http://espn.go.com/boston/story/_/id/12139076/boston-us-bid-city-2024-summer-olympics

Here we go again. As exciting as the games can be, the host city is the loser. They spend all of that money just to get a bunch of people to come to their city and probably don't even break even.

1/9/2015 3:06:08 AM

Mawtha of Gawd, no freakin' way this happens, all the damn fawenahs coming to Bawston. They'll throw ah wicked pissah potty when the IOC says no.

Pros:
+ Numerous existing Boston-area stadiums, arenas, and facilities (Fenway, Gillette, TD Garden, and college fields from BC, Harvard, and maybe UMass if they are willing to go out that far)
+ Awesome sports fans
+ Close to other large population centers (NYC, Philadelphia, Baltimore, D.C.) for American spectators
+ Historic city with lots of tourism experience

Cons:
- People in Boston will dislike their daily routines changed, even temporarily
- Getting around Boston in a subway or car already sucks, this will make it a million times worse
- Not that big of a place, wouldn't be able to handle so many visitors all at once
- Sure to interfere with the Red Sox season in one way or another (relevant to con #1)

1/9/2015 5:01:31 AM

Also they are way too racist and xenophobic...

1/9/2015 9:36:20 AM

Yeah this was pretty much the worst option on the table and our Olympic committee went with it...

/facepalm

1/9/2015 9:38:39 AM

Well, DC's funding would have to be released by Congress, so I doubt that instilled much confidence there. There's better odds that MA can front some of the infrastructure costs, which they need anyway.

1/9/2015 9:45:25 AM

They're not beating Paris anyway.

1/9/2015 12:22:07 PM

I think LA and Dallas are the only American cities that could handle this right now.

But Boston is one of my favorite cities while I hate both LA and Dallas.

[Edited on January 9, 2015 at 4:40 PM. Reason : -]

1/9/2015 4:36:11 PM

Chicago could definitely handle the Olympics

1/9/2015 5:33:11 PM

how about Detroit

1/9/2015 5:42:52 PM

can we all at least agree that soccer sucks and should not be an Olympic event?

1/9/2015 5:54:15 PM

Disagree, I like that I can watch the US men's soccer team compete on an international level more than just once every four years. If it was only the World Cup, then we'd see mostly brand new players every 4 years. Having the Olympics in between let's us see potential WC players and gives our guys real competition.

1/9/2015 6:16:11 PM

Have any of the US host cities ever broke even in the past?

1/10/2015 1:19:43 AM

Breaking even is a stupid goal for hosting an international sporting event. It's about celebrating your city, country, etc. and using it as a stage to improve your reputation on a global scale. Throwing ridiculous money at venues and things that will never get used again is dumb but investing in your city for the long-term isn't the worst thing in the world.

I read somewhere that hosting the Olympics is like throwing a wedding. You invite people and spend money on them to make yourself look good, celebrate your lives, blah blah blah but you're not looking to recoup all your costs in the gifts to break even. Sure, you get money and that's a nice benefit of having a big wedding but it's not why you're doing it.

1/10/2015 8:06:09 AM

^^ Los Angeles was massively successful. They used a lot of pre-existing infrastructure for their sports events.

Quote :

"Breaking even is a stupid goal for hosting an international sporting event. "

Yeah, that's why the 2022 Games that were pretty much earmarked for Europe had 5 or so credible European bids that one by one pulled out of the bidding because the voters didn't want them, and now the IOC are left with a non-choice between Beijing/northwest China and Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Quote :

"can we all at least agree that soccer sucks and should not be an Olympic event?"

it's a massive ticket seller for the hosts

[Edited on January 10, 2015 at 12:28 PM. Reason : .]

1/10/2015 12:27:17 PM

Quote :

"^^ Los Angeles was massively successful. They used a lot of pre-existing infrastructure for their sports events. "

That's nice to know and that is why I would be cool with the US hosting another FIFA World Cup in the future. Our stadiums are ready to go. The biggest problem would be trying to pick which ones to use. In 1994 Chicago hosted the opening game, but they didn't even make the final bid for 2022 which was given to Qatar.

