OT: IOC considering charter change to allow multiple "winners"

[LadyStanley]

http://www.sportsnet.ca/olympics/ioc-sets-group-look-double-2024-2028-olympic-picks/

Current charter requires IOC committee to select host of Olympic games 7 years out.

But with two strong bids (LA and Paris) for 2024, they are considering change which would allow them to award 2024 AND 2028 games.

Since December, Bach has repeated warnings about a bid process that produces "too many losers," suggesting concerns that the city which lost a 2024 vote would not return with a candidacy for the 2028 Olympics.

"We are in a comfortable situation. Now it will be up to the working group how to best explore, how to best exploit, the positive situation," Bach said. "We should not miss the opportunity to explore this opportunity."

Interesting.

I definitely think that Chicago not "returning" may have been a result of that old thinking.

Click to read more...

 

[BattleBorn]

Chicago getting destroyed in the first round of voting for the 2016 games after putting together a fairly solid bid for the games in a year when they almost certainly should have come to North America will certainly turn a city off to the bidding process, especially when a city like Chicago that won the bid previously and didn't get to host is involved.

Hopefully LA and Paris get them, the games deserve a third return to Los Angeles and to have the closing ceremonies in a century old stadium after all these years of wanting massive investments in the facilities.

 

[Fenway]

Chicago getting destroyed in the first round of voting for the 2016 games after putting together a fairly solid bid for the games in a year when they almost certainly should have come to North America will certainly turn a city off to the bidding process, especially when a city like Chicago that won the bid previously and didn't get to host is involved.

Hopefully LA and Paris get them, the games deserve a third return to Los Angeles and to have the closing ceremonies in a century old stadium after all these years of wanting massive investments in the facilities.

I think LA is a lock for 2024 because because of security concerns in France.

 

[BattleBorn]

I think LA is a lock for 2024 because because of security concerns in France.

Seven years is a long time. You can certainly mitigate security concerns (or develop them) in that time frame. It's not like either of them are in places without a great national security apparatus.

 

[DoyleG]

1996: Atlanta gets Olympics over the sentimental favorite Athens (even though Athens was a bit of a poor bid)
2000: Sydney wins even though it was expected that Beijing would get the nod.

Hence, it made logical sense for Athens to host in '04 and Beijing in '08.

More about putting an unspoken practice into writing now.

 

[BattleBorn]

The committee pushes Madrid every time they can, if they're turning unspoken practices to policy you should expect Madrid to win the games without putting in a bid.

 

[madhi19]

Easier to grab all the bribes in one go. Also with more and more cities passing on the massive boondoggle they might want to lock a couple of suckers ASAP.

 

[cutchemist42]

Im at rhe point where I think a winning city should get to host twice.

 

[Mightygoose]

Im at rhe point where I think a winning city should get to host twice.

Bob McCown has said this many times as a way to an increased number of bidders. The winner gets it twice in span of 8 years (somewhere else in between). Security costs will be twice as will an Althetes village (though one large one cane built over 2 phases). After that, pretty much all of the infrastructure costs will need to built once and use the second games to make a profit....in theory.

If the IOC does make this change, then I think Calgary will be a lock for 2026 or 2030.

 

[LadyStanley]

WRT housing, it's something that really cannot sit "idle" and empty for years between games.

Many cities incorporate the athlete housing into "affordable" housing post event. So if the region/city hosts "again", something new would have to be built for the "again", no?

 

[DoyleG]

The committee pushes Madrid every time they can, if they're turning unspoken practices to policy you should expect Madrid to win the games without putting in a bid.

The Popluar Party no longer has real control of Madrid City Council.

 

[Butch 19]

Chicago getting destroyed in the first round of voting for the 2016 games after putting together a fairly solid bid for the games in a year when they almost certainly should have come to North America will certainly turn a city off to the bidding process, especially when a city like Chicago that won the bid previously and didn't get to host is involved.

Hopefully LA and Paris get them, the games deserve a third return to Los Angeles and to have the closing ceremonies in a century old stadium after all these years of wanting massive investments in the facilities.

And that century old stadium is still a dump. No matter how much $$ they throw at it.

 

[Fenway]

Seven years is a long time. You can certainly mitigate security concerns (or develop them) in that time frame. It's not like either of them are in places without a great national security apparatus.

Yes 7 years is a long time.

But the 'bad guys' are firmly embedded in Europe while in the US we have only seen so called 'lone wolves' that nobody could have foreseen in advance. (Boston 4 years ago for example )

I'm just thankful that Boston decided we wanted nothing to do with the IOC and walked away. LA has everything in place and the new Rams stadium will offer more options.

The LA Coliseum is barebones but it can be spruced up one more time for 2 weeks.

I worked in Rio for NBC and I am shocked at how only 7 months later the venues there are falling apart. Rio might rival Athens for white elephants when all is said and done.

Ted Turner proved with the 'Friendship Games' you could stage the athletic competition with limited costs but the Olympic brand has been brainwashed into all of us. Proof of that is us - hockey fans.

The Winter Games don't seem to have the white elephant problems that the Summer Games do but it has gotten so out of hand that nobody wanted the 2022 Winter Games and they were awarded to Beijing because the IOC knows the Chinese will happily spend whatever is needed.

