Quote:
Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis
If spending money on the Olympics generated profit, why aren't more cities tripping over themselves to bid?
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This is certainly one of the strongest anti-hosting points, but it could also be viewed as a potential strength in terms of lack of bidding competition, ergo leverage in designing the most appropriate bid for yourself (rather than the IOC's ridiculous requirements of the past).
For winter games, the pool of potential hosts is naturally limited by geography. Considering the current size of the winter games, a lot of the small-medium sized locations of the past are simply too small now (in an ideal world, I'm an advocate of a dual-host city set-up for two different Olympiads, which would bring these cities back into play - I've gone into more detail in the past about how a Calgary + Vancouver partnership would work). There are really only 8-10 places on each northern continent that make any sense these days.
On the flip side, we have seen lots of cities trip over themselves to spend huge public money on arenas and stadiums. Does the fact that others have done it, mean that we should, too? Every situation is different; just because it doesn't make sense for many other places doesn't mean it couldn't make some sense here.
I certainly acknowledge that the tangible cost/benefit sheet will never balance to the benefit side. It is only in the intangibles...the "je ne sais quoi" that pushes me barely onto the pro-host side. Can't quite find the right analogy, but it's like the guy who has brown-bagged and worked hard at the same factory for 30 years buying expensive floor seats that he can't really afford to see his favourite band play one last time, because, otherwise, what was the point of all of it?
In a perfect world, I think we'd wait to bid for 2030, and let the IOC demonstrate the necessary improvements with their vision 2020. The arena, fieldhouse, and stadium situations could be resolved on their own merits, and the political environment might be more stable.