BidWeek: Olympic Bid Rejection Goes Intercontinental – The IOC Must Change Everything

[GBModerator]

BidWeek, Reporting from Toronto, Canada –  It’s a runaway freight train, and the track doesn’t seem to end. Taxpayers of cities who are told that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has changed, that the new reforms dubbed “Olympic Agenda 2020” and the “New Norm” make hosting great again, don’t want to hear about it.  They don’t […]

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[FYI]

Calgary 2026 may be the first Canadian city to reject the Games, but while Boston 2024 did not have a referendum, I’d say the ‘intercontinental rejection’ of the Olympics had already started with them. So much so, that the USOC had to abandon & replace them with L.A. asap if they wanted to continue with a 2024 bid. 

All the polls they conducted in the Massachusetts capitol consistently showed declining support for the 2024 bid & that’s when mayor Walsh said that he wasn’t signing the Host City contract. That’s when the USOC made their move to swap candidates. Plus, I’d venture to say, other than L.A., I think that most of the mega major cities throughout the U.S. would also say a big fat ‘no’ to the Olympics at this point in time.

[stryker]

I agree that the "intercontinental rejection" began with Boston. The IOC needs to change but their two major problems IMO are they seem to believe the New Norm and Agenda 2020 have fixed everything and that they have a horrible PR department. On the first point, the landscape as to how citizens of western democracies view government spending has shifted remarkably since the Great Recession. More and more citizens are concerned about how their taxpayer money is being spent. In the case of Calgary, this was a city that thought the CalgaryNEXT and a new arena for the Flames was too expensive, so how are they going to convince the public to support an Olympics? It was a catch-22. I still think back when the bid began there was hope the Flames and the city would reach an agreement on a new arena and they could slide that into the bid plan. Instead the Calgary bid committee put forth the idea of the fieldhouse (half of the CalgaryNEXT plan) and the ridiculous "community arena" - a small scale ice arena with no permanent tenant that would likely become a white elephant. Let's not forget the bid couldn't even agree on a venue for curling. Frankly, Calgary's bid was one of the most poorly managed since the Boston fiasco from the venue plan to when it came crunch time for more money they actually said they found savings in games security of all places. Correct me if I'm wrong but hasn't the cost of security steadily gone up at every Olympics since 9/11?

The IOC has a PR problem. They continue to claim New Norm and Agenda 2020 are great successes but there has yet to be an Olympics where they have shown to keep costs down without the dreaded cost overruns. It's not looking good for Tokyo right now either. Part of this is the sports federations in their demands for sparkling new venues (I wonder if the IIHF got in the ears of the Calgary committee and said they would not accept ice hockey being farmed out to Edmonton) Even worse, the IOC claims Pyeongchang is the first example of success of the New Norm when Pyeongchang is saddled with ice arenas with no permanent tenants, a sliding track that's a white elephant, and even the Alpine venue is facing financial problems that could force it to close down, not exactly Sochi-style spending but not exactly a ringing endorsement of cost controls either. Let's not forget, Rio's final financial numbers have yet to be released probably because the costs and losses could equal that of Sochi and put a potential nail in the coffin to the SOGs that is nearly facing the WOGs. Even worse on the PR front is Christophe Dubi. This guy opens his mouth and spews toxicity like when he told the citizens of Calgary, "the Games will come at no cost to you." Wrong choice of words. Then there's the delusion on the part of Thomas Bach. Remember the whole "their are fewer WOGs hosts because of climate change?" story.

The IOC needs major change but until they come to their senses that the taxpaying public isn't buying what their selling, the number of bidders will continue to get fewer and fewer. 

[FYI]

14 minutes ago, stryker said:

they actually said they found savings in games security of all places. Correct me if I'm wrong but hasn't the cost of security steadily gone up at every Olympics since 9/11?