Quote :

"Yeah, that's why the 2022 Games that were pretty much earmarked for Europe had 5 or so credible European bids that one by one pulled out of the bidding because the voters didn't want them, and now the IOC are left with a non-choice between Beijing/northwest China and Almaty, Kazakhstan."

Exactly, it seems like a lot of countries aren't to enthusiastic about spending lots of money for 2 weeks of fun.

1/10/2015 1:30:39 PM

Chicago spent $100 million on that failing bid. Why are people rushing to hand over money to the corrupt IOC?

Quote :

"I read somewhere that hosting the Olympics is like throwing a wedding. You invite people and spend money on them to make yourself look good, celebrate your lives, blah blah blah but you're not looking to recoup all your costs in the gifts to break even. Sure, you get money and that's a nice benefit of having a big wedding but it's not why you're doing it. "

People who do this are idiots. I understand why all taxpayers aren't idiots.

[Edited on January 10, 2015 at 2:17 PM. Reason : .]

1/10/2015 2:15:10 PM

Quote :

"That's nice to know and that is why I would be cool with the US hosting another FIFA World Cup in the future. Our stadiums are ready to go. The biggest problem would be trying to pick which ones to use. In 1994 Chicago hosted the opening game, but they didn't even make the final bid for 2022 which was given to Qatar. "

Well, FIFA are a worse and more corrupt organization than the IOC.

http://www.thestar.com/sports/amateur/2014/10/01/begging_beijing_to_host_2022_winter_olympics_bad_sign_for_ioc_arthur.html

Quote :

"Norway loves the Winter Olympics, and you can tell. Norway is a nation of ice and snow and occasionally a remarkable capacity to carry oxygen in the blood, and as a result has more winter medals than any nation on earth, despite just over five million people to choose from. Norway is the heart of winter, and of the Games. But Norway doesn’t want the Winter Olympics, thanks. Oslo said no on Wednesday, after its bid for the 2022 Games had limped along for a while in the face of strong public opposition. The people of Norway weren’t interested in a bid, 20 years after Lillehammer was such a success. So the candidates for the 2022 Olympics are down to Beijing, China, and Almaty, Kazakhstan, which isn’t quite ideal. Sweden, Poland and Ukraine dropped out of the running — in fairness, the host of the 2014 Olympics had a fair bit to do with that last one — and before that Switzerland and Germany did the same, citing a lack of desire to build the infrastructure. Some claimed it was because countries were scared away by Sochi’s $51-billion price tag. As The Associated Press put it, “The IOC has acknowledged that it has failed to properly explain the difference between operating and capital budgets.” Sure, sounds pretty tricky. Those various countries couldn’t be expected to understand that they wouldn’t also have to spend $50 billion, right? Mmm hmm. After Norway said no, the IOC released a screw-you-guys statement calling it a missed opportunity for Norwegians, and claimed Norway didn’t bother sending senior officials to important meetings. The IOC helpfully added the decision to drop the bid was made by Norway’s politicians “on the basis of half-truths and factual inaccuracies.” That’s the sound of an organization that realizes the jig might be up. The IOC is offering $880 million to help stage the Games, and even Sochi’s operations budget — as opposed to its capital budget, which built parts of two cities that gradually fell apart as the Games soldiered on — was only about $2.2 billion, or a little more than Vancouver’s. And still, Norway wasn’t interested. Whoops. The Olympics were just in Beijing six years ago, and it was spectacular. I mean, they displaced 1.5-million people and spent an estimated $43 billion, and both the smog and human rights protesters gradually vanished as the Games went on, and one journalist from Cuba summed up a lot when he told the AP, “I’m surprised how tightly controlled and complicated everything is here.” Hong Kong is boiling now, too, and could boil over. But wow, the visuals. In related news, the IOC recorded a $383.3-million profit on a then-record $2.4 billion worth of revenue in 2008. Kazakhstan, though: that would be a frontier. Kazakhstan is rich in oil and natural gas, and also ranks 140th out of 177 countries in the world in corruption, as measured by transparency.org. It’s basically a dictatorial state, and Human Rights Watch notes that Kazakhstan maintains a poor human rights record, and that “torture remains common in places of detention.” Ah. Kazakhstan also finished last in 11 of the 14 categories the IOC uses to score bids. If it happens there would be ample Borat jokes, and everyone would get to say they got to go to Kazakhstan that one time, assuming Russia hasn’t invaded by then. It could also be the year the soccer World Cup will be held in Qatar, four years after being held in Russia, just in case you had any illusions left about how global sports works. After Sochi, though, new president Thomas Bach talked about sustainability of bids, and the IOC adjusted its charter to include “prohibition of any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise.” But if the IOC could stomach Russia and China in a six-year span, it can stomach almost anything. And for 2022, it doesn’t currently have much of a choice. So now the IOC has to drag their big beautiful TV show somewhere regrettable. Beijing’s air pollution has actually worsened since 2008, and the human rights aren’t any better. But Kazakhstan would mean humping this show into the wilderness, to the borders of civilized possibility, and the IOC would have to bet that the president-for-life wouldn’t get toppled between now and then. So unless they can roust a ringer — Vancouver! Calgary! St. Moritz! — it’ll be back to Beijing, and a special sort of humiliation. It won’t just be that the IOC was reduced to peddling the Olympics to autocratic, anti-democratic regimes, where the Games ballooned into a colossal, theatrical grotesquerie. It will be that they had to go slinking back to one of them twice."

