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United States Olympic Committee Names Jeff Gewirtz to Organization’s Top Legal Post

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – A nationally respected attorney with more than a decade of legal experience in areas such as corporate sponsorship and broadcast agreements, intellectual property rights, sport governance matters, contract negotiation and brand protection is joining the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) as the organization’s new General Counsel and Managing Director of Legal Affairs.

Jeff Gewirtz (guh-wertz), 37, who has served as Counsel to the Coca-Cola North America Sports & Entertainment Marketing and Media Group since 2002, will begin his new duties with the USOC in August. He will be based at the organization’s headquarters in Colorado Springs and will report directly to USOC Chief Executive Officer Jim Scherr.

As General Counsel and Managing Director of Legal Affairs, Gewirtz will supervise all legal issues concerning the USOC, including litigation, membership compliance, athlete rights, anti-doping and the administration of commercial-term agreements in areas such as corporate sponsorship and broadcasting.

Gewirtz has served as lead Counsel for Coca-Cola North America on sponsorship, media, new media, beverage availability, and related transactions with sports properties including the USOC, PGA TOUR, US OPEN Tennis Championships, and with member teams of the National Basketball Association, National Football League, National Hockey League, and Major League Baseball. In his role as primary Counsel, he led the contract negotiations for Coca-Cola’s National Collegiate Athletic Association Corporate Champion sponsorship and media alliance with CBS Sports and he has negotiated sports facility naming rights transactions, such as Minute Maid Park. A large part of his responsibilities also included endorsement transactions with Olympic and other professional athletes. He also negotiated agreements for a Coca-Cola produced television reality program in Malaysia, “Coca-Cola Thirst for Passion: The Music executive,” which garnered several honors at the 2006 Malaysian Media Awards and in 2005 he handled other corporate and commercial legal matters in Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam on behalf of Coca-Cola’s Southeast and West Asia Division.


Before Coca-Cola, Gewirtz was Director of Legal Affairs for the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) Television & Marketing Services Group from 1999-2002. In that role, he served as chief marketing and sponsorship legal counsel and was a primary negotiator and legal point person for all global “TOP” agreements with leading companies such as Atos Origin, Coca-Cola, John Hancock, Kodak, Matsushita/Panasonic, McDonald’s, Samsung and Visa. He also negotiated international marketing transactions and drafted “TOP” and technology agreements on behalf of the Organizing Committees for the Olympic Games. As Director of Legal Affairs, he advised “TOP” sponsors on compliance matters related to Olympic Charter Rules and Bye-Laws, NBC and international broadcast agreements, and IOC Internet regulations. He also assisted with the drafting of the IOC Technical Manual on Brand Protection and IOC Technical Manual on Media Broadcasting.


“We are extremely pleased to welcome to the USOC someone who possesses not only significant legal expertise, but the invaluable experience of having worked in the Olympic Movement both nationally and internationally,” said Scherr. “Jeff will make an immediate and important impact in this critical area of our operations, and we are proud to welcome him to the United States Olympic Committee.”


“There are few opportunities that we have in life to participate in an organization whose primary goals are to promote athletic achievement and international unity,” said Gewirtz. “I am proud and grateful to have been given the opportunity to be part of just such an organization, the USOC.”

Prior to joining the IOC’s Television and Marketing Services Group, Gewirtz worked as General Counsel for the Ladies Professional Golf Association; Manager of Tournament and Business Affairs for the WTA TOUR; and as an Associate for the law firm of Dunnington, Bartholow & Miller, LLP in New York, N.Y.


He is a graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Mass., where he was a Dean’s List honoree and obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1991, and he served as captain of the 1990-91 Tufts Varsity Tennis Team. Gewirtz earned his Juris Doctor degree at Brooklyn Law School in Brooklyn Heights, New York in 1994, where he was a three-year merit scholarship recipient.Gewirtz has also served as an Adjunct Professor of Sports Law at Brooklyn Law School and New York Law School and as pro bono General Counsel to the Eastern Section of the United States Tennis Association.


He currently sits as Sports Division Chair on the American Bar Association’s Forum on the Entertainment & Sports Industries and is on the National Board of Advisors for the National Sports Law Institute.