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If they end up working something out raiders, then I believe the nfl and team owners actually do have to contribute money (However, I'm not so sure about) to that stadium which is great because a permamnent nfl stadium-that would probably end up having a track removed post games-is gonna cost a lot more money than a temporary stadium. Also, Due to nfl stadiums, in recent memory, having come to largely at the burden of taxpayers, I wonder if another portion of funding actually wind up coming from them. Nevertheless, it seems average americans are more ok wasting their taxpayer money on football as opposed to Olympics, so when combining both you can squeeze in the games :P

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OK, great if the USOC can also contribute some $$ to have the new stadium rise.

See, Quake, I was right all the time. That it would come to this. Of course, it's another matter until ground is broken for this thing and if SF is the chosen one tomorrow.

It's weird as I read the story because I can't quite tell if this is now plan A or plan B or it's getting thrown in the proposal just in case (i.e. if the stadium actually gets built). It's interesting this comes out the night before the vote is likely to go down and I wonder if it will sway anyone's opinion. If SF does get picked, that gives them a lot of time to work out how (or even if) a stadium in Oakland would get worked into the plan. Buyer beware though. Again, SF has gotten by an NFL owner before, so be careful if you're changing your focus from the pop-up stadium to this.

baron, I know you probably don't know the answer to this, but what do you think this would do to the village? Would they have to move it from Hunters Point if the stadium is in Oakland?

If they end up working something out raiders, then I believe the nfl and team owners actually do have to contribute money (However, I'm not so sure about) to that stadium which is great because a permamnent nfl stadium-that would probably end up having a track removed post games-is gonna cost a lot more money than a temporary stadium. Also, Due to nfl stadiums, in recent memory, having come to largely at the burden of taxpayers, I wonder if another portion of funding actually wind up coming from them. Nevertheless, it seems average americans are more ok wasting their taxpayer money on football as opposed to Olympics, so when combining both you can squeeze in the games :P

Gee, I wonder why that is. Could it be because the Olympics are a 1-time event and football is there every year? This brings up the old conundrum of ownership and operation. Who will own this stadium if it gets built, the city or the Raiders? In conjunction with that, who is paying for it and designing it? Easier said than done to make accommodations for track & field (unless of course baron gets his wish and SF Agenda 2020's the sport out of the Olympics :lol:), particularly if the stadium will be built well in advance of 2024. There's a lot of delicate planning and timing that could be at play here and given this is San Francisco we're talking about, that could get a little dicey along the way.

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Here's a breakdown of the USOC Board of Directors by ties to the four cities (those with ties to more than one of the cities are noted with an asterisk for each additional city, and counted at one half or one third, depending on the number of cities, in the totals):

San Francisco (4.33)

Probst (Redwood City), Bach (Stanford), Bowlsby (former Stanford A.D.), Lyons (SF), Ping** (Stanford)

Los Angeles (3.83)

DeFrantz (LA), Easton (LA, UCLA), Ruggiero (LA), Benson* (M.B.A. from USC), Ping** (formerly LA)

Boston (2.83)

Benson* (Boston), McCagg (Cambridge), Ogrean (Master's from BU), Ping** (Boston)

Washington, D.C. (1)

Hendricks (Silver Spring)

None discernible (3)

Burns, Kemppel, Marolt

If you included ties to more distant places in the regions of these cities, you could possibly put Kemppel in the Boston group (went to Dartmouth) and Probst to D.C. (went to U. of Delaware), but I think those are too weak to include.

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Bovada has the odds at:

Los Angeles 1 to 1

Boston 2 to 1

San Francisco 4 to 1 &

Washington, DC at 7 to 1.

I'll take the long shot. The two cities that seem to have the fewest major question marks are LA (of course) and DC. SF and Boston may be perceived as more attractive host cities, but they also face the most significant unanswered questions, including with respect to the strength of their areas' organized opposition movements. There would be no reason to rush into a final selection of SF or Boston when they could take time to more fully address those cities' games concepts and determine how much trouble is presented by their no-Olympics groups. Likewise, there would be no reason to rush into a selection of LA if there's a preference for someplace new (which I assume is the word USOC got back from the IOC). That leaves DC as the only candidate with respect to which it makes sense for USOC to make a decision at this time. DC is a more attractive candidate than many initially may think. It's easy to see USOC settling on that choice and then wanting to get it out there with its full support as soon as possible, .

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baron, I know you probably don't know the answer to this, but what do you think this would do to the village? Would they have to move it from Hunters Point if the stadium is in Oakland?

I think the Village will stay where it is in this early plan. However, there was a hazy plan not too long ago to also build a new community for like 10,000 people on Treasure Island by the same developer, Lennar. I don't know where that plan has gone...but I'd prefer that if the main Oly stade is going to be in Oakland. But if SF gets picked and wins; and the village stays in Hunters Point, I think they might explore using ferries to move the T&F athletes more quickly to the East Bay. Otherwise, they'd either have to BART them (probably the quickest way) vs. the longer overland/bridge route via the Bay Bridge, down 880 to the Coliseum site.

