Post by jdd2 on Jul 27, 2015 15:52:34 GMT -5
Blog version: (and with tokyo just having cancelled a $2billion stadium with no alternative in sight, can't blame them at all)
Boston Says ‘Nope’ to the 2024 Games
By Jason Gay
July 27, 2015 4:35 p.m. ET
Boston didn’t want the Summer Olympics. OK, that is not totally accurate: Some Bostonians were excited for the city to host the Summer Games in 2024, just not enough of them to, you know, give the idea popular momentum. Boston never became gripped with Olympic fever, not even close. It mostly acted like the Olympics were a two-week canoe trip with their in-laws that they would get stuck paying for.
As someone who grew up a few miles outside the city, I’m not totally surprised. Every time I read a story about the Boston Olympics, I kept imagining my late father pacing around the kitchen with a coffee mug, complaining about Olympic budgets and especially Olympic traffic, nine years in advance. People in Boston are really cuckoo about traffic. My dad made it his life’s mission to avoid Boston traffic; he liked to leave for the Logan Airport 13 years in advance of the flight; around the Fourth of July weekend he would wake up in the middle of the night screaming about gridlock on Cape Cod. I won’t even mention parking. Boston parking could actually have been an Olympic event.
Still, my father was an open-minded man, and I believe he would have embraced the idea of a local Summer Olympics—on a long weekend, in March, held in northern Maine.
To be clear: I think Boston is a world-class town and would be a tremendous host for a global sporting event. It already is a tremendous host for a global sporting event: the Boston Marathon, which paired with that brunchtime Red Sox game is one of the great sports two-fers on the planet.
And I admit the idea of an Olympics happening in my hometown had an undeniable sentimental appeal, an opportunity to showcase a great city to an unparalleled stage. I am an unabashed fan of the Games, and besides, my co-workers would have been crammed into a discount highway motel eating vending machine sandwiches while I was at my mom’s house sleeping in my childhood bed and eating blueberry pancakes. What wasn't to like?
But now that dream appears over. Boston’s mayor Marty Walsh said Monday he wouldn't sign any United States Olympic Committee host contract that put the city on the hook for any budget shortcomings.
“If committing to signing the guarantee today is what’s required to move forward, then Boston is no longer pursuing the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games,” Walsh said.
That was Mayor Marty coming to the mound, and asking for the ball.
Not soon after, the USOC voted not to nominate Boston for 2024 consideration. According to the Journal’s Matthew Futterman, it may now consider Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
These are complicated days for the Olympic movement and global sporting events in general. Boston’s resistance may have been loud, but wasn't isolated to them. Repeated stories of host cities grappling with exorbitant costs and decaying facilities have built a strong undercurrent of public skepticism. The vibe seems to be: nice, but not worth it. The Summer Olympics still has glossy suitors—potential 2024 hosts include Rome and Paris—but the 2022 Winter Olympics are practically bouncing around on Craigslist. Potential hosts—Krakow, Poland; Oslo, Norway; Stockholm, Sweden; Lviv, Ukraine—all bailed. The last I checked, the bidding was down to Almaty, Kazakhstan; Beijing, China; and, I think, Paramus, New Jersey.
Boston’s bid never got a genuine liftoff. Despite advocates like Walsh, there were steady complaints about a lack of information, transparency, and confusion about where everything was supposed to go. An early pitch for Boston’s bid made a big deal of Harvard’s involvement in the 2024 games, with the university hosting as many as five different events. According to the Boston Globe, this was news to Harvard. It’s also been said that the 9,000 feet of snow Boston got last winter—and the accompanying transit chaos—didn’t exactly heighten community faith.
There will be some embarrassment for city and business leaders, but Boston will come out of this fine. Suffice it to say, the city is pretty solid with sports. It’s kind of bonkers, in fact. It’s an oft-pointed out fact, but if you’re a 15-year-old kid in Boston, you’ve been around for four Patriots Super Bowl championships, three Red Sox World Series titles, one Celtics championship and one Bruins Stanley Cup. There are kids in Boston who have developed tendinitis from applauding at too many Duck Boat championship parades.
In the end, this was probably about the money, because it’s always about the money. But maybe Boston didn’t fall hard for the Olympics because it just didn’t need them to feel whole. Every year, a Massachusetts resident is legally obligated to spend six months of the year being nervous about the Patriots and then the next six months being annoyed at the Red Sox. There is still the matter of Deflategate and the NFL’s absurd delay on deciding what on earth should happen to Tom Brady, a far more urgent civic concern. There just won’t be Olympics in 2024 to worry about anymore. Those rings—and the bill—now go to somebody else.
