'The Olympics are dead': Does anyone want to be a host city any more?

UK Guardian ^ | July 28, 2015 | Les Carpenter

[cll]

That’s how it was during the 1979 Pan-American Games in Puerto Rico. We used existing facilities, including school gyms. The athletes were housed in an unused and refurbished public housing project.

[tbw2]

I wonder how much they could save by dropping 80% of the sports. Fewer things to be held simultaneously means fewer venues / facilities needed and less likelihood a special facility has to be built for only that one sport.
And fewer sports means fewer athletes to host and attendee tickets reserved for family and more for the public.

Another option is moving the Olympics back to facilities that hosted it recently, reusing relatively new facilities.

[VanDeKoik]

Summer should be in one place because it costs too much.

Winter is far easier to put on and there are many places that are built to host it, and it actually helps their tourism in the long run.

[Nowhere Man]

I was six at the time but it still leaves a lump in my throat. Some say the "War on Terror" (as of now, we are not fighting it anymore and even aiding the terrorists but that's for another time) started a Munich, after that, that's when they put in metal detectors at airports. I think prior to that in 1972, terrorists took an Israeli plane hostage and blew it up with 26 people aboard, that could have been the start of it. Some even say it started with Sirhan Sirhan shot RFK in 1968. Whatever one believes, I do believe Munich was one huge step down this road we are on now. Jim McKay was one class act.

I'd like to see Lake Placid host the Winter games again, the facilities are still there for 1980 so there ya go. Maybe Tokyo was a wise choice for 2020, I'm sure the 1964 facilities are still there. BTW, the 1964 games were the first televised via satellite and in color.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

I believe that when the Olympics were restarted, after a thousand and some years, the original plan was to have them only in Greece. That plan was vetoed.

[P.O.E.]

Bet the Olympics bureaucrats aren’t broke.

[rstrahan]

DFW submitted a bid at one point, was going to use Cowboys Stadium as the host venue, use all the college and pro stadiums around the Metroplex for most of the venues. USOC didn’t like that idea.

[Nowhere Man]

Yeah, skipping three gold medal finals to do a twenty minute profile of a guy from Youngstown, Ohio who finished seventh in the luge and is working at Pizza Hut to put his terminally ill sister through college is not a winning broadcast strategy. :)

There is a time and place for that, during down time and reviews of the day's events. BTW, I always thought we should divvy up the games and events with the three, well, four networks, give people a choice. If I want to watch synchronized swimming and curling and it is on CBS, I'd go there and so on. Either that, or open up new subchannels with the HDTV system we have now, the NBC affiliaties could open up say channels 9.4, 9.5 and 9.6 and so on in addtion to 9.1 (where I live, Steubenville, OH is the NBC station) and put the smaller events people want to see on the subchannels. Even if they are in the old 480 line standard-def, a least people still can see them.

[xp38]

Oh now you are bringing back memories of the Claudine Longet Ski Invitational!

[Nowhere Man]

Dallas would have been perfect. BTW, I often wondered how Pittsburgh could host the games (I’m from there and still in the general area here in Eastern Ohio) but it could be a nightmare with the limited access highway system and so on as Mom pointed out at one time. It would not be bad for water sports with the Three Rivers.

[dfwgator]

It should be rolled back to the events that existed during the 72 Games, that was plenty enough as it was.

[skeeter]

ABC managed to engage its viewers. Its hard to explain why, but I was far more interested in how the US participants were doing and followed them much more closely.

Maybe it was having to wait until the telecast aired at 7, maybe it was the Cold War atmosphere, maybe it was because our athletes really were amateur underdogs.

[dfwgator]

Oh now you are bringing back memories of the Claudine Longet Ski Invitational!

Only the warped mind of the late Michael O'Donoghue could come up with that one.

[ExTxMarine]

But then recall the 1984 Olympics. LA did not go broke, they used (reused) existing facilities and the event was spectacular.

The problem is, the Olympic committee REQUIRES a certain percentage of facilities to be new or renovated with a certain amount of money, etc... The host city MUST spend X-number of dollars on infrastructure upgrades, x-number of dollars on medical facilities, etc...! The whole thing is a Democrat/Socialist boondoggle! It is a HUGE ponzi scheme, wrapped in a patriotic package, about whose country is the best.

They SAY it is designed to help invigorate or reinvigorate an area, city, etc... But, the fact is, almost every Olympic venue turns into a ghost town, because other than when the Olympics were in town, there is NO NEED for a 125K seat stadium! I mean, it would be impossible for over 80% of NFL teams to fill stadiums that large and they have die-hard fan bases!

[dfwgator]

. Its hard to explain why, but I was far more interested in how the US participants were doing and followed them much more closely.

But not to the exclusion of athletes from other countries.

[Nowhere Man]

ABC managed to engage its viewers. Its hard to explain why, but I was far more interested in how the US participants were doing and followed them much more closely.

Maybe it was having to wait until the telecast aired at 7, maybe it was the Cold War atmosphere, maybe it was because our athletes really were amateur underdogs.

I think you hit it on the head. I think when they let pros in the Olympics, that was a huge nail in the coffin. The Cold War certainly added to it, it was great to see our team win but if we did not, we cheered for at least an ally such as Canada, UK, Japan or West Germany (and so on) to win. I still like to watch them but I do get the feeling they jumped the shark in any ways.

[xp38]

See post #8. All this talk will go nowhere with the grand poohbahs in Luasanne. They run the Olympics and decide what is what. Permanent sites with continuous upgrades makes sense but like most bureaucracies they have no vision and are stuck with their old ways of doing things.

[skeeter]

Of course not. I remember Jim McKays fixation on Russian gymnasts.

But ABC did not go to the lengths NBC does to avoid appearing overtly patriotic in their coverage.

[Georgia Girl 2]

It didn’t do Atlanta much good.

[dfwgator]

It didn’t do Richard Jewell much good.