Miraculously, the Globe has agreed to publish a column opposing the idea of Boston hosting the 2024 Olympics. (It wasn’t front-page above-the-fold like Shirley Leung’s pro-Olympics column yesterday, but we’ll take it). It’s authored by our old friend Conor Yunits and Chris Dempsey, who jointly chair an operation called “No Boston Olympics.” The column poses this excellent query about the dream of a modernized MBTA.
Supporters will tell you that it’s not an either/or scenario — that the Olympics will finally push us to invest in our crumbling infrastructure, particularly our public transit system. Everyone shares that same goal. Greater Boston’s MBTA and roads are desperately overdue for an upgrade, but that’s an investment that should be made regardless of whether Boston hosts the Olympics. What would it say about us as a city if we only commit to fixing our infrastructure because we made promises to the International Olympic Committee, a shadowy organization with a history of corruption?
Exactly. And then there’s that pesky question of the experience of other cities.
Boosters argue that the Olympics will be an economic boon to Boston, and that costs will be born by the private sector. This is the same tired rhetoric that was pitched in Athens, Vancouver, and London. Similar promises were made in each of those cities, but in every case the public was left on the hook for billions of dollars in overruns, one-time security costs, and ongoing maintenance. Those dollars could instead go to education or job training or social services. They could be reinvested in neighborhoods in need of help, and expand economic opportunities for communities of color. Funds could be set aside for urban planning competitions that reward innovative designs for middle-class housing, or hack-a-thons searching for clever technology solutions that improve civic services. Whatever our priorities, it’s clear that $15 billion, the average cost of a summer games, could be better spent on other things.
Actually, according to a Globe piece from a year ago, the cost is likely to be more like $25 billion, roughly two-thirds of the entire state’s annual budget. Is there even a remotely plausible scenario in which that kind of expenditure doesn’t result in higher taxes? I can’t imagine what it would be.
And let’s be clear: there are lots of things I’m happy to pay taxes to support. Putting on the Olympics is emphatically not among them.
In a related story, Howie Carr has weighed in on this topic. And a lot of what he says seems basically on target. Yikes.
The Olympics possibly coming to Boston in 2024? This is the best idea since the Big Dig! … Granted, Boston is but one of four U.S. cities lining up to get fleeced big-time, but it’s never too early to panic when you see a giant monetary asteroid headed your way….
Of course state government can handle a project of this magnitude! Look at the Probation Department, or the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority. Consider what a splendid job the Massachusetts Gaming Commission is doing with casinos, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health did with the Framingham pharmacy responsible for that meningitis outbreak that killed 64 people, the same DPH is doing rolling out medical pot shops …
[Suffolk Construction CEO John] Fish and the rest of the Paul Guzzi-like cheerleaders are going to tell all us marks how much money this will produce for the state. Oh sure, like the 2004 Democratic National Convention. How much did you make off that one? The Boston Olympics — what could possibly go wrong?
I’m not slamming the door on the idea of a Boston Olympics (yet). But (a) the fact that the head of a big Boston construction firm is leading the charge for a 2024 Games strikes me as suspicious at best, and (b) when I find myself agreeing with Howie Carr on a lot of stuff, the alarm bells start to go off.
… It seems to be of the singular mind that, well, the Olympics would be fine if we could do them right, but there’s no possible way we could do them rightly…
And, however circular that reasoning, there is merit to it, if past history has any input there are, indeed, problems to be addressed and, as presently stands, those problems might well be insurmountable.
But we also have ten years and some of the best minds on the planet to put to it. And we also have history upon which to draw, that can help point to when/if the effort is going astray.
So I think the question is, can it be done right? I don’t think that has been answered.
Another issue not tackled directly is stewardship. Quoth Howie Car:
The Big Dig was, in fact, a good idea that was laid at the feet of Childe William of Weld, who, with the help of Charlie Baker, turned it into, more or less, an administrative jenga pile from which all kinds of boondoggle cash was created, ejected, leaked and, frankly, stolen… So, yeah, if Charlie Baker becomes the next Governor of the CommonWealth, and potentially so for the next 8 or even 12 years, forgetaboutit. Who’s going to lead the CommonWealth over the next 4, 8 or even 12 years is going to be, in the face of a possible Olympics bid, of paramount importance.