Follow Jason Gay on Twitter: @jasongay. Write him at Jason.Gay@wsj.com
Boston Says ‘Nope’ to the 2024 Games
By Jason Gay
July 27, 2015 4:35 p.m. ET
Boston didn’t want the Summer Olympics. OK, that is not totally accurate: Some Bostonians were excited for the city to host the Summer Games in 2024, just not enough of them to, you know, give the idea popular momentum. Boston never became gripped with Olympic fever, not even close. It mostly acted like the Olympics were a two-week canoe trip with their in-laws that they would get stuck paying for.
As someone who grew up a few miles outside the city, I’m not totally surprised. Every time I read a story about the Boston Olympics, I kept imagining my late father pacing around the kitchen with a coffee mug, complaining about Olympic budgets and especially Olympic traffic, nine years in advance. People in Boston are really cuckoo about traffic. My dad made it his life’s mission to avoid Boston traffic; he liked to leave for the Logan Airport 13 years in advance of the flight; around the Fourth of July weekend he would wake up in the middle of the night screaming about gridlock on Cape Cod. I won’t even mention parking. Boston parking could actually have been an Olympic event.
Still, my father was an open-minded man, and I believe he would have embraced the idea of a local Summer Olympics—on a long weekend, in March, held in northern Maine.
To be clear: I think Boston is a world-class town and would be a tremendous host for a global sporting event. It already is a tremendous host for a global sporting event: the Boston Marathon, which paired with that brunchtime Red Sox game is one of the great sports two-fers on the planet.
And I admit the idea of an Olympics happening in my hometown had an undeniable sentimental appeal, an opportunity to showcase a great city to an unparalleled stage. I am an unabashed fan of the Games, and besides, my co-workers would have been crammed into a discount highway motel eating vending machine sandwiches while I was at my mom’s house sleeping in my childhood bed and eating blueberry pancakes. What wasn't to like?
But now that dream appears over. Boston’s mayor Marty Walsh said Monday he wouldn't sign any United States Olympic Committee host contract that put the city on the hook for any budget shortcomings.
“If committing to signing the guarantee today is what’s required to move forward, then Boston is no longer pursuing the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games,” Walsh said.
That was Mayor Marty coming to the mound, and asking for the ball.
Not soon after, the USOC voted not to nominate Boston for 2024 consideration. According to the Journal’s Matthew Futterman, it may now consider Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
These are complicated days for the Olympic movement and global sporting events in general. Boston’s resistance may have been loud, but wasn't isolated to them. Repeated stories of host cities grappling with exorbitant costs and decaying facilities have built a strong undercurrent of public skepticism. The vibe seems to be: nice, but not worth it. The Summer Olympics still has glossy suitors—potential 2024 hosts include Rome and Paris—but the 2022 Winter Olympics are practically bouncing around on Craigslist. Potential hosts—Krakow, Poland; Oslo, Norway; Stockholm, Sweden; Lviv, Ukraine—all bailed. The last I checked, the bidding was down to Almaty, Kazakhstan; Beijing, China; and, I think, Paramus, New Jersey.
Boston’s bid never got a genuine liftoff. Despite advocates like Walsh, there were steady complaints about a lack of information, transparency, and confusion about where everything was supposed to go. An early pitch for Boston’s bid made a big deal of Harvard’s involvement in the 2024 games, with the university hosting as many as five different events. According to the Boston Globe, this was news to Harvard. It’s also been said that the 9,000 feet of snow Boston got last winter—and the accompanying transit chaos—didn’t exactly heighten community faith.
There will be some embarrassment for city and business leaders, but Boston will come out of this fine. Suffice it to say, the city is pretty solid with sports. It’s kind of bonkers, in fact. It’s an oft-pointed out fact, but if you’re a 15-year-old kid in Boston, you’ve been around for four Patriots Super Bowl championships, three Red Sox World Series titles, one Celtics championship and one Bruins Stanley Cup. There are kids in Boston who have developed tendinitis from applauding at too many Duck Boat championship parades.
In the end, this was probably about the money, because it’s always about the money. But maybe Boston didn’t fall hard for the Olympics because it just didn’t need them to feel whole. Every year, a Massachusetts resident is legally obligated to spend six months of the year being nervous about the Patriots and then the next six months being annoyed at the Red Sox. There is still the matter of Deflategate and the NFL’s absurd delay on deciding what on earth should happen to Tom Brady, a far more urgent civic concern. There just won’t be Olympics in 2024 to worry about anymore. Those rings—and the bill—now go to somebody else.
Follow Jason Gay on Twitter: @jasongay. Write him at Jason.Gay@wsj.com
