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The second of a four-generation polo-playing
family, Skey Johnston has a 70-year history
as a player at all levels. He currently
sponsors the Coca-Cola team at Everglades
Polo facility in Wellington, Florida and
owns the Flying H Polo club in Big Horn
Wyoming, which hosts the largest number
of summer players in the United States. He
was CEO of Coca-Cola Enterprises from
1991–2001, and in 2001 he was inducted into
the National Polo Hall of Fame in Lake
Worth, Florida. This January, he sat down
with Sam Morton to share his thoughts on
the current state of play:
SM: What do you see as the biggest problem
in polo today?
SJ: The United States Polo Association
(USPA) is essentially a sports organisation to
govern and to promote the sport. I don’t
think you’ll find any sports organisation
with as many board members as the USPA.
I’ve spent most of my career managing
organisations, and it is difficult to run any
kind of business or organisation with more
than 10 directors. I don’t know how they run
it at all. Back in the early days there was only
one employee in the association office, and
there were a lot of things that you needed
help with. Before my time, somebody had the
idea to let the chairman select six governors-
at-large to help him run the association,
who were approved by a small board. But
now you have so many governors that they
argue over issues incessantly and nobody
ever makes a decision. You can’t run an
organisation like that.
Is prize money something that could
benefit polo?
One of the problems in promoting polo is
the expense. An average 10-goaler makes
more than a million dollars per tournament,
but right now there is no legitimate way to
write off team expenses.
At the moment, polo is not looked on
as a legitimate sport because all the money
goes out and nothing comes in – it’s not
feasible to start a polo team to make money,
as it’s not a business. The IRS doesn’t allow
a team owner to offset any expenses, because
there’s no revenue coming in.
You can put the prize money up at any
level, but legitimatising the sport to the
point that the media will pay to broadcast
the games would be better – polo as a sport
would prosper and the money generated can
then come into the USPA.
Look at all the sports on TV – the networks
are anxious to film (and pay for) everything
from basketball and soccer to wiffle ball. But
they are not anxious to pay for polo, because
it’s not seen as a legitimate sport. The rules
by which it is played allow rank amateurs to
play alongside skilled professionals, and this
makes it almost impossible to sell.
How would you fix that?
At tournament level – the Open, for
instance – nobody should be able to play
in the 26-goal unless they have a handicap
of at least two or three goals, and a high-goal
committee has approved them to have the
skill to play at that level and speed. At the
moment, a patron can come in with enough
money to hire two 10-goal players and a
6-goal player. People who do not have the
horsemanship or playing skills should not
be able to play at that level – it’s unsafe, if
nothing else. Despite the fact that some of
these patrons are paying a million dollars
apiece for their top two pros, they shouldn’t
be out there. But this is what’s supporting
higher goal polo now – people with egos
that pay to play.
This culture denies polo any chance of
securing a broad group of spectators that
like to watch legitimate sport. Everybody
is suspicious of the sport, like it’s fixed.
They look at a game and say ‘why is that
guy out there? What’s he doing?’ But polo
can’t get over this hump, because of
money. There needs to be some degree of
professionalism to establish the top level as
a legitimate sport. We do not do that. With
the exception of Argentina in the Argentine
T HE U S PA H A S S O MA N Y G O V E RNO R S T H AT
T HE Y A R G U E O V E R I S S U E S I N C E S S A N T LY
A ND NO B O DY E V E R MA K E S A D E C I S I ON