I’m not particularly concerned that one of the biggest contractors in the state is looking to the Olympics. Who else? Just as long as they remember that they are, presently, one of the biggest contractors in the state because one of the previous large contractors, Modern Continental, went under because of the shenanigans of the Big Dig. Some enterprising State House Rep should begin lobbying now for increased watchdog powers and perhaps bonds or some form of heavy surety that would, if shenanigans, result in the state coming down upon any construction firm with a most deleterious and righteous smite…
I think that everything that everyone worries about could come true. But I also think we could head these things off, that there is enough time and the presence of an adult in charge would be the first step.
this question is the key. Who pays for the upgrades? The cost overruns? I don’t mind hosting the Olympics. I mind the state and local taxpayers paying to host the party.
But who pays(6+ / 0-) View voters
It’s difficult to call it the key question when you don’t even include a question mark =-)
Who pays for upgrades to begin with? Who says that cost overruns are inevitable?
If we wanted to have a city/state worthy of holding an Olympics, regardless of whether or not we DO host the Olympics, we’ll have to upgrade. If your argument is that we’ll never get there, well then go ahead and make that argument.
If we want to do ANYTHING, whether it be Olympics or fund the local dogcatcher, we ought to concern ourselves with cost overruns. I don’t think the fear of cost overruns should rule us here… no more than in it should in any civic endeavor, or any size…
No Olympics has actually broken even for its city in a very long time. You would have to be incredibly naive to believe that Boston would be the exception.
In any case, none of the boosters of this idea have the slightest idea how much it would really cost and how it would be paid for. If someone want so to come forward with an actual plan and budget, then at least we would have something to debate.
I find it really hard not believe the process is inherently corrupt when it is being driven by a large construction company that would reap huge profits if it were to come to pass.
Yes, this is a Commonwealth — but you aren’t answering the question. From what budget will the funds come? Will that preclude spending on other priorities, or will it require additional revenue? What is the source, and how will the tax bills be spread?
And if there are cost overruns, who pays for those?
My argument is most certainly “that we’ll never get there.” I didn’t make an argument. I asked a single, simple question with a complex answer that we deserve to have before we decide whether or not an Olympic Games in Boston is a good idea or not.
And so, I ask again: who pays for this thing?
… whoever pays for any public improvement. All the questions of who pays for what, whether there be cost overruns or anything of the sort are questions we should ask prior to implementing ANY public improvement of ANY kind for ANY reason.
The questions you ask are not particular to the olympics. Therefore, they should not be used, in particular, to say no to the olympics.
but we do have a pretty solid understanding of who pays for our current projects. We also have a pretty solid understanding of what the current projects are and who benefits from those projects.
We have no idea what the new projects would be, nor who would benefit them. Equating annual bridge work to building a velodrome or annual affordable housing work to building an Olympic Village is nonsense. The public benefits of Olympic expenditures are likely to be significantly different than the public benefits of current expenditures, and therefore warrant additional scrutiny.
… but excluding Sochi, which seems to have been Vladimir Putins pet target for the extra billions Russia doesn’t have, we ought to have some idea of the costs and the benefits. We should be able to put together a comprehensive roadmap for private-public funding based upon successes and failures of past olympics.
I understand what you say about comparing public housing to olympic villages, etc. but we are talking about some clear infrastructure spending, like the MBTA, that we ought to be able to put a price upon. I think we can, in very short order, put a definitive pricetag on how to fix the MBTA (if we have’d come up with that pricetag already…) I say we can go ahead with that and, should those improvements not align with the particular needs of the Olympics, then we don’t do the Olympics. If they do so align, that’s one hurdle we’ve hurdled… on to the next.
That’s precisely my point. Let’s have some specific discussions of what MBTA infrastructure would be upgraded, what it would cost, and from where the revenue would come.
