urbanMSP

I personally don't want to be fodder for the Onion.....unless Minneapolis is a serious potential suitor. If it were my choice, as much as I'd love the city to get international exposure like it's never had before and will never have again (way more than the Super Bowl), I would never want the city/region to pay the ultimate price for its vanity. It seems like the event always near-bankrupts the host city.

"the ultimate price"


EDIT: Seriously, though, I do agree.

The discussion of "should we bid" ended a year ago, so you don't have to worry about that. I only posted Boston's updated bid to show their vision of how the Olympics could fit in/transform various parts of their city. It's kind of interesting to see what they'd do* and how a similar plan might work here.



* To be sure, Boston won't be doing anything, and the Boston bid might not even make it to the final vote. Paris is the odds-on favorite to get the 2024 Olympics, and it's almost certain that Los Angeles will be the next U.S. city to host an Olympics, probably in 2028 or else in 2032, which would be the centennial of the first Los Angeles Olympics.

Looks like Boston is out for 2024 bid. Goes to show why they are intellectual capital of the Western Hemisphere.

I'm surprised that no one has linked to this piece yet.

https://streets.mn/2015/07/30/bad-idea-o ... -olympics/

To decide on whether or not it would be worth hosting the Olympics, we have to look at the opportunity costs, not just whether it generates a profit, which it wouldn't. If this were to generate the political capital required to finish building out our transit system, and if the net cost/benefit of having it done sooner outweigh the net cost/benefit of hosting the Olympics, then we should do it.

Personally, I think we should probably try to host the winter, not summer, Olympics, though it would be nice to make use of our overabundance of stadiums.

Those aren't really opportunity costs. They're ancillary benefits. Opportunity costs relate to alternative opportunities missed by spending dollars or other resources in one place rather than another. So, opportunity costs of spending money on the Olympics may very well be slower aBRT rollout, less affordable housing credits, etc.

We may not only be talking about money here, though it is a comparison of the two best (only) choices (host or don't host), and some of the intangibles can be converted into monetary values.

There isn't a set amount of money to be spent by government during this time frame. The hundreds of millions which would be spent on security, as an example, wouldn't nessesarily go towards better bus service or affordable housing if we don't host the Olympics. The IOC does fund part of the operational costs, and the federal government puts money in for various things as well. Furthermore, the political capital generated by such an event could be used to raise the transit sales tax, and to perhaps dedicate a source of funding for building/operating regional rail services. None of that would be money previously available.

There is also something to be said about the benefits associated with expediting the construction of inter- and intra-city rail, particularly when it comes to land use the environment, and inflation/interest. With an Olympic village and surplus hotels which we could convert to multifamily housing, there would also be benefits to be had, especially considering how difficult it can be to build multifamily housing (muh backyard!)

Building something like the Vikings stadium is a negative overall, because it does none of the above (and yet we've built stadium after stadium). At this point, those are sunk costs we have to live with, and they are exactly that - sunk costs, not to be considered as an Olympic cost. Any further venues, however, would be fair game, and their sustainability must be weighed against the additional funding the Olympics would bring.

I'm not sure if I'm pro or against it yet, thought I'd love to see Mpls in the limelight for a couple of weeks... I feel like there are a lot of immeasurable benefits even if dollars and cents don't work out. My Aunt rented her place 12 miles out of Atlanta for 3,000 dollars during the olympics there. I'd imagine people closer to the city could get 5k or more. So citizens have something to gain for leaving their place and getting a free vacation and some spending money too.

Personally, I think we should probably try to host the winter, not summer, Olympics, though it would be nice to make use of our overabundance of stadiums.

We've got stadia out the whazoo...we don't have mountains. Winter O's would never happen here.

We've got stadia out the whazoo

Indeed. And it’s not possible to remodel either TCF or US Bank to accommodate track and field. So if we wanted the summer olympics, we'd have to build yet another stadium.

And it’s not possible to remodel either TCF or US Bank to accommodate track and field. So if we wanted the summer olympics, we'd have to build yet another stadium.

Why is it not possible?