There was actually some talk in another  thread in the 2026 forums the other day on that very subject. It was mentioned that the price on security from Sydney 2000 to Athens 2004 went from $250 million to $1.5 Billion, respectively (although, Australia’s remoteness from the rest of the continents surely helped it from keeping security costs down, too, I would say). 

London’s 2012 security price tag was around $1.7 Billion. And surely Tokyo 2020 will be somewhere around $2 Billion. There was also an article last year about how that number could very well creep up towards the $3 Billion mark come L.A. 2028.

https://www.securitysales.com/news/security-protect-2028-olympic-games-2b/

So yeah, how funny that Calgary 2026 was actually looking at saving in the security dept. Surely the Winter Olympics are cheaper to secure than the summer counterpart, but only $495 million come 2026 is laughable, even for the Winter Olympics. That’s a price tag of at least one billion $ nowadays, so it’s no surprise that number attracted skepticism at the end of the day, especially when it was done after the “deal” was struck with all three levels of government.

 

[Ikarus360]

Here's hoping Calgary resignation becomes a big earthquake inside the IOC and finally forces them to change. Sadly, i'm aware the IOC will only come to their senses when no single city is left to bid. As long as they have one, even if its a backwaters town in the middle of nowhere under a tyrannical dictatorship, they won't give a damn.

I hope I could say Bach is the main issue here and that he has to go. The problem is someone as bad or worse will probably replace him.

The IOC is in FIFA-tier level of corruption. It is time to fix this mess of an event as soon as possible or it will dissapear for good, at least in the way we know it, in just a few years.

[FYI]

For better perspective, the estimate of security for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver went up to $720 million, five times the original estimate. a year before the Winter Games. 

https://ca.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idCATRE51J06W20090220

The finally tally was somewhere close to one billion, IIRC. 

[paul]

19 minutes ago, Ikarus360 said:

Here's hoping Calgary resignation becomes a big earthquake inside the IOC and finally forces them to change.

19 minutes ago, Ikarus360 said:

I hope I could say Bach is the main issue here and that he has to go. The problem is someone as bad or worse will probably replace him.

[yoshi]

Warning - long post :p

Again everyone talks about how the IOC needs to ‘change’, ‘reform’, ‘wake up’ etc. But again, what concrete can be done? What needs to be done? Can anything be done? Is there a way for the IOC to salvage the Games from the brink yet again?

Is the current IOC now so damaged that nothing short of revolution & overthrow (by the federations or some other new organisation) can save the Olympics concept?

Are the Olympics simply destined to be this century’s World’s Fairs - still taking place, possibly, but with their purpose removed by the fact that sport, culture, international mixing etc is now available at the touch of a button all day, all year. 

I honestly don’t know what the IOC can do to save the Olympics - especially the winter ones - but I’ve always been interested in what members on here mean when they say ‘reform’ given that it’s clear Agenda 2020 has failed. 

[Nacre]

1 hour ago, yoshi said:

Again everyone talks about how the IOC needs to ‘change’, ‘reform’, ‘wake up’ etc. But again, what concrete can be done? What needs to be done? Can anything be done? Is there a way for the IOC to salvage the Games from the brink yet again?

Yes. They need to cut down the size of the games. Reduce the number of sporting disciplines and the number of athletes and various Olympic hangers-on.

I think the best way to do this is to break the games up into a real four year cycle of one games per year. (The ancient Greek games happened every year alternating between four locations.) The winter games themselves used to be hosted in the same country and year as the summer games. There's no reason they can't break the winter and summer games up again into ice, snow, team summer and individual summer sports. Other people hate that idea because tradition, tradition, and tradition.

But they need to cut the program down somehow.

Calgary 1988: 1,423 athletes

Pyeongchang 2018: 2,922 athletes

[FYI]

Isn’t ‘tradition, tradition, tradition’ what makes the Olympics special in the first place? Once you start to break that up, then it’s longer THE Olympics that we’ve come to know & love today. 