Here’s the sticky bit: without knowing where the Olympic Village would go, where the stadiums would be, etc., it’s impossible to know what parts of the MBTA would need to be upgraded in the first place.
Again, the MBTA upgrades can be a limiting factor. If we can’t site the stadia in a way that fits with (more or less) the existing MBTA then it’s probably a non-starter. I think an Olympic village could be sited anywhere and a temporary 24-hour bus service can be run back and forth for the duration. I don’t think we need to run the green line right up to each and every athletes door… (I’m not saying your suggesting that…. ) Or, as I mentioned some months ago, don’t even build an Olympic Village: anchor 3 or 4 cruise ships in the harbor for the duration and use those… When the Olympics are over they sail away and leave nothing but ripples behind: no need to build plumbing, HVAC, shelters that are just going to be torn down… ship it in and, when done, ship it out.
than it cuts out one of the arguments for hosting the Olympics — that we’ll get some sorely needed infrastructure upgrades!
I don’t disagree with you that some cruise ships and some buses could go a long way, but that’s kind of my point — if that is the transportation plan, then let’s talk about that now because it’s one less reason for folks on the fence like me to support the Olympics in Boston!
Let’s stop the vague hand waving about infrastructure benefits. Tell us exactly what those improvements will be if you want to make that argument and be taken seriously. And also tell us why we can’t have those same improvements without the Olympics.
It is not perfectly clear that bringing the Olympics here would be an overall public benefit regardless of how it is paid for. This is not like paying to fix the roads or improve subway service. The cost *has* to be part of the discussion along with any potential benefits or potential harmful effects.
Opposition is centered around A) cost and B) disruption (and not just for 3 weeks in one summer, but for years of construction projects that will be dedicated to 3 weeks in one summer).
“Can it be done right?” is another question that’s been asked, but if we could answer the issues of cost and disruption satisfactorily, then “Can it be done right?” would be something we could figure out.
But we’re not going to figure out cost and disruption. Disruption is maybe something that we could just live with, if enough people really, really wanted it… but a $15-30 billion price tag isn’t.
This argument is undeniably true. But it’s also a bit of a fantasy, because we all the know the dollars won’t be spent that way.
I’m reminded of Billy Bragg, introducing his song “The Space Race Is Over,” and quoting the argument that money spent exploring space should have been spent down here.
“That money would have been spent in Vietnam,” Billy said.
Beacon Hill could swing wildly if the right person or two ended up in charge. Not saying that’s likely. But possible.
We saw Deval Patrick’s income tax plan that would have invested tremendously in education in a way that would have only really hit the top 20% go down in flames, but we saw casinos go down in flames a year, then win with a giant majority with a new Speaker one year later.
If a Speaker, Senate President and Governor were willing to raise taxes to pay for needed services at the same time, it would happen. We will eventually get there, too, it’s just taking some time.
Carr’s argument is that government would do the Olympics wrong, same way they would do baking regulation wrong, or health care wrong. Better to have government do nothing.
One reality is that governments often don’t make the hard calls, and invest in their polity without a strong incentive. Most politicians (like Steve Grossman) would rather gloss through the status quo, move a couple prepositions and pennies around, and claim leadership. Either it takes a crisis or external pressure to make big changes, and the Olympics would be one such.
We could say that we don’t need the Olympics to spur real upgrades to the T, but the Green Line has been a Third World system for decades (okay, not really — much of the Third World has superior systems). I’d rather have needed improvements because of the Olympics over not have them at all, hoping we would.
That should read banking regulation. However, I imagine Mr. Carr wouldn’t trust government to mess with flour either.
1) Don’t count on any favorite proposed upgrades on the MBTA actually happening. Boston could win a Olympics making all the promises in the world, then not deliver.
2) Real progress has been made. Not as fast as we’d like, of course, but I’d like to point out to Green Line expansions currently underway and a New Bedford rail extension far enough along in the process that it would be very difficult for it to not happen at this point.
Therefore, I challenge the notion that it would take some big crisis-like event to get something done on infrastructure.
