CCSLC Future Olympic Planning Committee

[nash61]

With the recent issues surrounding Rio, and after seeing photo essays on empty and neglected Olympic Stadiums, I've been wondering why countries continuously bid and spend exorbitant amounts of money for the Olympics.

If the feeling is that it is for the perceived economic impact (which can be debated), then I suggest that the Olympics settle on a permanent location (preferably Greece, which has the history and could use the money). Imagine permanent venues becoming shrines to the greatness of sport. Like Fenway and Wrigley, the Montreal Forum, Maple Leaf Gardens, etc. Olympic Stadium would be quite the thing to behold.

Like when they used the original Olympia for shot put in 2004.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKAirNrKKtM

[CS85]

I'm not for a permanent location, but I think 20-25 year leases should be made and the cities kept in a rotation.  

If you ever were looking for an opportunity to rebuild Detroit's economy, this is the way you do it.  I'm not sure how seriously I should be taking that last sentence.

[2001mark]

I'm pro rota.  Ppl say it doesn't matter because it's not their money funding it.  As opposed to a Brazil with instead that billion dollars able to buy our goods & services, or god forbid help their own ppl.

 

Maybe something like...

 

Summer games:

Athens

Sydney

Los Angeles

Buenos Aires

Tokyo

Cape Town

 

Winter games:
Vancouver

Oslo

Denver

Lima

Beijing

Sochi

 

As it is, the next 3 games are in South Korea, Japan, & China.  Hooray.  Make those 12 listed cities' Olympic zones international neutral zones if we wanted.

[Sport]

My way to fix the Olympics:

Summer

- Don't consider cities that have to undertake massive operations to prepare for the games. 

- For the Summer Olympics I'm in favor of rotating the games between 3-4 cities who already have the infrastructure set up and would need minimal updates when it's their turn to host again. Rotate between continents so I'm thinking London/Paris (Europe), Los Angeles (North America), Beijing/Tokyo for Asia. A 4 city rotation would mean a generation between each time hosting which is enough time separation for me. 

- The IOC should also be more open to having Olympic events held outside of those particular cities should circumstances dictate. In 1896 everyone had to come to the same place because communication wasn't what it is now, but today you could put this thing on from several different locations. Rio for example, didn't have a golf course capable of hosting a world class golf event so maybe these weren't the games to spend millions to make one and those funds could've been allocated to something else, like a livable Olympic village. If this is the time to add Golf back to the Olympics then why not just hold the golf tournament somewhere else in the world? 

- There are too many sports in the Olympics and they're about to add 5 more for 2020. They could lose at least 10 sports and nobody would notice. 

- The host city should use more temporary facilities or make the facilities convertible once the games are over. The games last 2 weeks, most sports last a few days at the most. Is that reason enough to build these expensive buildings? Did Athens, Greece need permanent baseball and softball stadiums?

 

 

Winter

- We are to the point where we're running out of places to hold the Winter Olympics and there's also the issue of it not snowing anymore. I'd make the Winter Olympics a global event and designate a host city for each sport. Downhill Skiing often suffers because the conditions aren't right because the IOC gives the Olympics to a beach town in Russia, for instance. You'd lose the appeal of the world convening in that one place for 2 weeks, but it would severely cut down on costs. 

[2001mark]

To be fair, I'm pro Olympic games yet not pro IOC as it consists.  If cities want to keep wasting new monies on them, go for it.  If Toronto ever bid for them, I'd probably not voice either way.  

Another idea might be nations or regions bidding.  Caribbean &/or Central America could be an interesting Olympics.  Cities seem to be choke points.

 

[TBGKon]

An idea I had, which would obviously need fine tuning.  Just spitballing for now.

 

What if the indoor and outdoor  events were split up into Indoor Winter, Outdoor Winter, Indoor Summer, Outdoor Summer.  Host them in the same every 2 years system but alternating so each one would be every 4 years. For example:

 

2017 - Winter Indoor

2018 - Summer Outdoor

2019 - Winter Outdoor

2020 - Summer Indoor

 

Allow each set of events to be regional with maybe a hub city.  Many places have arenas, domes, convention centers and other facilities already made.  For example, use Orlando as a hub city for the Florida Olympic indoor summer games.  You have 4 major arenas (Orlando, Miami, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale), countless smaller arenas (Jacksonville, USF Tampa, UCF Orlando, Miami FIU UM, Jacksonville...etc.).  Bigger sports like basketball can be in multiple cities, but the rest could be centered in one location (Ie. gymnastics in Jacksonville, hall events at the Orlando convention center)

 

Its a concept, but hosting indoor events at previously constructed arenas and venues could be something that may help.

 

 

 

 

[pmoehrin]

3 hours ago, 2001mark said:

I'm pro rota.  Ppl say it doesn't matter because it's not their money funding it.  As opposed to a Brazil with instead that billion dollars able to buy our goods & services, or god forbid help their own ppl.

 

Maybe something like...

 

Summer games:

Athens

Sydney

Los Angeles

Buenos Aires

Tokyo

Cape Town

 

Winter games:
Vancouver

Oslo

Denver

Lima

Beijing

Sochi

 

As it is, the next 3 games are in South Korea, Japan, & China.  Hooray.  Make those 12 listed cities' Olympic zones international neutral zones if we wanted.

 

I don't know about all of the cities you mentioned, but I'm all for something resembling this.

 

The issues I see with the Olympics are A. Open bidding and B. the games being awarded to cities that just don't have the pre-existing infrastructure to handle it.

 

They why I question places like Cape Town on that list. I would imagine it still be a huge upfront cost and one Olympics every 24 years is still not that much.

 

I would say cut down the number of cities by 1 or 2, or just open it up to the entire country so the costs can be more spread out. You think of how many events a city had to host when the Olympics first started and compare that to today. There's no logistical reason why either can't be done.