The IOC has been trying to make reforms, but in the end, the people just aren’t interested. So asking incessantly ‘what can be done’ isn’t going to change that. You can’t shove the Games down people’s throats if they just don’t want them.

Even cutting back the program at this point, while helpful, won’t change their perception much about that. Plus, the IOC has been adding these new sports over the years in order to attract a more younger audience to watch the Games. It’s really a catch-22 in a lot of ways.

[FYI]

*no longer THE.. 

**The Olympics are still the pinnacle of many athletes careers, so they’ll be the ones who will want them to continue. And while the internet has changed how we indulge in entertainment, the Olympics are still one of the watched international spectacles on the planet every time they’re on (hence, why NBC still pays Billions for the U.S. tv rights), even though it’s the cities & citizens in western democracies that don’t want to host the expensive party. They’re really two separate issues.

[Quaker2001]

1 hour ago, Nacre said:

Yes. They need to cut down the size of the games. Reduce the number of sporting disciplines and the number of athletes and various Olympic hangers-on.

I think the best way to do this is to break the games up into a real four year cycle of one games per year. (The ancient Greek games happened every year alternating between four locations.) The winter games themselves used to be hosted in the same country and year as the summer games. There's no reason they can't break the winter and summer games up again into ice, snow, team summer and individual summer sports. Other people hate that idea because tradition, tradition, and tradition.

But they need to cut the program down somehow.

Calgary 1988: 1,423 athletes

Pyeongchang 2018: 2,922 athletes

Ahh yes, the old "there's no reason they can't" argument.  I can think of more than a few reasons that's not a smart move.  Is that going to solve the issue anyway?  Or is it going to disenfranchise the Olympics to where they're not as valuable to sponsors or to TV networks.  You think NBC wants an Olympics every year?  Think they'll still pay the same amount in rights fees if instead of Winter/Summer, there's now an Ice Olympics and a Snow Olympics?  Not a freaking chance.

Yes, they probably need to cap the size of the Olympics rather than to continually expand them.  There's the issue that FYI brought up that adding new sports and disciplines means more money and potentially new viewers, but how do they go about kicking a sport out of the Olympics?  Remember, the IOC is the organization that nearly cut wrestling while keeping modern pentathlon.

The other problem - which is also somewhat unavoidable - is the explosion of media outlets. 57 nations competed in Calgary.  There were 92 in PyeongChang.  That means more media members, dignitaries, etc.  Does the IOC want to turn any of them away?  What are the ramifications if they do?  The Olympics are supposed to belong to the world.  Not a good look if they're being turned away.

Bottom line.. you make it sound so simple that your solutions would work, but you haven't thought it through.  All these sport federations have their world championships, some on a yearly basis.  If you're watering down the Olympics by turning it into a glorified sports festival that's less than the Olympics, you have wiped away their value.  There are better ways to address this issue than to go with a nuclear option like that.

[StefanMUC]

I think it makes no sense to just look at the past for solutions for the future (see also in isolationist politics now en vogue again).

21st century AD Olympics face very different circumstances than those 776 BC, and the „Olympics“ were also only organised every four years in ancient Greece, the other years were elsewhere but not „Olympic“ Games.

It happened three times that SOG & WOG were taking place in the same year/country, last in 1936. In those years, the few potential host countries most likely had suitable locations for both. Apart from shifting the WOG to another year (a move that seems uncontroversial nowadays mostly, no?), which would need to be rolled back, it would also mean you can forget the idea of hosts like Brazil or anywhere in Africa, or vice versa Scandinavian or Central Alpine countries to host such combined OGs. And if you want to keep the Olympics global, you would need to spread them, though of course we know the risks associated with that too.

Splitting the Games in various sections would make them easier to organise? Maybe in terms of less people to accomodate, but you‘d still have the security costs that would probably not just be adding four parts but be in total higher than the costs if kept all in one. And it would dilute interest & attention by media/sponsors, I guess. Most sports have world championships that struggle to find hosts/sponsors/media deals and need the Olympics for their survival.

