By Sandra Loosemore
SportsLine Sports Writer

Last month, the United States Figure Skating Association's International Committee announced the Team Envelopes for the 1999-2000 season.

The Team Envelopes define the list of skaters eligible to receive international competition assignments as well as determine eligibility for training funding from the USFSA and U.S. Olympic Committee. The envelopes also determine the amount of money available to skaters.

Many people think that all skaters who compete at the national level have all or part of their training expenses paid by the USFSA. In fact, only a select group of skaters receive financial support, and in most instances the amount of money they receive covers only a small fraction of their training expenses.

GIVEN FIGURE SKATING'S POPULARITY as a television sport, a handful of top skaters -- even those still active in the "amateur" or Olympic-track competitive track -- have become extremely wealthy. Michelle Kwan, for instance, is a millionaire. Others, like U.S. men's champion Michael Weiss, are also doing quite well for themselves through a combination of touring and television contracts, prize money offered at ISU events, and appearance fees paid by the promoters of made-for-TV competitions.

The boom in TV skating also turned the USFSA into a wealthy organization. In recent years, the USFSA has received approximately $4.6 million annually from its contract with ABC Sports for television rights to the U.S. Figure Skating Championships and other events. Beginning in the 1999-2000 season, that figure jumps to almost $12 million per year as the result of a new eight-year deal negotiated with ABC in 1997. The new contract, as reported in a 1997 edition of the USFSA's official magazine, guarantees the USFSA a minimum of $95 million over its span.

The problem is that while the USFSA's revenues have increased greatly, the amount budgeted to help support athletes has remained more or less constant. Much of that money is being allocated to skaters who already have money coming in from other sources, instead of those athletes who are most in need of financial assistance.

THE SKATERS WHO REALLY NEED HELP are not the Kwans and Weisses who seem to appear on TV almost every week, but rather those up-and-comers who have not yet won any medals and are not being invited to participate in events involving prize money or appearance fees.

Team 'C' member Derrick Delmore will get peanuts from the USFSA compared to Team 'A' members Michael Weiss and Todd Eldredge.(Allsport)

Budget figures prepared for this month's USFSA Governing Council meeting were made available to all member clubs as part of the organization's annual meeting book. A close look at these numbers reveals that only $500,000 has been allocated in the current and upcoming seasons for athlete support. About $200,000 more is being distributed separately through the USFSA's Memorial Fund, a charitable foundation specifically established to provide training grants to skaters.

Because of the comparatively small amount of money budgeted for athlete support, the training grants skaters receive from the USFSA don't come close to covering their actual expenses. Last year, the amounts ranged from $6,000 for singles and $9,000 for pairs or dance teams in the "A" Team Envelope, down to $1,000 and $1,500 for alternate team members not selected to compete internationally.

By contrast, a minimal weekly budget for a serious competitor might include $200 for coaching and $100 for ice time -- that's about $15,000 per year. Those expenses can easily double if the skater trains with an elite coach or lives in an area where ice time is expensive. And this doesn't include the costs of commuting to the rink, equipment and clothing, competition-related travel, or "extras" like ballet instruction or choreography. A $1,000 grant doesn't even cover the travel expenses associated with competing at Nationals.

IN ADDITION, THIS YEAR THE International Committee has changed the Team Envelope designations so that fewer skaters will receive funds, even at the higher funding levels. Last season there were nine singles skaters and eight pair or dance teams named to the "A" envelope. This year there are only five singles skaters and five teams. In addition to Kwan and Weiss, this year's "A" envelope includes skaters who did not even compete at the U.S. Championships in the past season -- Nicole Bobek, Todd Eldredge, and the dance team of Elizabeth Punsalan and Jerod Swallow -- all of whom have also been earning a good living by touring and doing made-for-TV events.

Meanwhile, the USFSA has also budgeted a total of $2.1 million to produce three made-for-TV events -- money that will be used primarily to pay appearance fees for professional skaters. While the USFSA is contractually obligated to produce five events each year for ABC Sports (the other two being the U.S. Championships and Skate America), the large amount of money being budgeted for these pro-am events raises questions about whether the current way they are being produced is really in the USFSA's best interests.

In particular, much of the appearance-fee money is going to skaters who are not American, not active competitors on the eligible circuit, or already making plenty of money from other commercial projects. Left out of this mix are some U.S. competitors who really need help with their training expenses. Moreover, in recent years the formats and judging at the so-called pro-am "competitions" sponsored by the USFSA have been suspect enough for some to question whether packaging them as "competitions" is actually damaging to the image and integrity of figure skating as a legitimate sport.

IT SEEMS LIKE, WITH A LITTLE IMAGINATION, the USFSA could come up with more appropriate formats for the made-for-TV events they are obligated to produce. For instance, why not put on an annual gala exhibition to benefit the Memorial Fund? Many current and past champions would probably be willing to donate their time for free to support a good cause.

Alternatively, one of the events could be an off-season competition primarily focused on up-and-coming skaters who haven't yet qualified for world-level competition, a purpose formerly served by the now-defunct U.S. Olympic Festival. It was the Olympic Festival, after all, that originally made skaters like Bobek, Kwan and Tara Lipinski into stars.

If the $700,000 budgeted for only one of these events could be applied directly to athlete support, it would be enough money to provide every skater or team entered in the U.S. Championships -- including those at the novice and junior levels -- with a $4,000 stipend. This would be a comparatively huge amount of money for athletes currently receiving nothing at all.

In addition to spending its own money, the USFSA could also do more to attract private sources of funding and sponsorship for athlete support. Fund-raising appeals on behalf of the Memorial Fund used to be a regular feature at the U.S. Championships, but these have been discontinued in recent years. Many skating fans who attended the competition for the first time this year probably had no knowledge of the Memorial Fund's existence or purpose and have never had any reason to think about the financial problems facing many athletes who compete at the championships.

AND WHILE THE USFSA HAS FOUND a corporate sponsor to fund a scholarship program for skaters, so far there are no sponsors signed up specifically to fund direct financial assistance to competitors. There is also absolutely nothing on the USFSA's website that either promotes the Memorial Fund or provides information about the association's policies to individuals or businesses interested in sponsoring skaters individually. In general, sponsorship agreements that require the skaters to perform services in exchange for funding require pre-approval from the USFSA, while outright gifts can be made directly to the skaters.

To its credit, the USFSA has been using some of its added income to fund developmental programs rather than direct financial assistance to skaters. These programs include training camps for skaters at all levels, and enable the USFSA to send more junior- and novice-level skaters to international competitions. But the bottom line for all competitors is still just paying for their training expenses.

Figure skating fans can play a role, too, by contributing to the USFSA Memorial Fund. Fans can also contribute directly to skaters who need help. Almost all skaters who compete at the national level but weren't named to the "A" envelope -- especially those getting little or nothing from the USFSA -- are probably in need of financial assistance. Even small donations to their personal training funds are greatly appreciated by these skaters.