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Huh. They should have to tell you who sponsors them...
Boston 2024
- Thread starter Proposition Joe
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Huh. They should have to tell you who sponsors them...
fattony
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I couldn't disagree more. I think you'll be eating those words in 2017.
tangent
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I agree. At this point the Olympics in Boston 2024 seem much more likely than not.. Boston is THE front runner.
European cities, like Hamburg, Rome or possibly Paris are not going to be top choices this go around regardless of their relative merits because the IOC will want to choose a city outside of Europe. It could be that a European city will not be chosen again until the 2032 or 2036 games.
The biggest political/marketing issue is that the US has not hosted since 1996 and the US is a very big market for the Olympics and Olympic sponsors. There is no secret about this.
Unless Boston pulls out of the bidding due to a 2016 referendum (or polling this year that indicate no progress is being made towards public support so a referendum becomes moot) and/or Pretoria or Johannesburg pull together a really good bid, then I think the 2024 Olympics are almost certainly going to be in Boston. And 2028 will almost certainly be in Pretoria or Johannesburg South Africa because Africa has never hosted an Olympics.
Really the issue is whether Boston 2024 can pull together a good plan that doesn't lean on the public treasury and can actually get public support.
Best thing at this point would be for the legislature to come out with a resolution stating their support for the bid, but setting out some strict limits on public spending. And then confirming public support with two ballot questions in 2016 along those lines.
That requires a good plan though, which is still hopefully coming together.
Equilibria
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...that's going a bit too far. Remember, Germany hasn't hosted an Olympics since 1936. France hasn't hosted one since 1924, and Italy since 1960. Europeans do sometimes think in terms of countries, not continents. For what it's worth, I haven't gotten the impression that all continental Europeans really see London as being in "Europe".
I do think that the panic today is pretty manufactured. The USOC isn't going to simply award the bid to LA because Boston 2024 is having to recover from some terrible PR. Their PR was terrible because they focused on wooing the USOC and other national and international elites. They did so well on that score that not only did they win the bid, they can afford to pay Davey 300k per year and Deval 7,500 bucks a day.
Davey is fixing things. Hopefully, the referendum will provide some focus to a community engagement effort that will actually be effective. If the IOC wants an American games ever again, they'll help out with some well-timed concessions (and the IOC does have American members who will push for that).
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The USOC and Boston 2024 needs to really ramp up their "what the Olympics can do for you" message. Housing, city improvements, transit improvements, etc. The No crowd has a louder voice than the Yes crowd right now. The Boston 2024 people need to be at T stops handing out flyers during the rush and talking to people. They need to be out there every single day getting people's votes.
I also don't see why people think that with no "do it or we're fucked" deadline (aka the olympics in 2024) the government won't continue to kick the can down the road.
That is the only reason I'm in support of the four rings. Yeah I guess it would be cool, and prestige, covering Widett Circle is nice, etc. But the real factor here is that it sets a hard deadline to get EVERYTHING fixed.
Do the naysayers think that a) the government on it's own will fix our infrastructure in nine years, or that b) we're just stuck with everything being broken? Serious question.
That is the only reason I'm in support of the four rings. Yeah I guess it would be cool, and prestige, covering Widett Circle is nice, etc. But the real factor here is that it sets a hard deadline to get EVERYTHING fixed.
Do the naysayers think that a) the government on it's own will fix our infrastructure in nine years, or that b) we're just stuck with everything being broken? Serious question.
Equilibria
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Actually, I'm not sure I agree with that. I realize that I'm on their mailing list and Facebook group, but even in mainstream media Boston 2024 has been very visible and very vocal, and so have their supporters. They ARE ramping up exactly the message you're talking about - pushing a housing and improvements message in addition to their bread-and-butter "athletics are cool" and "Boston is world-class" messaging.
bigeman312
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I think it's more a variation of b: "the state government won't fix it properly (or at all) because they are incompetent, so we might as well not sink the money into another mega-project like the Big Dig." I don't agree with this line of thinking, but it exists.
I started getting furious after the storms when this line of thinking came to the surface. Even some of my friends who I normally agree with were on the "look at how bad the T is, we can't have the olympics! bandwagon. Are we really so downtrodden and disillusioned that the thought of fixing things isn't possible? Honestly, I think it's pathetic. Maybe we will fail, but I think with a hard deadline we should at least try.