 

[IME]

WRT housing, it's something that really cannot sit "idle" and empty for years between games.

Many cities incorporate the athlete housing into "affordable" housing post event. So if the region/city hosts "again", something new would have to be built for the "again", no?

You can convert the housing villages into student housing, hotels, and airbnbs. As long as that is incorporated into a responsible bid, it shouldn't be too difficult to accomplish. Then, when the second set of games is over, you can permanently turn the village into affordable housing.

 

[Guardian17]

Looks like the IOC is having a difficult time finding cities to host the games.

 

[ColinM]

Looks like the IOC is having a difficult time finding cities to host the games.

Exactly. And if they award 2024 and 2028 this year, it will be about 2025 before they have to launch another round of bidding. This gives them more time to find another group of suckers err bidders.

 

[Voight]

Seven years is a long time. You can certainly mitigate security concerns (or develop them) in that time frame. It's not like either of them are in places without a great national security apparatus.

France has had infinitely more terrorist attacks.

 

[Lempo]

Seven years is a long time. You can certainly mitigate security concerns (or develop them) in that time frame. It's not like either of them are in places without a great national security apparatus.

The way how the French Presidential Election in April projects to turn out, the administrations in US and France will probably have very unlike approach towards the security concerns for the next four years at least. To change anything you'd first have to publicly acknowledge that things are not all peachy currently, but if the new President looks to have France in a leading role in the EU development shenanigans, that's going a massive hindrance for doing anything like.

Apparently it was a genuine worst-case option for the UEFA Euro 2016 in France that the matches would have been played at empty stadiums in wake of the Brussels terror strikes three months before the tournament. The UEFA stance at time was that you can't postpone or cancel a big event. When the tourists is how the organizing country can hope to recover any of the money that organizing the games will take, it's little wonder if IOC wants to have the organizers locked in sooner than later.

 

[AustonsNostrils]

There should be permanent homes for both the Winter and Summer Olympiads - rotate them, 4 in the Americas, 4 in Eurasia. Stop exploiting the poor of the world - the photos of the decayed Olympic facilities all over the world are sickening, they look like WW2 ruins.

I'd still feel sorry for those cities who were among the permanent host cities, the summer ones anyway. The winter games are best staged in quaint winter locales - the same way the WJC needs to get back to putting their tournament into smaller centers where there's ambiance of what still is a glorified kids tournament.

In North America, LA and one of Chicago/NYC/Toronto/Boston/SF as summer game host cities permanently in a rotation - for winter Lake Placid, Calgary, Quebec City, Colorado somewhere

 

[Fenway]

It is a coin flip who is more arrogant between FIFA and the IOC.

No country on earth is better equipped to host a World Cup than England but they won't go there. The US is probably second.

The Summer Games the big white elephant is the velodrome.

The major issue is the IOC itself and the demands the host city MUST AGREE to.

They demand express lanes on all expressways, complete control of all billboards and transit ads for 6 months and numerous other perks because they are entitled.

As far as I know Olympic Summer Games left a favorable legacy in Mexico City (1968), Munich (1972) but a dark cloud because of a terrorist attack, LA (1984), Seoul (1988), Barcelona (1992), Sydney (2000) and London (2012).

Montreal (1976) was an epic disaster that took 2 generations for the city to recover from.

The Winter Games have fared better with the exception of Sochi (2014). Sarajevo (1984) was a wonderful event but the city was destroyed a decade later by a civil war.

Boston is far better equipped to handle a winter games using mountains in NH and Vermont and building a high speed rail link to Montreal thru the mountains would be an acceptable government investment.

 

[Jumptheshark]

Chicago getting destroyed in the first round of voting for the 2016 games after putting together a fairly solid bid for the games in a year when they almost certainly should have come to North America will certainly turn a city off to the bidding process, especially when a city like Chicago that won the bid previously and didn't get to host is involved.

Hopefully LA and Paris get them, the games deserve a third return to Los Angeles and to have the closing ceremonies in a century old stadium after all these years of wanting massive investments in the facilities.

I know a lot of people from chi-town and not many wanted the olympics

 

[No Fun Shogun]

I lived in Chicagoland when all that went down, and I've got to say that this doesn't make much sense to me. Chicago lost the 2016 bid in 2009. We're talking about seven years between the loss and the actual games kicking off. If they had announced in 2009 that the 2020 games were our's, I don't see how that'd fly. It's already a drawn out, expensive process. The idea of it being even more drawn out seems like even more of a money pit, not to mention even more difficult to support for corporate sponsors and especially political backers that have their own shelf lives.

Plus, with this in mind, interested markets for down the road would be forced to bid earlier than they were prepared. If you're a city that wants to host in 2028 but you know that they might award them a few years earlier than planned, you're going to thereby be forced to rush and try to submit a bid for the 2024 games in the event that there are multiple strong contenders in that field and you could lose out on the 2028 games without even submitting a bid.

Well-intentioned, but don't think it makes sense as either a consolation prize or from the perspective of rushing bids.

All that being said, I think that Chicagoers enjoyed the lead-up schadenfreude for the Rio games/snafus more than we would've enjoyed the actual games themselves had they been in Chicago.