration of Montreal and, for the first time in the world, bring it
to the United
Nations, because they never have had official recognition of the gay-rights
movement at
the United Nations."

In Chicago, the Gay Games opening ceremonies take place July 15 at the Chicago
Bears'
Soldier Field and the closing ceremonies will be July 22 at Wrigley Field.

Star power comes in the persons of Kate Clinton, Margaret Cho, Greg Louganis,
Megan
Mullally, Cyndi Lauper and others.

Gay Games sponsors include Lexiva, Logo, PlanetOut, Walgreens, Orbitz, NBC5, The
New
York Times, Olivia Cruises, Absolut Vodka, American Airlines, the Chicago
Sun-Times,
Sydney New Mardi Gras and more than 200 others.

The next Outgames is scheduled for 2009 in Copenhagen and the next Gay Games is
slated for 2010 in Cologne.

©365Gay.com 2006