In response to several comments about any European city's chance at a 2024 winning bid.
The Summer Games have never gone more than 12 years outside of Europe: 1960 Rome to 1972 Munich, 1980 Moscow to 1992 Barcelona, then to 2004 Athens. 2024 would be 12 years from London, and the President of the IOC is a German, i.e., European. The IOC has historically been accused of being thoroughly Eurocentric, and I think there’s evidence for that.
The US advertising / sponsorship / TV revenue represent a real attraction to the IOC, given that the single US TV network that gets the contract reaches a population > 300 million. But recall that the EU’s population is > 500 million, and Europe most broadly defined is > 700 million population. So, OK, that Euro advertising / sponsorship / TV revenue is split across many contracts, none of which alone compare to the US. But in the aggregate, the cash that rolls in from Euro countries for an in-Europe Games is one gigantic pile of cash, and compares quite well to the cash that rolls in from the US for an in-USA Games.
Also, the relationship between the IOC and the USOC has ranged from truly crappy to mediocre in recent years. It's been on the mend these last few years, but is still fragile. There is residual bad blood towards the USOC. Some of this is the USOC’s fault, some the IOC’s, some both. But the bad blood is real, and hasn’t all dissipated.
All of the above = the 2024 bid was never a complete lock for any US bidder. I am NOT saying we never had a chance, or that we have no chance now. Just saying we were never a sure front-runner, even before all these PR stumbles.
The Summer Games have never gone more than 12 years outside of Europe: 1960 Rome to 1972 Munich, 1980 Moscow to 1992 Barcelona, then to 2004 Athens. 2024 would be 12 years from London, and the President of the IOC is a German, i.e., European. The IOC has historically been accused of being thoroughly Eurocentric, and I think there’s evidence for that.
The US advertising / sponsorship / TV revenue represent a real attraction to the IOC, given that the single US TV network that gets the contract reaches a population > 300 million. But recall that the EU’s population is > 500 million, and Europe most broadly defined is > 700 million population. So, OK, that Euro advertising / sponsorship / TV revenue is split across many contracts, none of which alone compare to the US. But in the aggregate, the cash that rolls in from Euro countries for an in-Europe Games is one gigantic pile of cash, and compares quite well to the cash that rolls in from the US for an in-USA Games.
Also, the relationship between the IOC and the USOC has ranged from truly crappy to mediocre in recent years. It's been on the mend these last few years, but is still fragile. There is residual bad blood towards the USOC. Some of this is the USOC’s fault, some the IOC’s, some both. But the bad blood is real, and hasn’t all dissipated.
All of the above = the 2024 bid was never a complete lock for any US bidder. I am NOT saying we never had a chance, or that we have no chance now. Just saying we were never a sure front-runner, even before all these PR stumbles.
The debate in MA has been mostly about “is this good for Boston/MA?” versus “is this bad for Boston/MA?” The IOC gives not one shit for the answer to that debate. They care about “which bid city will be best for the Olympics brand?” and “from which city will the IOC be able to skim the most cash off the top?” Yes, yes, they came up with Agenda 2020 to allow for more modestly scaled bids, they want to avoid any more debacles like the Winter Games 2022 bids mess. But they’ve got plenty of interest for 2024, so they’re not nervous enough to change their real priorities. And if, say, Rome or Paris threw a mega-bid at them, and had solid public support for it, the IOC would “forget” the Agenda 2020 stuff in a flash.
So along with getting better at selling Boston / MA voters on the obviously fair question (to us) of whether the Olympics are good for us, Boston 2024 needs to spend a lot more energy selling the IOC on the belief that Boston will be good for the Olympics. I realize there’s been a bit of that in the public presentation and the bid docs, but in the public conversation it’s been drowned out by the more internally-focused debate. This is the inherent advantage that non-democratic regimes have in the bidding process. They can control the pitch better, slather on the cynicism for the IOC with a straight face, all the while carefully computing what they get for themselves (prestige boost, cash in their cronies’ pockets, whatever).
I think Boston 2024 needs fewer local fixer / PR types – I said fewer, not none – and more people who know how to make Boston look good in the eyes of the IOC. That means more people who can start whipping the bid plans themselves into better shape. Obviously boosting public support back up is a key, but they also need to get the plans from the current half-baked stage up to a lot fuller-baked, and fast. And the half-bakedness of the plans is part of what’s fueling the public criticism, so if they started to show some improvement on the actual bid, that would help turn the PR tide.