And finally, between the 57 countries in Calgary and the almost 100 in PC, times did not stand still. USSR/Yugoslavia/Czechoslovakia dissolved, creating 24 countries just from that, and all with potential WOG athletes, plus more new countries, so it‘s not really correct to compare these.

Of course the IOC has to act, but they should be more creative than to just look at how it was done in the past.

 

[FYI]

1 hour ago, Quaker2001 said:

You think NBC wants an Olympics every year?  Think they'll still pay the same amount in rights fees if instead of Winter/Summer, there's now an Ice Olympics and a Snow Olympics?  Not a freaking chance.

Maybe he should propose that at the next IOC Session! Ice/Snow Olympics!! 

[FYI]

25 minutes ago, StefanMUC said:

Splitting the Games in various sections would make them easier to organise? Maybe in terms of less people to accomodate, but you‘d still have the security costs that would probably not just be adding four parts but be in total higher than the costs if kept all in one. And it would dilute interest & attention by media/sponsors, I guess.

I mentioned the very same thing last month in the Calgary 2026/Salt Lake 2030 thread. And the very same poster here said “it’s all well & good to complain that this (seperating to ‘ice/snow Olympics’ ) would make the logistics hard..”, as if logistics & security are trifling matters that shouldn’t be taken into serious consideration when trying to come up with a feasible plan ITFP. 

[Nacre]

14 hours ago, FYI said:

I mentioned the very same thing last month in the Calgary 2026/Salt Lake 2030 thread. And the very same poster here said “it’s all well & good to complain that this (seperating to ‘ice/snow Olympics’ ) would make the logistics hard..”, as if logistics & security are trifling matters that shouldn’t be taken into serious consideration when trying to come up with a feasible plan ITFP. 

The logistics for a split snow and ice games would be easier.

When I volunteered in 2010 (I didn't even get tickets: only a freaking Quatchi sticker I threw away) there were volunteers based in the lower mainland who were getting home from Whistler at 4 AM. How do you think volunteers and fans from Stockholm will easily travel to Are 600 km away for a day of work or spectating? Or Milan and Cortina 400 km away? In what way does the current winter games model of a big city and mountains hundreds of kilometers away make for easy logistics for the hosts?

16 hours ago, Quaker2001 said:

You think NBC wants an Olympics every year?  Think they'll still pay the same amount in rights fees if instead of Winter/Summer, there's now an Ice Olympics and a Snow Olympics?  Not a freaking chance.

Is the Super Bowl hurt commercially by being held every year? Is UEFA's Champions League?

At least on paper splitting the games up would give NBC more primetime broadcasting hours and more eyeballs over the course of the full four year Olympiad to appeal to sponsors. I don't see how it would be hurt.

[StefanMUC]

1 hour ago, Nacre said:

 

Is the Super Bowl hurt commercially by being held every year? Is UEFA's Champions League?

 

If we‘re asking questions: how much money is involved every single year in SB or CL? Sponsors, advertising, participating teams? Is that even remotely comparable to the amount of money floating around in figure skating or nordic skiing, or even adding up all WOG sports?

I would very much doubt that. The Olympics get attention because they are only held every four years, if you divide them, you will by no means get the same attention (and revenue) in sum. Even the IOC knows this or otherwise they would have started milking such a cash cow long ago.

[FYI]

1 hour ago, Nacre said:

The logistics for a split snow and ice games would be easier.

When I volunteered in 2010 (I didn't even get tickets: only a freaking Quatchi sticker I threw away) there were volunteers based in the lower mainland who were getting home from Whistler at 4 AM. How do you think volunteers and fans from Stockholm will easily travel to Are 600 km away for a day of work or spectating? Or Milan and Cortina 400 km away? In what way does the current winter games model of a big city and mountains hundreds of kilometers away make for easy logistics for the hosts?

