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USA 2024


Athensfan

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DisneyWorld of course no. But I think that Orlando could be a credible candidate, based on the hotel capacity around there.

Orlando is a great city for Congresses, but I don't think they have a tradition of hosting international sport events though.

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You brought up Missoula. So make the case for them. Tell us why you they they're a serious contender, should they wish to bid, if not for a Summer Olympics, than for a Winter Olympics. Think you might need to give us a little more than "there are mountains nearby"

Fine. It's the second most populous city in Montana. Despite the fact that it's surrounded by mountains on all sides, there is plenty of room for construction of venues (more so Winter Olympic venues, but eh). It's also a popular tourist destination, meaning there is good transportation and PLENTY of hotel rooms.

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Missoula vs. a Gstaad or vs. an Annecy? I mean does Missoula even have a semi-developed 800-m drop? Does it even have a 250,000-base-population for its metro area to be the anchor of the whole bid?

It's NOT just a matter of plopping a new name -- oh, these guys here on GB didn't think of this one before -- and dropping it into the mix. There's a reason all these new entries are being disregarded. It's because they just DON'T pass muster.

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Fine. It's the second most populous city in Montana. Despite the fact that it's surrounded by mountains on all sides, there is plenty of room for construction of venues (more so Winter Olympic venues, but eh). It's also a popular tourist destination, meaning there is good transportation and PLENTY of hotel rooms.

Wow, 2nd largest in the state of Montana (a state whose entire population is under a million)? Now I'm sold! Didn't know they were such a popular tourist attraction. Please tell me more about their excellent transportation. And surely with all those hotel rooms, how they are capable of handling the thousands of athletes and tens of thousands of spectators and media members that would descend upon Missoula for an Olympics.

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OK, just read up a little on Missoula. Some thoughts:

1. It has promise but it must grow to at least 200,000 in the coming years.

2. It must develop a skiing industry and maybe get the cache of a Jackson Hole or Gstaad. People like to think of skiing as a "glamorous sport." And perhaps, if this sport were developed on the Missoula slopes, it might provide the catalyst for a future bid.

3. If anybody in Missoula is serious about becoming a future Olympic city, it must get on the circuit of the international winter sports...so that it gets the right notice from these circles that will eventually decide where an Olympics lands or not.

4. Hopefully, the University of Montana/Missoula campus, can become big and important enough to provide the dorms for the Olympic Village and so that the campus can become the beneficiary of a major speed-skating rink.

5. It should have an airport capable of handling medium-sized passenger jets and at least a world-class medical facility or two.

6. How does its legacy fit into the USOC's master plan of where to put a USOC-sponsored Olympic training site in place?

An abundance of hotel rooms (I think the IOC requires 25,000 for a WOGs in the 30-mile radius of the anchor town) is NOT enough to just launch an Olympic bid. All of the above AND much more need to line up in order to even come up to the standards of a Denver, Salt Lake or Reno.

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cuz nobody knows what on earth the US is up to

Of course, it's on a wait-and-see.

#1 - R there any cities suitable and hot enuf under the collar to finance and spend a $75 million campaign for 2024 w/o any assurance of winning?

#2 - Who will the other 2024 cities be?

#3 - What will the geopolitical landscape for 2017 be?

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Of course, it's on a wait-and-see.

#1 - R there any cities suitable and hot enuf under the collar to finance and spend a $75 million campaign for 2024 w/o any assurance of winning?

#2 - Who will the other 2024 cities be?

#3 - What will the geopolitical landscape for 2017 be?

The American cities for 2024 will either be;

NYC

Philly

LA

SanFran

Dallas

Chicago

I don't know where all the bs ideas of Columbus, Tulsa, and Disney Land came from but mark my words that will NEVER happen.

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I have an idea for a new theme park paterned on the Olympics. It should be a world of its own maybe called...Olympic City! Could be Epcot adjacent or in Phoenix under some sort of artificial atmosphere containment field, cool with blue skies.

Anyway, all continents will be represented in 5 zones and a special 6th zone will be titled New-Frontier Land and will be sold to the richest wannabe future host to promote themselves!

If the US is awarded the games the park will be completely converted to "Games Time Mode" and will be capable of hosting every Olympic sport in facilities purposely built for them, and architecturally significant too! In the dreadful (and many...right?) years between US hosting the park will act like a normal Olympics is happening all the time in your back yard! You can go anytime! It'll be just like an old friend has never left.

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I have an idea for a new theme park paterned on the Olympics. It should be a world of its own maybe called...Olympic City! Could be Epcot adjacent or in Phoenix under some sort of artificial atmosphere containment field, cool with blue skies.

