The Ringer:
Only a handful of cities can afford the two-week-long, über-expensive bonanza. Unless something changes, angry citizens who don’t want to pay for a bunch of useless stadiums are going to force the IOC to decide on a semi-permanent set of hosts.
I’d be sad to see the Olympics disappear but it would make economic sense if they did. They don’t provide nearly the benefits the IOC or organizing committees promise. There’s been talk the last few years of having a “permanent host city” (Vancouver comes up often because of it’s existing infrastructure and suitable weather for both Summer and Winter Olympics) or to even do one of the suggestions in the article – separate events in separate cities.
Just hand the damn thing to Los Angeles and call it a day.
You know there are Summer and Winter Olympics, right? 🙂
and you know there is just as much skiing and winter activity as close to the Los Angeles area as there was to Sochi? 🙂
But, I’m all for a split. You take Winter. Any excuse to visit Vancouver is good by me.
Yes. And in Sochi, that was a bad idea. 🙂 Talk of Vancouver being the “permanent host for the WInter Olympics” pops up every few years. I don’t know if it would be good or bad….
Wait? You mean hosting the Winter Olympics in a relatively warm weather city just so Putin could illegally pad the pockets of construction firms and officials to the tune of 40 billion dollars was a bad idea?
It’s worked out nicely for the Dictator, of course.
Mmmaaaayyybbbeeee………
The rationale for the Olympics was never really “and then you can host other athletic events!” but rather to put that area on the map for future tourism, business, etc. The thing is, though, that the cities which are capable of hosting the Olympics now are larger cities, not like Sapporo etc. and they don’t need the exposure.
Rio is a bit of an outlier too – Brazil never had any business hosting the Olympics, they don’t have the sheer wealth and infrastructure needed. I think what might be best is to have a set of rotating host cities, ideally on on each continent. Have 1 or 2 in the Americas, a couple in Europe, a couple in Asia. As S. America and Africa develop, site some there too but don’t burden a city and country that cannot really support it with hosting.
I like the idea of a rotation.
e.g. LA, Sydney, Beijing, London for the summer; Vancouver, Nagano, Lillehammer for the winter.
For Vancouver specifically, I’ve heard John Furlong (the head of the 2010 games) say in an interview that the big question would be the athletes’ village. Maybe when they tear down the viaduct.
Yeah – housing would be the bugaboo. Could use existing hotels (and pay fair market rates) but that leaves fewer rooms for fans. They could build “Olympic hotels” that are regular hotels the rest of the time but, during the Olympics, reserved for athletes.
Hold it at Shepperton and Pinewood Studios. Shoot it on greenscreen. Have PED manufacturers sponsor the entire event.
Stop requiring taxpayers to build arenas that don’t return on the investment.
Between doping scandals and pro athletes competing, I’ve lost my interest in the Olympics. The costs for host cities ends up bankrupting them. We cheered when Chicago was denied their bid. It was a billion dollars they didn’t have.
Global climate change will kill the winter games.
To be fair, and recognizing it may be an outlier, Vancouver hasn’t been bankrupted by the 2010 Winter Olympics. But the city already had many facilities ready for that level of competition and the ones that needed to be built are still being used on a regular basis.
London hasn’t been bankrupted either, but the planned reuse of Olympic sites has not happened, for the most part. It did cost a lot, and probably didn’t bring enough in tourism to offset costs.
The reason for amateur athletes was to keep the riff raff out of the Olympics. At the time of establishments only “gentlemen” were wealthy enough to compete. There was interest in athletes who worked for a living.
I think there should be five host cities for the Summer Games and five for the Winter Games (i.e. a city for each Olympic Ring). Here they are:
Summer:
Los Angeles, Montreal, London, Beijing, Sydney
Winter:
Whistler, Lake Placid, St. Moritz, Beijing, Pyeongchang
Good list but Whistler proper wouldn’t work – too small. Vancouver is the better location.
OK, I should have clarified that my identification of the locations doesn’t mean that some of the events can’t be held elsewhere.
For example, for Whistler, some or all of the indoor events (e.g. hockey, curling) could be held in Vancouver and Seattle. For Montreal, some of the soccer games could be held in Ottawa and Boston, etc.
The key to having rotating semi-permanent sites is to reduce the amount of brand new venue construction to nil. It’s doable.