In the other thread, you cited places, like Minneapolis, Quebec & Milwaukee, that would like to host the ice events but don’t have the mountains for the snow events. And then you went further - “why not have a different, distant city host the snow events (as long as they’re on the same continent) at the same time?”

So enlightened us, how do those scenarios make the logistics “easier”? If someone wants to catch figure or speed skating in Minneapolis or Milwaukee, & then some skiing or luge in say Whistler, Park City or Lake Placid on the same day (or even the next day)? How is any of that easier without serious inconveniences, delays, etc? And that’s just scratching the surface of what other issues would result in such cases. 

Cuz again, even Stockholm to Are, Milan to Cortina or Vancouver to Whistler, are just down the road, compared to the Thousands of miles between ice & snow sites that you were advocating in the other thread.

[Quaker2001]

2 hours ago, Nacre said:

Is the Super Bowl hurt commercially by being held every year? Is UEFA's Champions League?

At least on paper splitting the games up would give NBC more primetime broadcasting hours and more eyeballs over the course of the full four year Olympiad to appeal to sponsors. I don't see how it would be hurt.

Then get glasses because it's a terrible idea.  And not because of tradition.  It's apples to oranges.  Events like the Super Bowl and the Champions League have always been every year.  What you're suggesting is the equivalent of holding the U.S. Open men's tennis tournament separate from the women's and expecting the sum of the 2 parts will be the same as having them together.  Not gonna happen. 

And especially in comparison to the Super Bowl.. that's a single event.  1 game in 1 location (yes, with plenty of ancillary events).  That's a world of difference from a massive sports festival that's supposed to bring everyone together.  From the standpoint of NBC or other TV networks, do you know how difficult it is to get people to watch the Olympics night in and night out for 2 1/2 weeks.  Now you're asking them to do that twice as often and to do it with half the amount of events each night to promote themselves with.  Advertisers won't be fans of that.  You're making NBC's job a lot tougher to maintain that audience for as long as they normally do.

[Sir Rols]

Okay, one interesting point to me to come out of Rob’s article is how often it’s the cities themselves that are contributing to the over-lavish cost of their games in a quest for civic glory rather than financial and social prudence. Not that that’s any great revelation - we’ve seen cities from Athens to Beijing to Sochi to Rio insist it’s more important four them to splash their cash to make a grand impression rather than adopt modesty as a virtue.

But Rob’s illustrations of the bull-headed pride, against IOC suggestion, that prompted PyeongChang to insist on their own sliding track rather than use Nagano’s, and Milano-Cortina’s insistence of refurbishing the Cortina track rather than use one in St Moritz or Innsbruck, did strike a notion to me. Basically, the IOC needs to be a bit more prescriptive on that particular point. It seems clear they’re quite willing to be a bit more flexible on the issue of bobsleigh tracks (as they should be). Now they should insist on it. Rather than just “suggest” cheaper alternatives that cities can just throw back in their face in the name of “pride”, the IOC should, just before the start of each four year bid cycle, regularly accredit a list of existing bob facilities across the regions - there’s a decent roaster of them across Europe, North America and Asia - and then specify that any bidders MUST make use of one of those in their plans. Whammo, one major cost item that often gets bad publicity solved.

Sure, it’s just one item, and there’s lots of other issues the IOC needs to look at as well, but it’s one concrete step and gesture that could show they’re sincere in willingness to make changes and concessions. And an approach that could possibly be adopted to other areas - velodromes, ski jumping sites, white water venues. I’m sure others can come up with other suggestions. And it’s also about time some of the Sports Federations had a bit of a check in their insistence on lavish new venues in each new host - as far as often forcing cities to go back on their original more modest plans. 

[Smitty]

Should there be no bidder for 2026 then one possible answer is to look at UEFA and spread the event around Europe, building nothing. This could look something like Helsinki's failed 2006 bid, using Lillehammer's slopes and sliding track. Not ideal, but not far off the Stockholm bid concept either (which I still hope succeeds).