Anyway, all continents will be represented in 5 zones and a special 6th zone will be titled New-Frontier Land and will be sold to the richest wannabe future host to promote themselves!

If the US is awarded the games the park will be completely converted to "Games Time Mode" and will be capable of hosting every Olympic sport in facilities purposely built for them, and architecturally significant too! In the dreadful (and many...right?) years between US hosting the park will act like a normal Olympics is happening all the time in your back yard! You can go anytime! It'll be just like an old friend has never left.

I had an idea like that many, many years ago when I was promoting something called "The World Games" (even before I knew that that existed). And indeed I had one plan to have all the aquatic sports based permanently in Disney World. And that was something not under the IOC aegis. Again, like many of the 'weird trial balloons" being hoisted here, it may look nice & good in b&w print, but in reality is unfeasible. The problem with keeping an Olympics or anything like that in a Disney Park is anything like that would have to be called Disney something or another. And no way is that going to happen with an Olympic Games. Plus, since Disney owns ABC; and of course, ABC would be the only US network to carry the Games. That was one of the reasons the Goodwill Games folded because it was a Turner-CNN property, it could NOT bid itself out to the major networks and have the mucho $$$ which keep the Olympics alive; thus, it died a natural death. Putting anything like that in a "Disney" property would also probably spell its early demise.

Next sensible idea, please.

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I know Philly is random, but its in a population centre between the capital and largest city, and has is an important city in American history, has an almost quintessential American air to it, and the urban renewal potential is immense.

So I used to post regularly in this sub-forum about a prospective US SOG bid, specifically about the distinct possibility of a 2024 SOG in Philadelphia. And I agree that a potential Philly bid would allow for a greater urban renewal project than what was seen in London, especially in North & West Philadelphia; but I disagree that it would be a completely random event.

Out of the 12 American cities that claim a team in the four major sports leagues, only Chicago, Denver & Philadelphia can claim that all four of those major sports teams play within their city limits, which helps in building a compact bid if one such desires because of the readiness of these large venues. Add in additional venues from the Universities within the city limits (UPenn, Temple, Drexel, LaSalle) and just outside (Villanova, Rutgers/Rowan (S. Jersey)) and you begin to see the foundation of what a Philadelphia bid would build upon.

And I'd like to focus on UPenn for a moment, specifically Franklin Field. It annually hosts the Penn Relays, a track & field event that is nationally renowned and internationally known and has had representatives that have gold-medaled in every single SOG (excluding '80).

Somewhere in this thread there was a discussion placing an athletics track within Lincoln Financial Field. Being a resident of the area and having gone to the stadiums a bunch of times since it's opening I can honestly say this probably isn't feasible, on both engineering and political terms. In engineering terms, the stadium's lower bowl is built close to the field, i.e. there's not much room between the first rows and the boundary lines for football (American) and soccer. In political terms, the stadium while owned by the City of Philadelphia is operated by the Philadelphia Eagles. Seeing that the organization is one of the NFL's more prominent and wealthy, it would be hard pressed to convince both the league and the team to allow for partial demolition and reconstruction of the Linc for the purpose of a quadrennial sporting event where the venue itself would only be used for a little over a week, total.

This is where I think Franklin Field and by proxy, UPenn comes in. The venue is capable of handling a track and field event on a national level and with some refurbishment could probably handle an international sporting event like the Olympics. The area (University City) in which the stadium and the university is located is one of the cities most vibrant, technically advance and re-developed. UPenn is constantly expanding from it's University City limits across the Schuykill River into Center City Philadelphia and would benefit greatly from an Olympic Park situated within or around University City along the banks of the Schuykill. In tandem with the sports complex situated in South Philly, which is a short distance via highway or alternate transporation (bus, train, etc) the majority of Olympic events could be handled within a matter of five miles distance.

There's other things I could mention that would be a benefit to a Philly 2024 bid and for the sake of not running verbose, I won't do so now. What I do want to mention is the fact that the parent company (Comcast) to NBC's parent company (NBCUniversal) is located in Philadelphia (yay un-regulated capitalism). If a Philly bid was to win out the favor of the USOC and be considered by the IOC, one would think that the amount of money spent for the current broadcast rights by NBC (via Comcast) would be taken into consideration. Any American city hosting the 2024 games would help line NBC/Comcast's pockets but a Philly Olympics might just be a bigger boom for Comcast specifically.

Anyway, this is all theoretical but if Philly was to be favored the ability and the potential exists for it to host the Olympics on the same level as previous SOGs.

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