Why is it not possible?

A track needs an area of at least 200 x 120 yds. TCF’s floor is only about 130 x 80. We’d have to remove more than half of the lower bowl seating - along with all of the locker rooms, offices and storage underneath - to accomodate a track. US Bank’s floor is even smaller, so it’d be even worse.

Yeah I'm surprised this didn't come up earlier. The fields at all stadiums are way too small to host a full track. Best bet would be to do the state fair grandstand, but then you'd be building a 50k+ capacity stadium (the major track events draw a full crowd at most olympics, right?) for JUST the games.

So, when there was that linked Streets.MN post, wasn't it mentioned that there may be an alternative to do opening/closing ceremonies without a track? (maybe a parade route into stadium?). And have an off-site track for track-and-field events? Building a new "olympic stadium" with track would be a non-starter. More of a non-starter than having an olympic bid in the first place. As the IOC blackmail regime is exposed (see Boston et al) I think these requirements are going to become much more flexible out of necessity in order to get legitimate bids.

I think the stadiums are full for the actual track events.

Out of curiosity, what is the best track facility in the Twin Cities at the moment? I think the highest-capacity one I could find was at St. Paul's Central High School.

I would guess that Hamline's is probably "the best" at the moment. New track, pretty large grandstand.

Hamline hosts the high school state meets and recently hosted the U.S. Paralympic track championships.

An Olympic opening ceremony in theory wouldn't have to be in a stadium with a track, but track is the most important Olympic sport. It'd have to be more like 80,000 seats, not 50,000. London downsized theirs, and Boston was planning to straight up dismantle theirs.

The track stadium is why Los Angeles is all but guaranteed to be the next U.S. Olympic host city, whether in 2024, 2028 or even 2032, the 100-year anniversary of the first LA Olympics.

Yeah, Hamline's is the best at the moment I think. Of course, with Norwood Teague out, the U of M is more likely to properly invest in a new track and field facility. The U's current track would definitely have been the best at the time it opened, and many at the U would like to see a return to form in that way.

I have to say that it really bugs me that Division I schools are giving such disproportionate attention to football that they would even consider building a stadium without a track. Notice the DIII schools mostly have nice tracks in their stadia, and most high schools do too. DI is the heart of American track and field, a sport we're reasonably good at as a nation and that draws huge audiences; and yet the schools push aside their highest-participation sport for their NFL farm teams.

It would be awesome to see a DIII school provide the Olympic Track and Field stadium in a bid

The thing about the Olympics is that costs aren't always comparable, and the big numbers thrown around don't necessarily mean that much. For starters, there are two distinct budgets, one for operating costs and one for long-term capital improvements. Also, importantly, the host country (and it's government) matters a lot.

Take Sochi, for example. The estimated cost is usually cited as being around $50 billion. That's not an indication that it cost $50 billion to host the Winter Olympics. It's an indication that a totalitarian country can build a modern city almost from scratch, including Olympic sports and transportation infrastructure, while using corrupt business practices, and at the end host a Winter Olympics, all for $50 billion.

In theory, the host city doesn't cover the operating costs. You know how NBC agreed to pay $7.65 billion for the U.S. broadcast rights to the 2022-2032 Olympics? And how Visa, Coke and McDonalds spend millions to use the Olympic rings logo? And how hundreds of thousands of people buy tickets? All of that goes into the operating costs. But yes, the city is on the hook if it goes over budget.

There's a legitimate question as to whether the IOC should cover long-term capital improvements, like improved or new transportation infrastructure. Of course, the answer to that question is that the IOC is never going to pay for your city to build a new train line.

So the point is, the Olympics are obviously expensive, and the nature of hosting an Olympics means the host city will likely have to pay for certain things. But in a country like the U.S. — where the Olympics are important, and our corporations largely bankroll the Games as is — hosting doesn't have to mean a $50 billion public expenditure. Boston 2024, for example, was budgeting for wide-ranging insurance policies to protect the public from just about anything that could go wrong in the operating budget. Los Angeles, should it bid, will likely have extensive safeguards in place as well.