[Rumour] Calgary preparing for 2026 Winter Olympics bid. May open door to CalgaryNEXT funding

[FireGilbert]

Originally Posted by Tyler

LOL at the 40+ crowd saying no to hosting the Olympics after they all got to enjoy it in 88.

Seems about right for this site.

I don't understand this comment. If you really want to experience the Winter Olympics nothing is stopping you from flying to South Korea. You don't actually have to wait around Calgary for it to come to you.

Calgarians who enjoyed the 88 Olympics are more than welcome to criticize hosting a future event since the economics and security concerns have drastically changed since then.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by dustygoon

Ya...i meant operating fund not operating budget. But thanks for the notes on how a budget works!

And no....fund accounting is not pretty much the equivalent of consolidated statements. Its actually the opposite almost conceptually in this case. There are separate funds for each activity...operating, venue development, etc. They are self balancing. The operating fund (the one mentioned in cbc article) is exactly balanced ("break-even!!!"), but this is achieved through funding ("revenues!!!") from another source ("the government...dammit"). And does not include the juicy stuff...the venue development costs which are shown in the Venue Fund. But you could consolidate them, and then it could result in a deficit at the government level depending on other fudgery pokery ("government owned assets!!!").

Well, not an exact same explanation of consolidated statements, but idea wise. Each column could potentially be considered a division or subsidiary. Each column would show the performance of that pool. I will admit the explanation is likely over simplified though, my bad.

[underGRADFlame]

Originally Posted by Table 5

Agree with most of your list, except for this one. Olympic plaza is one tired dog with all that cold concrete, fake roman columns, and bunkery hills. It may have been ok in the 80s, but holding ceremonies there would be kind of embarrassing considering how future-facing Olympics tend to be.

I think is primed for redevelopment into something much higher quality, and an Olympics could be the catalyst to do that. In my dream costs-be-damned scenario, Macleod Trail in front of city hall is dropped below grade, and we connect Olympic Plaza/Stephen Ave with the city hall plaza to create one big gathering space.

There is actually already talk of tunnelling through City hall to East Village and upgrading McLeod Trail to more of a scenic boulevard. Upgrading Olympic Plaza as well makes sense.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgar...tegy-1.3220225

Didn't Vancouver hold the medal ceremonies in BC place? That would be the ideal place to hold it is in the main hall "field house".

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by underGRADFlame

Didn't Vancouver hold the medal ceremonies in BC place? That would be the ideal place to hold it is in the main hall "field house".

Yes, if West Village/Calgary Next is part of the Olympic proposal, I assume it would have it's own plaza type gathering space, so that could definitely be a potential location too.

Either way though, Olympic plaza is ripe for an upgrade.

[BigFlameDog]

Originally Posted by Tyler

LOL at the 40+ crowd saying no to hosting the Olympics after they all got to enjoy it in 88.

Seems about right for this site.

Don't paint us all with that giant brush…..I'm sure a lot of us didn't get to enjoy it in 88, I didn't liver here then.

I am for it and the more I think about it the more it makes sense…..Calgary would kick this out of the park.

[Vinny01]

Calgary as a city has grown so fast over the past 15-20 years nearly doubling in size. The infrastructure upgrades that come along with hosting the Olympics would really be useful long term as well

[GullFoss]

the olympics would have huge public support. But have to beat quebec city first...wont be easy

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by FireGilbert

I don't understand this comment. If you really want to experience the Winter Olympics nothing is stopping you from flying to South Korea. You don't actually have to wait around Calgary for it to come to you.

Are you sure flying to South Korea would give you the same experience as hosting the Olympics in your home town?

[getbak]

Unless Quebec City can figure out some way to get a mountain that's tall enough to get approved by the FIS, they're really not a realistic option.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Vinny01

Calgary as a city has grown so fast over the past 15-20 years nearly doubling in size. The infrastructure upgrades that come along with hosting the Olympics would really be useful long term as well

In my opinion though, why isn't this a separate discussion?

Why do infrastructure injections from the provincial and federal governments for expanding urban centres predicated on lavish corporate sponsorship events?

The economic impacts of the Olympics just aren't there. It's creative accounting to believe the Vancouver Olympics were break-even. Unfortunately for the citizens of the city and province, VANOC records are sealed in the city archive until 2025 and not subject to Freedom of Information Act requests (What the hell...?).

The promised increase in visitors didn’t happen. In fact, two years after the Games British Columbia actually lost ground as a tourist destination.