For one example, Mancredi himself noted in public recently, how could they not have known that the Franklin Park Coalition would be more thrilled with funding for tree and trail maintenance than they would be with a leftover pool that might not have a maintenance funding stream? They could have known that with a phone call or two. Instead someone drew in a pool, they all pitched it as a gift to the community, they got pushback on their gift, and now they’ve been tweeted about being stunned in public that the community wanted something else.
Another case: how does the hosting thing work out for any given university? How long in advance must a site be handed over? Must the site be scrubbed clean of all college insignia in favor of the Rings? (Phrased differently, can the college piggy-back on the TV exposure, or not?) Who pays for conversion costs to and from Olympic configuration? ALL of the local universities have serious concerns on this, and I don’t think any of them have a clear answer yet, and the bid documents are vague. The months are ticking by, and the universities' administrators are getting all sorts of questions from alumni and Trustees, not all of it positive. I’m hearing a lot of rumbling from the academic side, if some of these questions don’t get answered well and soon, this could be the next fire for the PR people to fight.
But there don’t seem to be any grunts and sergeants working the phones on the logistics questions, there’s only a swarm of highly-paid generals on the PR side trying to spin it all (and not doing that too well). I think they need to start showing some improvements to the bid now, not waiting for another nine of these info-gathering sessions. Answer the questions about temporary usage and control of university property, and answer them definitively with IOC support. Re-do the Franklin Park plans to ditch the temporary pool and try to fund an endowment for trail and landscaping maintenance. Show us some alternative drawings for beach volleyball. Etc. Take away half the contracts on senior big-shot political consultants and hire junior architects and event planners, and at least one young person who knows how to fight the Twitter wars, and have them start building out the bid. Then the PR guys would have some progress to spin.
And if Boston 2024 were building up the bid in that way, and also building back up the public support, they'd have something positive to show the IOC, along the lines of "see what a great bid we're building for you, oh wondrous Lords of the Rings!" instead of "well, we're finally winning the battle to convince our fellow citizens that your Rings are good enough for us, so maybe they'll finally vote to let you in after all!"
So along with getting better at selling Boston / MA voters on the obviously fair question (to us) of whether the Olympics are good for us, Boston 2024 needs to spend a lot more energy selling the IOC on the belief that Boston will be good for the Olympics. I realize there’s been a bit of that in the public presentation and the bid docs, but in the public conversation it’s been drowned out by the more internally-focused debate. This is the inherent advantage that non-democratic regimes have in the bidding process. They can control the pitch better, slather on the cynicism for the IOC with a straight face, all the while carefully computing what they get for themselves (prestige boost, cash in their cronies’ pockets, whatever).
I think Boston 2024 needs fewer local fixer / PR types – I said fewer, not none – and more people who know how to make Boston look good in the eyes of the IOC. That means more people who can start whipping the bid plans themselves into better shape. Obviously boosting public support back up is a key, but they also need to get the plans from the current half-baked stage up to a lot fuller-baked, and fast. And the half-bakedness of the plans is part of what’s fueling the public criticism, so if they started to show some improvement on the actual bid, that would help turn the PR tide.
For one example, Mancredi himself noted in public recently, how could they not have known that the Franklin Park Coalition would be more thrilled with funding for tree and trail maintenance than they would be with a leftover pool that might not have a maintenance funding stream? They could have known that with a phone call or two. Instead someone drew in a pool, they all pitched it as a gift to the community, they got pushback on their gift, and now they’ve been tweeted about being stunned in public that the community wanted something else.
Another case: how does the hosting thing work out for any given university? How long in advance must a site be handed over? Must the site be scrubbed clean of all college insignia in favor of the Rings? (Phrased differently, can the college piggy-back on the TV exposure, or not?) Who pays for conversion costs to and from Olympic configuration? ALL of the local universities have serious concerns on this, and I don’t think any of them have a clear answer yet, and the bid documents are vague. The months are ticking by, and the universities' administrators are getting all sorts of questions from alumni and Trustees, not all of it positive. I’m hearing a lot of rumbling from the academic side, if some of these questions don’t get answered well and soon, this could be the next fire for the PR people to fight.