[Nacre]

4 hours ago, FYI said:

So enlightened us, how do those scenarios make the logistics “easier”? If someone wants to catch figure or speed skating in Minneapolis or Milwaukee, & then some skiing or luge in say Whistler, Park City or Lake Placid on the same day (or even the next day)? How is any of that easier without serious inconveniences, delays, etc? And that’s just scratching the surface of what other issues would result in such cases. 

They could host the winter games over a period of three weeks just like the summer games with the snow events in the first week and a half and the ice events in the second week and a half. 

4 hours ago, Quaker2001 said:

Then get glasses because it's a terrible idea.  And not because of tradition.  It's apples to oranges.  Events like the Super Bowl and the Champions League have always been every year.  What you're suggesting is the equivalent of holding the U.S. Open men's tennis tournament separate from the women's and expecting the sum of the 2 parts will be the same as having them together.  Not gonna happen. 

We will have to agree to disagree. I admit my only experience in TV has been working with the gofers on a terrible reality show. I've never been an executive at NBC. Maybe I am wrong. But I don't see how more primetime programming with half of the venues and sports to cover at any single moment would translate into less profit for broadcasters.

Anyway, for those of you feel my idea is terrible, how would you bring down costs?

[Quaker2001]

15 hours ago, Nacre said:

We will have to agree to disagree. I admit my only experience in TV has been working with the gofers on a terrible reality show. I've never been an executive at NBC. Maybe I am wrong. But I don't see how more primetime programming with half of the venues and sports to cover at any single moment would translate into less profit for broadcasters.

Has nothing to do with TV experience, although thank you to my biggest fan to point out accomplishments of mine.

Since you brought up the Super Bowl, let me pose this hypothetical to you.  Let's say instead of the usual Super Bowl Sunday, they played only half of the game one weekend and then they other half another weekend.  Would 100 million people tune in for both?  I highlight doubt it.  But by your logic, it's more programming (with only half of the game to coverage each time), so it would be more profitable.  Does that make sense to you?

Summer Olympic primetime broadcasts used to be 4 1/2 hours.  For Sydney, NBC expanded each night's primetime show to 5 hours.  They realized that was a mistake and went down to 4 for Athens.  The reason is that it was too many hours of the Olympics for everyone to consume night after night for 2 1/2 weeks.  Giving people more hours of the Olympics (and in case you hadn't noticed, there are already a ton of hours of the Olympics) is not going to get them to watch more.  I mean, I would, but then again I'm the guy watching day and night each time.  Most viewers aren't like that.  They'll watch 4 hours of Olympic coverage if you give them figure skating and alpine skiing and snowboarding and speed skating.  But that whole audience won't be there twice over to watch 8 hours if one time you're just giving them figure skating and speed skating.  And then a separate time you're giving them alpine skiing and snowboarding with no figure skating.  To say nothing of NBC's additional costs to do everything twice.  Having half the number of venues to cover each time won't help them in that regard.

[Nacre]

The Super Bowl is a single game, though. The NBA going to best of seven instead of best of five for its early playoff rounds so it has more games to televise is a better analogy.

There really isn't a paucity of sports for broadcasters to show even if they cut the games in half. The mountain sports would still have snowboarding, alpine skiing, cross country skiing, ski jumping, biathlon, Nordic combined, luge, skeleton and bobsledding. The ice rinks have ice hockey, figure skating, speed skating, short track speed skating, and curling. That's a lot of stuff to televise.

But I freely admit that I have no special business insight into how it would affect broadcasters. Perhaps I am wrong.

So if I am wrong . . . how should the IOC cut costs to the point that the Olympics become affordable again?

[Dezcrafty]

On 11/16/2018 at 3:10 AM, RuFF said:

Ooh you buried yourself there. Quaker has won a whole bunch of emmys. Haha. What a loser.

Show me.