Contrary to popular belief, a city or country can be a financially responsible host for a major sports event.
While we fret about the cost of the Olympics, Toronto just hosted the Pan American Games, which has more sports and more events than the Summer Olympics, and early reports suggest the city is still standing. Maybe even ready to bid for the Olympics.
Yes, we know. The Sochi Olympics were a giant boondoggle, though not the $50 billion sinkhole that’s commonly reported. We know Beijing’s Bird’s Nest stadium (a twisted photo of which is in the SportsMyriad header) has no regular tenant, though it’s a fun place to visit and will soon host the track and field World Championships.
The Olympics can be badly planned. That’s the consensus on the 2004 Games in Athens, though some argue otherwise.
They can also be planned well, and venues can become thriving spots for, say, London tourists.
After the 2022 bidding debacle, in which the IOC’s overbearing insistence on regal treatment drove away every place that has viable snow and a world-class sliding track, everyone’s back in for 2024. Back to Paris? Rome?
It won’t be Boston, for which the blame game is in full swing. Christine Brennan says heads should roll at the USOC. Alan Abrahamson contrasts the lack of political will in Boston with the strong support in …
Los Angeles! They did it before, albeit in a different era and without the Soviet bloc.
Want a good litmus test for hosting? Here’s one from Toronto Star columnist Bruce Arthur: “An Olympics is only worth it if it leaves your city better off than it found it, for a reasonable enough price.”
And it occurs to me that Los Angeles needs another soccer stadium, anyway …
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