In 2007, B.C. had 4,837,000 international visitors, 26.9 per cent of the Canadian total. The numbers plummeted in 2008 and 2009, not surprising given the global recession and financial crisis. International visitors increased slightly in 2010, fell in 2011 and inched up 1.1 per cent last year.
The number of international visitors in 2012 - 4,220,000 - was 13 per cent below the 2008 total.

And B.C.’s share of the total visitors to Canada was 25.9 per cent - the lowest in at least seven years.

You can rationalize changes in the raw numbers, pointing to external factors.
But B.C.’s tourist visits aren’t just flat-lined. They’re declining. The Games impact has been non-existent.

That’s not surprising. How many British Columbians decided to visit Turin after watching the 2006 Games?

Now, granted, I think 2014 was the largest year for Vancouver tourism in history, but most of that is because of a concerted effort marketing to Chinese tourists.

And here's a great article on why these sorts of rushed, deadline driven infrastructure projects are losers for cities that would otherwise develop neighbourhoods in the span of decades rather than years or months.

Vancouver's athletes Village:

The controversy around the project dates back to a 2007 in-camera meeting at city hall when the then-NPA dominated council voted in favour of a $190 million financial guarantee in a complex three-way agreement involving the city, Millennium and New York-based lender Fortress Investment Group.

At the same meeting, council agreed to a “completion guarantee” on the loan to Fortress, effectively making the city the project’s developer and putting taxpayers on the hook for the tab. Up until that meeting, the agreement with Millennium was that the city would not assume any marketing or financial risk on the project, according to an April 2006 city staff report that recommended Millennium be selected the developer of the Village.

There was some urgency at the time of council’s decision to take on the risk because it needed to get the Village, surrounding parks and community centre built by the opening of the Games in February 2010.

Ballem acknowledged the speed with which the Village was built, comparing the time it took to plan and complete to large projects in China.

“Is that the normal way we do business? No,” she said, adding that the Village would have been built over 20 years anywhere else in the city.

Robertson zeroed in on the controversy tied to the development in a separate news release issued Monday by his Vision Vancouver party. In the release, the mayor said the NPA’s financial guarantee to Fortress was “an irresponsible move that left city taxpayers shouldering the risk for the entire project.”

The release did not mention four Vision councillors also agreed to the guarantee. Reminded of that fact Monday, Robertson said "at that point, the Village had to get built. That's why I'm saying it's a series of decisions that got made and mistakes all along."

Once during the mayor’s press conference and twice during Ballem’s briefing, former NPA council candidate Michael Geller, who is also an architect and developer, attempted to ask questions about the cost of the project. Geller later posted comments on his blog in which he questioned how the 252 units of social and rental housing at the Village factor into the city paying off the debt.

“Many will recall this was supposed to cost $65 million but ended up costing over $110 million,” he wrote. “It’s not worth $110 million. In fact, the city cannot find any non-profit willing to take over the social housing portion at anywhere near the price it paid. This, too, is a loss that will never be recovered.”

http://www.vancourier.com/news/updat...lage-1.1005787

The whole article is worth reading.

This is incredibly pertinent to the discussion about both the NEXT proposal as well as the Olympics. The city of Vancouver is out hundreds of millions of dollars of potential prime water front real estate that they will never be able to recover. This is an example why it should be outrageous for the Flames to be asking the city of Calgary to be fronting a loan for them.

Another good article:

Looking back, it seems almost a miracle that a little more than $100-million might be all that the city will have lost from this affair. (A thorough vetting of the city’s numbers is sure to take place). Early on, the betting was that number might be $300-million or more.

While a loss that is considerably less than anticipated might seem something to celebrate, that wouldn’t be appropriate. Cheer the fact the city has ended its involvement with the Olympic Village. But it was an expensive lesson.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...ticle18317203/

Now that it's clear from Ken King that the Flames are explicitly asking the city to use their borrowing power to get the Flames a better loan, I am that much more sceptical of Ken King looking a developer in the eye and being told "no Cost overruns".

[You Need a Thneed]

My thoughts:

Bidding for 2022 showed that many countries are hesitating on bidding on the Olympic Games, especially on the winter games. The costs can be crazy high. Calgary could save a whole bunch of money by using existing (at the time) facilities. Not many cities have that same kind of advantage.

It might be almost handed to us if Calgary wants to host. I don't think its a secret that the Calgary and Vancouver games were both quite successful. Canada will get an Olympics again soon, and if it happens to be the winter, there's really only two cities that really work - Calgary and Vancouver. I guess it's our turn.

