‘Track?’ Armitage might as well have mentioned medieval jousting. ‘Did you say track?’
‘You know, running — how do you say? — athletics?’
‘There’s no money in it, whatever you call it,’ Dryden flatly said. ‘It’s an amateur sport. Olympic Games. The honour of taking part and all that crap. Yes, there’s a small professional side, I grant you, but not enough to make it a merchandising proposition. It’s on a par with circuses.’
Armitage wasn’t so easily put down. ‘A gold medalist has been known to make a few bucks in endorsements,’ he persisted. ‘Remember Mark Spitz?’
‘He was a swimmer. All right, anyone who hits the headlines at the Olympics can generate some dollars if he turns professional immediately after, but that’s one jackpot in a whole career. Spitz won seven gold medals. That was great news in 1972, but now who wants to know? The first commercial contract an Olympic athlete signs effectively destroys him as a newsmaker. He’s a declining market. Just compare that with your game, where you have big-money tournaments all year round. Golf, Grand Prix, all the professional sports are repeatedly reinforcing the big names. It’s hard work, but it makes sense commercially. Now tell me, Dick, how many of the 1976 gold medalists in track do you remember?’
Armitage nodded. ‘But you’ll admit that the Olympics is a fantastic sales vehicle? The TV coverage alone.’
‘That’s it, is it?’ said Dryden. ‘You read the piece in Newsweek about the price the networks are charging advertisers for a spot in the telecasts from Moscow. It’s crazy, isn’t it? Two hundred grand a minute. I know sport moves the product, but with that sort of money involved, somebody could get his fingers burnt.’
‘You’re saying you wouldn’t care to get involved in the Olympics?’ The champion looked as if he was two sets down.
Dryden hesitated. From the way Armitage was pressing the subject of track athletics, he was to some degree committed. To persist with the argument that track was not a commercial proposition would lead to embarrassment if there was some promising pole vaulter scheduled to join them for dinner. It would be crazy to damage his standing with the biggest star in tennis. This required a change of emphasis.
‘I’ll put it this way, Dick. One year in every four you find a lot of men in my profession buzzing round the track meets offering the moon to anyone likely to make it to the Olympics. They say nothing is formalised till after an athlete has won a gold medal, but the speed at which those contracts are drawn up beats anything on the track. They’re ready for signature before the band is through “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Next day your gold medalist announces to the world that he owes his success to breakfast cereal, soft drinks and button-down shirts. Two weeks after, he’s a forgotten man. Okay, that’s exaggeration, but you follow me. Organizations like mine have tended to keep a little aloof from that. It seems slightly undignified to tag breathlessly around after quarter-milers. We keep it under review, naturally.’ He left it at that. To give more at this stage would be too obviously inconsistent. It was there for Armitage to pick up if he liked.
‘I guess so. Same again, Jack?’ Armitage beckoned the bartender. ‘Say, that Mercedes of yours is really something. Custom-built, is it?’
They discussed the elegance of nineteen-thirties automobile design, tacitly agreeing to a short adjournment of the main debate. But it wasn’t long till dinner. Armitage couldn’t leave the thing unresolved. Dryden, totally unenthusiastic about dabbling in track, was ready to compromise at least to the extent of sitting at the table with an athlete. There he would be on familiar ground, so to speak. Most of his business was conducted over meals. Without being too obvious about it, he ought to be capable of raising enough difficulties to smother the project. He gave details of the Excalibur’s performance, pausing tactfully at intervals.
Armitage wasn’t oversubtle at this game. ‘It was a great period, the thirties. There was hardship, I know, but fabulous things were going on in most areas of life. Take sports. Have you ever thought what a killing you could have made as agent to giants like Babe Ruth, Joe Louis, Fred Perry. Hey, and that’s forgetting Jesse Owens. Now, there was a guy with merchandising potential. What was it — four golds at the Berlin Olympics? You could have done Jesse a good turn if you’d been around in thirty-six, eh, Jack?’
Dryden avoided answering directly. ‘The best they could think of was matching him with racehorses and having him do a turn at the Globetrotters’ games.’
Armitage lobbed it back. ‘What if some genius like Owens showed up in America this year and gold-rushed the Olympics? You’d be interested in handling the commercial rights, wouldn’t you?’
‘No agent would pass up a commission like that,’ said Dryden, and added with a wink, ‘Level with me, Dick. Do you have the grandson of Jesse Owens staying here?’
Armitage grinned. ‘Don’t rush me, Jack.’ The awkwardness between them was lifting. ‘I want to fill you in a little before we get around to identities. Suppose, for example, I told you that my athlete is completely unknown to the public.’
Dryden smiled back. ‘That’s not a good selling point, Dick. You have me a little disappointed there.’
‘It could be an advantage if we really go over big at the Olympics,’ Armitage pointed out. ‘Unknown American on Moscow Medal Spree.’
‘I like that,’ said Dryden generously. ‘I begin to think you should try journalism, Dick. One detail still gives me a little trouble. How does our completely unknown athlete get selected for the U.S. Olympic team?’
The whimsical trend in the conversation was relaxing Armitage. ‘I can understand your problem there,’ he told Dryden. ‘Being unfamiliar with track in the States — up to now, that is — you wouldn’t know our selection system. It’s beautifully simple, actually. We have our U.S. Olympic Trials a month before the Games, and the first three in each event make the team. No argument, no comeback. If the world-record holder has muscle problems and finishes fourth, that’s too bad. It saves a lot of hassle, though. Do you see it now? If our unknown can make the first three, that’s the ticket to Moscow.’
Dryden leaned back in his chair with an air of satisfaction. ‘Nice.’ He smiled for fully five seconds before allowing the puzzled look to steal across his features again. ‘There is another area of difficulty. The Trials. How does an inexperienced athlete get up there at the finish with fellows professionally coached in all the finer points?’
‘Ah.’ Armitage held up a finger in acknowledgment. ‘I mentioned that our athlete was unknown. I didn’t say inexperienced. There’s a difference. You see, she’s had expert coaching.’
‘She? We’re talking about a girl?’ Dryden’s surprise cut clean through the irony that was cushioning the conversation.
Armitage began speaking rapidly. ‘We are. A good-looker. Blond. A natural for the admen, Jack. More important than that, a fantastic runner. Sure, I know everyone says American sports are male-oriented, and they are. But women do make it to the top, and don’t tell me America doesn’t need a sports goddess when there’s one in my own sport earning bloody near as much as I am. That’s in prize money. What she picks up in endorsements I wouldn’t mind having.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Look, I want to tell you about this, Jack. Two years back, I was having terrible hamstring trouble, remember? I did the rounds of the hospitals and was near despair. Finally I was recommended to a physiologist in Bakersfield, a qualified physician who earned his bread lecturing at the California Institute of Human Science. I was told he sometimes treated sports injuries and had a lot of success with muscle injuries. He fixed it for me, and I’ve had no twinges since. Doc Serafin, a great guy.’