VANCOUVER - A flamboyant, wheeler-dealer millionaire is the undisputed ticket king of the Olympics.
For millionaire Sead Dizdarevic, it's a brand-new, above-board world
The suitcases of cash and tickets he lugged around for shadowy Olympic accomplices in Bulgaria and Poland are long gone. The $131,000 in under-the-table donations made to leaders of Salt Lake City's successful bid for the 2002 Winter Games -- a centerpiece of that city's Olympic bribery scandal -- is history, too.
Despite his murky past, Dizdarevic's company, Jet Set Sports, bestrides the Olympian field like a colossus, securing exclusive rights to rich hospitality packaging at Games after Games after Games.
Vancouver is no exception.
The ticket king has an upright stuffed Canadian polar bear standing guard at Jet Set's New Jersey headquarters. Aside from the Vancouver Organizing Committee, it is the largest holder of Olympic tickets for the upcoming 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, Canada.
Through Jet Set and sister company CoSport, Dizdarevic has corralled 125,000 Olympics tickets, or nearly 8 percent of the Games' overall ticket pool of 1.6 million.
About 90,000 have been offered to the American public -- at a hefty 20-percent markup. The rest is earmarked for Dizdarevic's bread and butter, the lavish hospitality packages Jet Set pedals to well-heeled customers all over the world.
The Seattle Times reported that Jet Set pays for its access: a reported $15-million to VANOC, and $20-million to the U.S. Olympic Committee for multiyear rights to sell Olympic tickets in the United States. But returns are good. Even at Salt Lake City, where Dizdarevic's involvement was tarnished by scandal, Jet Set made more than $7-million.
The Olympics is Jet Set's only business, and the formula is set. For the right price, often in excess of $10,000, purchasers get top-of-the-line Olympic tickets, accommodation, food and drink, and other luxurious trappings.
Dizdarevic has already been to Vancouver a dozen times, sniffing out what the city has to offer and locking it up for Jet Set clients. By the time the Games begin, he will be ensconced in the penthouse suite of an upscale downtown hotel, making sure every detail of what has been promised his affluent customers is followed to the letter.
"He's an amazing entrepreneur," says Walt Judas of Tourism Vancouver. "He understands how the whole Olympic system works. Their clientele tells them what they want, and they deliver. They've had years and years of doing this."
Indeed, few would deny that Dizdarevic -- who got his Olympic start with a hole-in-the-wall tourist agency flogging ticket packages for the 1984 Winter Games in his native Yugoslavia -- knows how to operate.
When rooms ran short in Sarajevo, he converted the nearby former villa of Yugoslav ruler Marshal Tito into corporate suites. At the 1994 Winter Games in Lillehammer, Norway, he built a temporary hotel for his clients in a farmer's rented field.
When the Salt Lake City "cash-for-favors" scandal threatened to bring him down, Dizdarevic brokered a deal with the prosecution. In exchange for immunity, he testified against two Olympic bid executives, who were eventually acquitted of multiple corruption charges.
He told the court of delivering $131,000 to the two men in four separate bundles of cash stuffed into envelopes. "As much as you want, as much as I have," was Dizdarevic's response, he testified, when one of the accused asked for a donation.
Afterward, the controversial 58-year-old operator said he prefers doing business up front, rather than by the widespread skirting of Olympic regulations that prevailed in the days he was known far and wide as the Olympics' indispensable fixer. The Salt Lake revelations changed all that.
In a post-Games interview, Dizdarevic said the scandal was the best thing that ever happened to the Olympics. "Now we have rules. We need one more (scandal). Then the Olympic movement will be a true Olympic movement again."
For its part, VANOC has nothing but praise for Jet Set, unperturbed by the company's colorful past.
"We witnessed Jet Set firsthand at recent Games, and their level of service and attention to detail is second to none," VANOC deputy CEO Dave Cobb said in a statement.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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