I'm personally hoping for Kazakhstan.

So in the aftermath of this, the IOC did some reforms allowing some events to be held in different countries if cost and sustainability are a question, and a more flexible list of sports based on what the organizers want as long as the number of athletes and events stay under a pre-set limit (read: good bye modern pentathlon and synchronized swimming)

[Edited on January 10, 2015 at 3:14 PM. Reason : /]

1/10/2015 3:03:25 PM

San Fran would have been good, but if neither Oakland team can get a new stadium, and coming off the Santa Clara 49ers stadium debacle, I doubt they have the stomach to build even more new stuff.

LA was the best option with the existing stadia, plus a couple new soccer parks since then and the Staples Center having been built since 1984. Then again, the public transit in place currently sucks and the freeways are what they are.

Paris should win.

1/10/2015 5:42:40 PM

I know its 9 years away, but I guess the plan would be to put the Red Sox out on a 3 week road trip (West Coast)?

1/10/2015 7:05:00 PM

Quote :

"Well, FIFA are a worse and more corrupt organization than the IOC."

Maybe so, but that doesn't change the fact that the USA is ready and doesn't need to spend mass amounts of money to build stadiums like some nations do. With the Olympics, the host town in the USA would end up building tons of useless stuff.

1/10/2015 8:40:28 PM

^^

LOL, relax.

1/10/2015 8:45:00 PM

^ Haha, just was the first thing I thought of when I heard about this. A long road trip wouldn't be ideal for the Sox' DH in 2024, a 48 year old David Ortiz.

1/11/2015 10:27:29 AM

I thought he was that old already.

1/11/2015 1:06:17 PM

I live in Boston and as far as I can tell, nobody here wants it here.

[Edited on January 11, 2015 at 5:50 PM. Reason : .]

1/11/2015 5:50:00 PM

^That seems to be the mood around the world now. I like what someone posted in the other thread on here. They said just a few cities need to build facilities for the Olympics and then the IOC needs to maintain them and start a hosting rotation.

1/11/2015 10:18:23 PM

Officially died Monday. The USOC look to be trying to bid with Los Angeles now.

1. The Boston bid committee lied in a huge manner. How can you go from "we're bidding, we're enthusiastic" to "nobody wants this here to the point that 2 years before the vote we're pulling out"?

2. The USOC look like idiots picking Boston. The other choices were Washington, D.C. (would've never happened), San Francisco (would've never happened, plus that would in reality be a "Every City in the Bay Area not named San Francisco" Olympics), and Los Angeles.

3. Toronto are going to bid after just holding a successful Pan American Games, and I think the USOC will realize the plight of their position after their #1 choice spectacularly failed and that's the North American city of choice.

[Edited on July 29, 2015 at 9:55 AM. Reason : /]

7/29/2015 9:43:10 AM

Are thee dumbass cities still paying millions in bribes to even prepare a bid?

7/29/2015 12:05:55 PM

^I don't know, but I still think it is stupid to host. We need to let some other nation spend all of that money, so our athletes can go win some medals.

7/29/2015 7:23:24 PM