DENVER — The days of walking into Home Depot and having an Olympic gold medalist help you pick out paint could be coming to an end.
The big-box home store said Wednesday it was ending its multimillion-dollar sponsorship deal with the U.S. Olympic Committee and discontinuing a program that offered jobs and benefits to American athletes.
The 86 athletes currently in the program will be offered traditional part-time jobs at their current stores, or the chance to interview for full-time jobs. But after March 2, they will no longer receive either full-time benefits or full-time pay for their part-time work, which they performed on flexible schedules depending on their Olympic regimens.
For athletes like Brock Kreitzburg, a 2006 Olympic bobsledder who is trying to overcome an injury and make the 2010 team, the prospect of looking for new work is a major hurdle.
“But I can’t be mad at Home Depot,” Kreitzburg said. “They’ve been amazing to me. If not for that job, I wouldn’t have made the 2006 Games.”
To make up for the financial loss, the USOC plans to provide stipends to winter athletes who are in the program through January 2010 and a one-time, $5,000 stipend to summer athletes. It will also provide health insurance that the athletes might lose if they scale back or quit their Home Depot jobs.
Home Depot had been a USOC sponsor and provider of the Olympic Job Opportunity Program since 1992. The sponsorship was worth between $15 million and $20 million in the four-year period ending in 2008.
“It’s been an outstanding relationship and we greatly appreciate everything Home Depot has done,” USOC spokesman Darryl Seibel said. “We’re sorry to see them go. At the same time, we appreciate their continued support of America’s athletes.”
At its high point, the Home Depot program put more than 200 athletes to work, the bulk of whom need outside employment on top of their USOC support to pay for rent, food, training and travel.
It also made for a great advertising campaign: Commercials touted the prospect of walking into the store to buy lumber and running into someone like gold medalists Derek Parra or Vonetta Flowers.
Like so many big companies, Home Depot has been having trouble in the rough economy. It recently reported a 31 percent drop in third-quarter earnings for 2008 — better than expected but still a shocking decline that experts predicted would not ease up anytime soon.
“I don’t know if it’s directly associated with” the economy, Home Depot spokeswoman Jean Niemi said of the decision to sever with USOC. “But in these economic times, we’re looking more closely at our options and trying to find, relevant, exciting programs.”
Even with the USOC providing emergency help, athletes like Kreitzburg will eventually find themselves looking for work, or back to asking friends and family for money.
Kreitzburg has worked in the paint department at different Home Depots since 2004, often checking in for a five-hour shift after a five-hour training session. He is currently overcoming a severe hip injury, has lost his spot on the U.S. team and therefore must fend for himself financially.
“Michael Phelps and some top sprinters, top gymnasts, they’re doing well,” Kreitzburg said. “That’s about 5 percent of Olympic athletes. For the other 95 percent, it’s paycheck to paycheck, trying to keep your head above water.”
On a macro level, the USOC also finds itself with some issues to resolve. The Home Depot decision leaves a $15 million hole in the federation’s sponsorship budget. The USOC is also trying to find a replacement for General Motors, which discontinued its partnership after 2008.
Negotiations with AT&T and Bank of America — whose sponsorships were both in the $20 million range — are ongoing.
The Olympics are, however, considered to be in relatively good shape considering the economy. The USOC has 16 sponsors under contract for the 2009-12 cycle and Seibel said “we’re making good progress” on filling the open categories.
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