But there don’t seem to be any grunts and sergeants working the phones on the logistics questions, there’s only a swarm of highly-paid generals on the PR side trying to spin it all (and not doing that too well). I think they need to start showing some improvements to the bid now, not waiting for another nine of these info-gathering sessions. Answer the questions about temporary usage and control of university property, and answer them definitively with IOC support. Re-do the Franklin Park plans to ditch the temporary pool and try to fund an endowment for trail and landscaping maintenance. Show us some alternative drawings for beach volleyball. Etc. Take away half the contracts on senior big-shot political consultants and hire junior architects and event planners, and at least one young person who knows how to fight the Twitter wars, and have them start building out the bid. Then the PR guys would have some progress to spin.
And if Boston 2024 were building up the bid in that way, and also building back up the public support, they'd have something positive to show the IOC, along the lines of "see what a great bid we're building for you, oh wondrous Lords of the Rings!" instead of "well, we're finally winning the battle to convince our fellow citizens that your Rings are good enough for us, so maybe they'll finally vote to let you in after all!"
Jahvon09
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Boston Residents Not Rolling out the Welcome Mat for Planned Olympic Games.
info has surfaced in a recent poll that Boston is not getting the warm reception from its residents that it had expected to get for the planned Olympic Games event in 2024 or so, that it is seeking to win the opportunity to sponsor the games here.
If this keeps up, then they may lose out on the deal. The plan would entail the building of a new arena somewhere in the city to host the mega event.
I, myself, don't want it here, for the simple fact is that if it is put here, it would mean another years-long Big-Dig-style construction project, and traffic through town would have detours and delays up the wazoo!
info has surfaced in a recent poll that Boston is not getting the warm reception from its residents that it had expected to get for the planned Olympic Games event in 2024 or so, that it is seeking to win the opportunity to sponsor the games here.
If this keeps up, then they may lose out on the deal. The plan would entail the building of a new arena somewhere in the city to host the mega event.
I, myself, don't want it here, for the simple fact is that if it is put here, it would mean another years-long Big-Dig-style construction project, and traffic through town would have detours and delays up the wazoo!
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Interesting contrast to USOC's and Boston 2024's approach here:
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/melbourne-should-bid-for-2032-olympics-20150311-140c5k.html
If you search the web for "Melbourne 2032 Olympics" or "Melbourne 2028 Olympics" you'll find a wealth of other articles, I'm just tossing out the one I first noticed. The conversation on those two years has been kicking around Melbourne for a bit now. Consensus seems to be coalescing around 2032, but I'm not sure.
I know zilch about Melbourne politics so I haven't got the faintest clue what chance this bid has of gaining public support. I do recall that they hosted the 1956 Games, and a quick look on Google shows a large sports complex that I assume evolved out of those games: a cricket grounds that seats 100,000, tennis courts out the wazoo, other stadia, numerous other fields for warm-ups, etc. Some of the stuff looks brand-spanking new, other stuff old. Across town they have an aquatics center that has me (an ex-competitive swimmer / water polo player) drooling with envy. Compared to Boston, they would seem at a glance to have far less construction to do in order to submit a bid.
Compare this to what the USOC and Boston 2024 did (and at the least SF's bid too). I was seeing a few mentions in the press in late 2013 and more through 2014, but I'm a news junkie. Most folks I've spoken with since the USOC picked Boston had no idea about the Boston bid till December 2014 at the earliest, with it not really hitting the news big time until January of this year. And I know lots of people in SF who were just as surprised to learn that "they" had bid, and the people I know there are in real estate, so they were surprised to be surprised, if you know what I mean.
So we started our full public debate about 21 months before the IOC decision date, whereas in Melbourne, the idea's getting floated either six or ten years in advance of the decision date, depending which Games they finally decide to go for (if they do decide to go for one).
That is how to do the early stages of building support for an Olympics bid. Start early, start waaaay early, and be as loudly public about it as possible. Give the naysayers all the time in the world to get their concerns aired, and that of course means giving the proponents all the time in the world to counter the naysayers.
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/melbourne-should-bid-for-2032-olympics-20150311-140c5k.html
If you search the web for "Melbourne 2032 Olympics" or "Melbourne 2028 Olympics" you'll find a wealth of other articles, I'm just tossing out the one I first noticed. The conversation on those two years has been kicking around Melbourne for a bit now. Consensus seems to be coalescing around 2032, but I'm not sure.