3) You know what could really stop investments on infrastructure? An Olympics sized budgetary crisis that hampers this region for decades. Under those circumstances, entire stations could be shut down and forget having adequately maintained systems or future expansions.
We should never let Boston sign on the bottom line to ever having an Olympics without guarantees that this could be funded without compromising the system or putting it at risk of bankruptcy.
1) I disagree. Should Boston win the Olympics, it wouldn’t follow through on all its promises — no city ever does. But it would need a way to get people from the airport to the city. It’s the top infrastructure problem in Boston right now.
2) That’s your counterexample? How long has it taken to get South Coast rail? Twenty years to get through an obvious idea? Woo-freakin-hoo.
3) Boston would be able to pass most of the bill on to the feds, the way London and Beijing did. And Athens, to a degree.
Boston is too small to host a summer Olympics due to logistical concerns. But I don’t understand why some people are determined to make Boston seem smaller than that.
I’ve heard smart, reliable people make claims all over the map with respect to this claim. Some say the Feds only do security. Others claim that they’ll include funding for upgrades in traditional spending bills. I’ve heard some claim that there’d be a specific appropriation for the Olympics. It gets back to my question above: who pays?
“The feds” is also us. It’s more of us, but it’s still us.
We get less than $1.00 in federal spending for every $1 we put in. Massachusetts has paid plenty for the roads, airports, and housing in other places.
My bet is that Massachusetts would get more than $0.02 in benefits from every $1.00 in federal investment. Since roughly speaking, $1.00 in federal expenditure includes two cents of MA money, that’s the right economic equation from a state perspective. So, while the Fed money isn’t free, it’s $98 in other-states-money for every $2 of ours, and I’ll gladly build lots of things for that kind of cost ratio in my community.
Whoever you can get to pay for it, simply.
The feds paid for most of SLC2002, the last American Olympics.
Security is a huge chunk, and that goes to the feds. But keep in mind, in the current age where security spending is sacrosanct, this includes “upgrades” to facilities to make them safer. You can get a lot under that umbrella. Upgrades on federal highway systems, transportation networks go to the feds as well.
When the time crunch comes — and it always does — the feds step up to make sure the Olympics come through. Because though the city’s name is on it, the country is implicated. I think few people saw the London Olympics and said “sure, that’s a sign of how London does business, but you couldn’t get me near Birmingham with a free trip.” Fact is, it’s the host nation’s flag on everything and the host nation doesn’t want to look bad.
Not to say that Mass. wouldn’t be paying for some stuff. But with a smart sponsorship approach, it would have a reasonable bill.
It appears to me that the “upgrades” we got with all that federal “security” spending was a passel of very expensive electronic “No Smoking” signs. The closest they come to “security” is to include “If you see something, say something” in their insipid message rotation. When we DID have a major security incident (the marathon bombing), the entire array of fancy signs was made moot by the government’s decision to simply lock down the city and close the MBTA.
As much as I opposed that strategy (and still do), if that’s the plan then all those signs really are just a waste of money.
Oh, and don’t forget the large number of fancy trash cans we got. I feel much safer knowing that those evil terrorists won’t be able to kill me by blowing up a nearby trash can.
I think this is a terrible and stupid idea that is a colossal waste of money even in the best case. While we’re analyzing the fiscal history of US cities who succeeded in hosting the Olympics (it strikes me that Atlanta is the closest match to Boston), let’s not forget to also include the experiences of cities that tried and failed.
Analyzing this proposal without including the cost of failed attempts is like analyzing playing the Lottery as an investment strategy and looking only at Lottery winners.
They paid for half, which is much different than most.
They also paid for half when the games cost less and less security was needed, and for what has been historically the cheaper of the two varieties of Olympics.
It was also in a very different political climate and only happened because salt lake had to be bailed out.
It is extremely doubtful the feds will pay for “most” of a Boston Olympics. Historically, we’d be very lucky to get half and could get barely nothing. We’d also quite potentially be relying on a recalcitrant congress, full of tea partiers, going for a Boston Olympics.