 

Regardless of differing opinions on what can or should be done to fix it, the biggest story is that the Olympics are running on a broken economic system that is in need of serious overhaul. I'll let people enjoy the games as they feel, but if it were me in charge, this year's games would have been cancelled over a year ago, or at the very least there would have been one if not several events moved out of Rio. The open water events in particular shouldn't be happening at all. I don't think it's an exaggeration to call those events barbaric when you consider the condition of the water.

[Nyk33]

3 hours ago, nash61 said:

preferably Greece, which has the history and could use the money

 

The only problem with Greece is that the country is an economic dumpster fire.

[IceCap]

Call me a first world chauvinist if you want but...

 

The issues with Sochi and Rio are indicative of the problems that come with giving such a high profile event to a country that doesn't have the economic infrastructure or stability to pull it off (Brazil's World Cup and the disaster taking shape in Qatar also qualify).

Point being that there's a lot of positive sentiment behind putting these events in "emerging markets," but things will inevitably end up embarrassing everyone involved one way or another.

 

Now the response is "well the more established countries aren't as keen on hosting as they used to be." Which is true. Bejing's getting the winter games following Pyeongchang because Norway told the IOC to kick rocks.

The solution, though, isn't to award games to countries that are rife with corruption and instability. The solution should be a reform of how the IOC does business, so that more dependable nations actually want to participate.

[Luigi74]

If the IOC gives the games to cities and countries that can handle them there really isn't that much of a need for a radical change. For the summer games Tokyo is on deck for 2020, Los Angeles and Paris most likely getting the bids for 2024 and 2028 with cities like Melbourne, Busan South Korea and maybe Shanghai looking to bid in 2032. I can't even see cities like Rome or Budapest getting past the first round of voting.

 

As a Greek-American I'd love for the Summer Olympics to permanently in Athens but I know that it'll never happen.

[crashcarson15]

I mean really, if the IOC wasn’t so concerned with patting themselves on the back about holding the games in South America, we wouldn’t really need to be having this conversation right now.

 

When bids were submitted for the 2016 Games a handful of years ago, the IOC Working Group rated Rio as the fifth-best of seven applicant cities, behind Tokyo, Madrid, Chicago and (yes) Doha. But because Rio got a score of 6.4 (contrast to Tokyo’s 8.3), it was allowed to proceed, with a threshold score of 6.0 being met. Realistically, we should probably be in Tokyo this year and Madrid in four years, and if that was the case (even given Spain’s economic issues), we probably wouldn’t be having an existential “crisis” of sorts about the Olympics.

 

And as ltp74 points out above, there’s a really good chance we’re going to a city with a strong infrastructure in place for 2024. Los Angeles is the U.S. bid, with Paris and Rome also in for the games; only Budapest doesn’t have some of that infrastructure (from a sporting perspective) around pre-bid.

[2001mark]

24 minutes ago, ltp74 said:

If the IOC gives the games to cities and countries that can handle them there really isn't that much of a need for a radical change. For the summer games Tokyo is on deck for 2020, Los Angeles and Paris most likely getting the bids for 2024 and 2028 with cities like Melbourne, Busan South Korea and maybe Shanghai looking to bid in 2032. I can't even see cities like Rome or Budapest getting past the first round of voting.

Tokyo is already downsizing their primary stadium plans yes?  Add this year's scaled down opening ceremony, I think if the new normal becomes less glitz & showmanship, the current bid system should have a future.  Do we really need billion dollar velodromes &/or speed skating rinks?  I don't think we do.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

I'd really like Seattle to host a summer olympics so we can get an NBA stadium. There are otherwise two NFL-sized stadiums, a couple other arenas/similar venues, a growing mass transit system, and an actual velodrome in the area.

 

But mostly I'd like an NBA arena built and am looking for any justification to make it happen. 

[TBGKon]

I was actually surprised at how many temporary venues the Rio games have (which is a good thing).

 

- Carioca Arena #1 and 2 are set to become an Olympic Training Centre following the games and #3 is set to become a sports high school. (homes to basketball, judo, wrestling, fencing, and taekwondo)

- The Aquatics Stadium (swimming) is temporary

 

 

[Luigi74]

1 hour ago, 2001mark said:

Tokyo is already downsizing their primary stadium plans yes?  Add this year's scaled down opening ceremony, I think if the new normal becomes less glitz & showmanship, the current bid system should have a future.  Do we really need billion dollar velodromes &/or speed skating rinks?  I don't think we do.

Yes, Tokyo is downsizing the Olympic Stadium they got rid of the retractable roof, reduced the number of permanent seats and reduced the footprint of the stadium complex.

[Sykotyk]

The thing is, the U.S. doesn't need a 'regular host city' in a rotation. We have many cities that can reasonably support hosting the Summer Olympics with very little upkeep other than maybe the Olympic Village. Which can be turned into a developers dream when the games are over. Winter Olympics would probably need a bit more due to indoor facilities to handle the fans. But, most cities today (big ones, at least) have a few venues capable of holding ice events. It's skiing that is difficult.

 

 

The Winter Olympics will never be better than Lillehammer, to me. SLC was great, but it was the beginning of the end of the original, smaller, less 'big money' winter games of today. And SLC got to host thanks to bribes as well. So, you can see where that goes.

 

Atlanta did a great job of the Summer games, and Athens (though overly expensive), and Sydney did great. London did a great job and an example of how a first-world in the modern world (since widespread use of the internet in mid-to-late 90s) should be run. And, unfortunately, the Summer Olympics should not be in a small under-developed countries that have to mortgage their future to hold games that no one attends.

 

The 1994 World Cup still holds the highest attendance EVER, and that's despite 8 more teams qualifying today than back then. There's a reason.