I know zilch about Melbourne politics so I haven't got the faintest clue what chance this bid has of gaining public support. I do recall that they hosted the 1956 Games, and a quick look on Google shows a large sports complex that I assume evolved out of those games: a cricket grounds that seats 100,000, tennis courts out the wazoo, other stadia, numerous other fields for warm-ups, etc. Some of the stuff looks brand-spanking new, other stuff old. Across town they have an aquatics center that has me (an ex-competitive swimmer / water polo player) drooling with envy. Compared to Boston, they would seem at a glance to have far less construction to do in order to submit a bid.
Compare this to what the USOC and Boston 2024 did (and at the least SF's bid too). I was seeing a few mentions in the press in late 2013 and more through 2014, but I'm a news junkie. Most folks I've spoken with since the USOC picked Boston had no idea about the Boston bid till December 2014 at the earliest, with it not really hitting the news big time until January of this year. And I know lots of people in SF who were just as surprised to learn that "they" had bid, and the people I know there are in real estate, so they were surprised to be surprised, if you know what I mean.
So we started our full public debate about 21 months before the IOC decision date, whereas in Melbourne, the idea's getting floated either six or ten years in advance of the decision date, depending which Games they finally decide to go for (if they do decide to go for one).
That is how to do the early stages of building support for an Olympics bid. Start early, start waaaay early, and be as loudly public about it as possible. Give the naysayers all the time in the world to get their concerns aired, and that of course means giving the proponents all the time in the world to counter the naysayers.
Having lived in both Boston and Melbourne. There are a lot of similarities between both cities. Both excel at sport and culture.
The Melbourne Cricket Ground is the largest stadium in the southern hemisphere and was the main stadium for the 56 Olympics.
The difference is the people, and I don't mean that as a dig at Bostonians (I love living here). There is an air of 'we can do this' in Melbourne, it's the opposite here. It may be because of the big dig, I don't know.
It seems pretty clear that the private element would benefit the city and the public element needs a deadline just to bring it to an acceptable standard.
People complain about the cost to the public and in the next breath, demand public investment in infrastructure... I don't get it.
The Melbourne Cricket Ground is the largest stadium in the southern hemisphere and was the main stadium for the 56 Olympics.
The difference is the people, and I don't mean that as a dig at Bostonians (I love living here). There is an air of 'we can do this' in Melbourne, it's the opposite here. It may be because of the big dig, I don't know.
It seems pretty clear that the private element would benefit the city and the public element needs a deadline just to bring it to an acceptable standard.
People complain about the cost to the public and in the next breath, demand public investment in infrastructure... I don't get it.
Thanks for your insight, having lived in both places.
As to your final sentence, I don't know how long you've been here in Boston or in the States in general (your post didn't reveal that), so I don't mean to lecture someone who's maybe lived here longer than me. But I don't think this is unique to Bostonians or MA residents. Just about everywhere in the US, nearly everyone insists on lower taxes (for themselves, though not for the "others" however they define others) and more public spending (on whatever govt spending helps themselves the most, but sure as hell not for those "others"). Just a general failure of self-governance. Is it worse here in Boston than in other US cities? I dunno. maybe, but if so, not by much.
I've lived in Tokyo and visit Germany often and have in-laws and friends there. Despite the huge cultural differences, they share the attitude towards getting public improvements done as you describe from Melbourne. It seems a huge percentage of Americans have lost all sense of the saying "you get what you pay for."
Been here for 7 years. Maybe it's an overall attitude to taxes. There just seems to be a lot of self deprecation here.
Another common point I hear is that Boston is too small yet greater Boston is the same size as Melbourne. Both cities are teeming with professional sports outfits and are very proud of their annual sporting events.
Boston has stuff like the marathon and the head of the Charles, Melbourne has the grand prix, the open tennis and the gold cup. Both cities manage these annual events on top of ongoing games with relative ease.
The big difference I see is that if Melbourne were promoting this, there's no way they'd be wheeling out old grey haired men in suits talking about financial breakdowns. They would go straight to the youth and the sports teams and they would have almost unanimous political support before they did anything.
This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, something that you will be telling your grand kids about. The only negative arguments are that it might cause bad traffic for a while or taxes might go up for a while. If the taxes do go up, it will be to pay for crap that needs to be fixed anyway. I know I'm mostly preaching to the choir here but it feels good to rant!!