Addendum: here was the earlier plan for TI but again, it apparently collapsed. But it would've made a good OV.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_Island_Development

One new, added advantage of the Coliseum City site is the new direct people-mover connection from the Coliseum BART station to Oakland Int'l. I took it over the holidays; and it was like the monorail ride at Disneyland.

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Here's that report I saw earlier this evening:

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/01/07/2024-bay-area-olympic-boosters-eye-new-stadium-in-oakland-to-boost-bid-keep-raiders-in-town-united-states-olympic-committee-summer-games-stadium-san-francisco-mayor-ed-lee-mayor-libby-schaaf/

However, it is disingenuous in that even using a new Raiders stadium is NOT going to give the US a new 'permanent' T&F stadium. It would still be the added platform scheme, just like what they had planned for 2016 if the 49ers had stayed with a new stadium in Candlestick. So I don't know who's fooling who?

And a new Raiders stadium would probably only have permanent seating of 48,000; so with 6,500 of those going when they add a track platform, they would still have to add temporary stands for est. 23,000 to at least make 65,000 seating for an Oly stadium. That would equalize the same minimum capacity they had planned for the temp stadium in Brisbane.

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I doubt that had much sway. NYC2012 couldn'rt get up and they had the option of DC which is kinda north east-ish...

Boston probably offered USOC a level of control the others didn't want to.

Well, the candidate cites love those ... 30 million zombies live within 50 miles of City X; 80 million more live within 150 miles of Bombay... graphics in their bid videos. LA would've been very obvious...while they can't show New York since NYC has never hosted.

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I doubt that had much sway. NYC2012 couldn'rt get up and they had the option of DC which is kinda north east-ish...

This snippet was in one of the nytimes articles last night:

"Boston also proved attractive to the U.S.O.C. because of its television-friendly location in the Eastern time zone, its nearness to the huge population centers of the Northeast, and the areas 51,000 hotel rooms and 30,000 available college dormitory rooms to house visitors."

While it probably didn't have much sway, it must've had some. You can't compare New York 2012 where the bid was relatively weak against much stronger bids from not one, not two, but from three European mega capitals.

And Washington, DC is no more northeast-ish than Atlanta is. Many people actually include Washington as part of the south since it's south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Boston clearly was in virgin territory in the U.S. when it comes to the Summer Olympics.

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Another move which proved to be more a negative than a positive was the last-minute move of Oly Stadium to Oakland. While fiscally, it made more sense, it was also hard to explain to explain away at the last minute that transporting the T&F athletes to Oakland from the Hunters Point Village was not as copasetic than had the stadium stayed there in Brisbane, a location 5 minutes away from the Village. I think that dropped SF's score by a few points. I imagine the Boston plan does not present such a conundrum.

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I agree that the last minute oakland thing was not a smooth move. Or at least it didn't appear so to me. I thought the SF 2024 people must have gotten feedback that the pop up stadium idea was hurting the bid, but then the committee went with Boston which has a pop up stadium. So I don't know.

As my earlier message showed, there appeared to be three main groups on the board: one that would be expected to favor Boston, one group for LA, and one group for SF. The Boston one must have included Ping, whom I had thought would have split loyalty, because she now works for Bain in boston, which funded most of their bid. So the contingents for those three cities were of roughly equal sizes (~4 members each), with only one member who would be expected to be a DC partisan. If we assume the board members have pretty strong perferences for their own cities, the LA people might have voted strategically. If it was between Boston and SF, the LA voters would probably be better off with Boston getting the nod over SF. This is high stakes for the medium term chances of other cities after 2024. If Boston loses the bid at the IOC, it will strengthen LA's argument next time that they are the only city that can do it. And if Boston wins at the IOC, an east coast Games will not preclude a return to the west coast of the US in 12 years or so after 2024. But if SF were to get the Games, it would knock LA out for a long time. A cynic might even say the LA people would side with Boston over SF because they think Boston has less of a chance of winning the Games than SF, improving LA's chances next time But I won't go that far. The same logic obviously applies to the SF contingent on the board. SF is certainly better off with Boston than with LA if it wants to host in the next 25-30 years. But the Boston group didn't really have a clear rival group in this vote, from what I could tell.

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I agree that the last minute oakland thing was not a smooth move. Or at least it didn't appear so to me. I thought the SF 2024 people must have gotten feedback that the pop up stadium idea was hurting the bid, but then the committee went with Boston which has a pop up stadium. So I don't know.

