Fire the USOC

The United States Olympic Committee confirmed today that it won't bid on the 2020 Summer Olympics, raising serious questions about the competence of the committee.

According to an Associated Press report, the committee felt not enough time was left to get a bid together by the September 1 deadline and that no process was even in place to select a city.

The reason for the inaction is being blamed, in part, on the failure of the USOC and the International Olympic Committee to agree on revenue sharing. This is a real issue, plus it's no secret that factions in the IOC have anti-US bias. The problem from a perception standpoint is that the USOC has had a series of high-profile bid failures. New York once put together an impressive nine-year effort to get the 2012 games, only to fall well short at the end. Chicago also tried pretty hard for the 2016 event, even using President Barack Obama to make a personal plea. Chicago finished fourth in the selection voting.

The US hasn't hosted an Olympic event since 2002 (not a long drought), but the Salt Lake City games are now tainted by bribery scandals. The US has done poorly when playing by the rules recently, and the IOC hasn't been too receptive to those efforts. Nonetheless, it's unacceptable for the USOC to not even make a bid for the Olympics every time, so the group needs to get its act together, resolve the revenue issues and land the games again.