I think a Calgary games could help bring the costs of hosting the games back to respectability.

[sureLoss]

Nenshi confirms that a 2026 olympic bid is being considered:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgar...nshi-1.3229574

[T@T]

Originally Posted by GullFoss

the olympics would have huge public support. But have to beat quebec city first...wont be easy

Doubt there would be 2 canadian bids anyway but I thought I read somewhere that Lake Placid may bid on it as well.

Edit: found this but it could be just a wish and a hope.

http://www.lakeplacid2026.com/

[driveway]

I kinda hate this because I love the Olympics, but I am starting to think that the Olympic movement may have reached the end of its value and relevance. This may be more true for the winter than summer games, but the combination of staggering cost, horrific corruption, crass commercialism and overall professionalization of sport, not to mention the ability of modern communications to allow people to experience the sports they love wherever they're happening is bringing the days of the Olympics-as-King of global events to a slow close.

I suspect we're going to see fewer and fewer democratic societies bidding on the games. Fewer games in Atlantic-friendly timezones, and more professional sports removing themselves from the event.

Soccer already doesn't send their best and hasn't for years, hockey is on the way there, it wouldn't surprise me if Basketball followed suit in two or three Olympiads. The thrill of going to the Olympics is going to become (more) tainted as the sites move more and more often into repressive, developing countries seeking to buy good press and jump-start infrastructure projects.

I may be way off base, but it wouldn't surprise me if people look back in 40-50 years at the Sydney-Tokyo stretch of summer games and the Nagano-Pyongchang stretch of winter games as the high-water-mark of the olympic movement.

[Tinordi]

Spend billions on a two week party. Seems responsible.

[Bigtime]

So just how flexible is the IOC when it comes to utilizing old facilities that would be upgraded? Or are they like FIFA in that they want flashy new huge venues for everything?

LA in '84 (summer I know) made it work because nobody wanted the games, they were able to pretty much dictate the terms to the IOC for them hosting, and had almost everything built with private dollars.

Barcelona is another recent success story, taking an existing plan they had to redevelop parts of their city and then utilizing the Olympics to make that happen. Calgary could be very similar to this example with the infrastructure projects and other developments we are already planning for, so make the Olympics works for us instead of winning a bid and then looking at how to make it work for the city.

I highly recommend reading this book for context:

http://www.economist.com/news/books-...th-just-say-no

http://www.amazon.com/Circus-Maximus.../dp/0815726511

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Spend billions on a two week party. Seems responsible.

Was Mark Tinordi eternally miserable? I don't see the connection. How does it feel to walk through life with a dark cloud over your head? It's like your sole purpose here is to troll around leaving your Debbie Downer post & runs scattered throughout the forum. You have the right to be an unhappy person but trust me life is great and you should spend more time being less negative about everything in general.

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Folks, there's a reason why sensible democracies like Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and Norway are backing out of Olympic bids.

This is true for 2022 but really that is the only event it has been true for so far. The real thing is that countries on wasting money on the bid process, when the winner is likely determined already.

Germany, France, Spain, Austria, etc have all kept their bid in for a Winter Olympics within the last 10 years.

Same thing with the Summer Olympics.

For 2012 London, Paris, Madrid, and New York all had kept their name in the bidding process.

For 2016 Madrid, and Chicago kept their bid in the hat.

In 2020 Tokyo is the host, but Madrid and Rome were also bidding.

And for 2024 so far the big democracies are still there too, with Los Angeles, Hamburg, Paris and Rome all meeting the deadline for the initial bid.

IMO Toronto dropped out knowing that with those other big hosts were going to have an advantage, and they are better offer saving the bid for 2028.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

I am interested in your reasoning on this.

The top end talent is the same (or better for some sports like hockey where regular seasons affect things), so that equals out.

But in many events you have countries with entries that wouldn't make in in a WC but can go to the Olympics and can have an impact, through upsets in qualifying rounds. And there are more qualifying rounds so chances of getting bumped are greater. In track, for example, an extra qualifying round = an extra chance to have an off race.

[dash_pinched]

(Reuters) - Los Angeles is in the running to host a third Olympics while Hamburg, Paris, Rome and Budapest will battle to bring the multi-sport extravaganza back to Europe after the five cities were officially unveiled as candidates to host the 2024 Summer Games on Wednesday.

I guess they have lost their senses in Germany