Quote:
Originally Posted by Weitz
If it’s such a good deal why isn’t everyone clamouring to host it?
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For the Winter games, there are only so many cities around the world that realistically can host.
A city needs to have winter weather, a close proximity to mountains of adequate size, and a central city or region that can support the number of arenas required for a modern Olympics. For arenas, you need a speed skating oval with a capacity of at least 8,000; a curling rink with a capacity of at least 6,000; a secondary hockey venue with capacity around 6-8,000; and two major arenas with capacities over 15,000 for the primary hockey and figure skating venues. The central host also needs adequate hotels, transportation, and other supporting infrastructure for the athletes, media, and fans who will attend.
In Canada, Calgary and Vancouver are really the only viable options. In the States, it's probably just Salt Lake and Denver. The Winter Games have outgrown places like Lake Placid and Olympic Valley. They could possibly look at places like Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, or Boston to host the arena-based events with the mountain events at the close(ish) ski resorts.
In the rest of the world, the Southern Hemisphere is essentially a write-off, and anything south of the regions that have already hosted (Northern California, Japan, South Korea, China) aren't likely viable either. In Europe, the places that have hosted before are mostly small ski resort towns that would need to partner with a larger city to serve as the main host.
A big advantage that we have in North America is that our most-popular sports are arena-based, so we tend to already have the big arena venues in place and they don't need to be built from scratch like in some parts of the world. Those tend to be the most-expensive venues to build too.
Take Boston for example, if they ever hosted the Winter Games, the only arena they would need to build would be a speed skating oval. Between the Garden and all the AHL and NCAA arenas in New England, they would be able to host every other indoor event in an existing arena.