As my earlier message showed, there appeared to be three main groups on the board: one that would be expected to favor Boston, one group for LA, and one group for SF. The Boston one must have included Ping, whom I had thought would have split loyalty, because she now works for Bain in boston, which funded most of their bid. So the contingents for those three cities were of roughly equal sizes (~4 members each), with only one member who would be expected to be a DC partisan. If we assume the board members have pretty strong perferences for their own cities, the LA people might have voted strategically. If it was between Boston and SF, the LA voters would probably be better off with Boston getting the nod over SF. This is high stakes for the medium term chances of other cities after 2024. If Boston loses the bid at the IOC, it will strengthen LA's argument next time that they are the only city that can do it. And if Boston wins at the IOC, an east coast Games will not preclude a return to the west coast of the US in 12 years or so after 2024. But if SF were to get the Games, it would knock LA out for a long time. A cynic might even say the LA people would side with Boston over SF because they think Boston has less of a chance of winning the Games than SF, improving LA's chances next time But I won't go that far. The same logic obviously applies to the SF contingent on the board. SF is certainly better off with Boston than with LA if it wants to host in the next 25-30 years. But the Boston group didn't really have a clear rival group in this vote, from what I could tell.

This may all be the case, we don't know, but there's another scenario you're not permitting: perhaps of the four, Boston's bid just appeared to the USOC as the most winnable at the IOC level?

Personally, I think the USOC membership was likely torn between LA and Boston. SF and DC each had a sprawling venue plan and included potential builds of permanent stadia for various local sports teams, not the best thing if one assumes the 2020 initiative has any meaning. LA doesn't need any new venues, and it sounds like Boston proposed either temporary venues or ones that local universities would pay for and would be taking over after the Games (i.e., both cities proposed "No White Elephants" venue plans). I think the thing that caused Boston to prevail over LA, despite its proven track record, was that there is no compelling reason for LA to host again so soon, and the USOC (perhaps rightly) assumed the IOC would yawn at the prospect of a third Games in LA.

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Personally, I think the USOC membership was likely torn between LA and Boston. SF and DC each had a sprawling venue plan and included potential builds of permanent stadia for various local sports teams, not the best thing if one assumes the 2020 initiative has any meaning. LA doesn't need any new venues, and it sounds like Boston proposed either temporary venues or ones that local universities would pay for and would be taking over after the Games (i.e., both cities proposed "No White Elephants" venue plans). I think the thing that caused Boston to prevail over LA, despite its proven track record, was that there is no compelling reason for LA to host again so soon, and the USOC (perhaps rightly) assumed the IOC would yawn at the prospect of a third Games in LA.

Nah-nah. The final choice was between SF and Boston. Boston had:

- that insurance,

- the East Coast prime-time advantage,

- the $$,

- the legacy for its world-class universities (with 30,000 dorm beds) and

- NOT being within 500 miles of a previous host in the same country.

LA was not one of the final 2

Also, perhaps a number of IOC members have past Harvard, Tufts, Boston U, UMass, MIT, Brown, Yale connections...more so than UC-Berk, Stanford, Santa Clara, USF or SJSU ones. So there would be a yearning to perhaps want to go back to dear old Boston and Cambridge.

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This may all be the case, we don't know, but there's another scenario you're not permitting: perhaps of the four, Boston's bid just appeared to the USOC as the most winnable at the IOC level?

Personally, I think the USOC membership was likely torn between LA and Boston. SF and DC each had a sprawling venue plan and included potential builds of permanent stadia for various local sports teams, not the best thing if one assumes the 2020 initiative has any meaning. LA doesn't need any new venues, and it sounds like Boston proposed either temporary venues or ones that local universities would pay for and would be taking over after the Games (i.e., both cities proposed "No White Elephants" venue plans). I think the thing that caused Boston to prevail over LA, despite its proven track record, was that there is no compelling reason for LA to host again so soon, and the USOC (perhaps rightly) assumed the IOC would yawn at the prospect of a third Games in LA.

I agree that there are good reasons to think the IOC would look favorably on Boston. The way I think it works in most committee votes is that there are some members who have a strong preference going in, based on their own personal ties, in this case to one or more of the cities that were being voted on. And there are other members who are more open to all the possibilities. In this case, it looked to me like there were strong local contingents from three of the cities. So in that scenario, I'd expect the more neutral members to steer the vote initially, narrowing down the options, and then when it becomes apparent that one of the "strong preference" groups is not going to win, they are likely to think strategically. At that point, the remaining options will each have strong arguments for them, so it becomes a coalitional game. Both SF and LA partisans would likely favor Boston if (a) Boston was one of the cities that made the initial cut and (B) their own city was no longer in the mix. We don't know exactly how many there were from each group, though, because it is often hard to tell exactly where and how strong people's allegiances are just from their bio.

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Historically the USOC has gone with another city when LA was bidding too. Since 2012 the USOC has gone for another city, all of which have lost.

In my opinion Chicago or LA should be our top cities to bid, but maybe Boston will prove our best East Coast option. I look forward to seeing their plan, maybe it's not as bad as I think.

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