In the past, we had a congress and government that wouldn’t want to embarrass itself on a world wide stage. The Tea Party Mary just love that opportunity – and with the government shut downs and what not, we should take that threat seriously.
.
According to the report that was posted by David earlier in the week:
(Page 23.).
It can happen…
Not even close. Yes, it could always be better, but we have two tunnels that can take cars, taxis and buses to and from the airport plus the blue line and silver lines plus a ferry. Most cities put their major airports far out in the suburbs resulting in a long trip from the airport. This is not a credible problem.
The fact that you bring this up, only makes me even more concerned about how Olympic infrastructure money would be spent.
We don’t need more ways to get to and from the airport. We need more ways for people who live here to get around the city and to commute to and from work. The lack of fast public transportation from many underserved parts of the city and surrounding communities to where jobs are makes it harder for people to take advantage of employment opportunities. I really don’t see any Olympic infrastructure projects addressing those types of problems at all.
And there is a real risk that the money that goes into Olympics projects would prevent money from being spent in other important areas.
While I think the Olympics probably would be cool, it is very clear it would primarily be a big party for the affluent.
The so called “Big Dig” was conceived and implemented because, back in the 90’s, somebody ran some studies predicting that by, 2010, the city would face 16 hours of stopped traffic daily. They did not mean cumulative traffic stoppage. They meant any random automobile would expect, by 2010, to be stuck in traffic for 16 hours on any given workday.
The ‘Big Dig’ was, as conceived, a good idea. One of the things it did was separate traffic going to the airport from traffic in and around the city…
However, as executed the ‘Big Dig’ was excrable. Truly, truly, dismal. A horrid wretched mess. So bad, in fact, that it has become a byword for what not to do. And so pervasive is this view that all public works over a certain scale are recoiled at… and, strangely enough (or not…), good ideas aren’t in fact good enough. It is mirrored, in the Olympics, by the cautionary tales told of Sochi and Beijing and Greece. But we would be doing it for different reasons that China and Russia and we are decidedly more economically healthy than Greece. We’re more like London than like Athens…
So I say dig big. Learn the lessons of the Big Dig and do more, but do it good. Do we need the impetus of the Olympics to do it? I truly don’t think so. I think we could do it as is. But I also like the idea of the Olympics. London has shown that it can mostly pay for itself so any real objection is just mystifying to me. And for a sports mad town like Boston to shut the door to an Olympics without even trying seems somehow wrong..
The Big Dig was needed because:
1. As you suggested, the existing highway would paralyze the city.
2. The existing highway was falling down. You neglected to mention that.
3. Rebuilding the existing highway (to solve 2) would do nothing to solve (1). You neglected to mention that.
4. Rebuilding the existing highway would have taken longer and cost more than the Big Dig. You neglected to mention that.
5. Each alternative (several were considered) would have taken longer and cost more than the Big Dig — right-of-way acquisition is exorbitantly expensive in rural areas with no buildings. Try and imagine would it would have cost to acquire space for an 8-lane highway with access ramps in downtown Boston. You neglected to mention that.
I think you are dreadfully, horribly, and utterly mistaken when you opine that “it has become a byword for what not to do”, or that it was a “horrid wretched mess”.
Yes, it was corrupt. I think its worth pointing out that an enormous share of that corruption occurred while the GOP held the corner office, and was a direct result of no-bid and similar sweetheart contracts. Governor William Weld, in particular, pretty much sold us all down the river during his desire to build corporate support for his nascent presidential bid. And let’s not forget that Charlie Baker came up with the “creative” financial “solution” that has destroyed the MBTA.
As corrupt as it was, it was absolutely necessary and anyone familiar with the alternatives would make exactly the same choice today, even if the actual costs were known (although I would hope the overhead of the excessive corruption could be avoided).
The enormous distinction between the Olympics and the Big Dig is that the latter was absolutely unavoidable. There was no choice and no alternative. That, alone, had a great deal to do with the unhappily large amount of corruption involved. The Olympics, in stark contrast, are totally voluntary.
It is hard for me to imagine a proposal more wrong-headed, foolhardy, and literally insane than to suggest that Massachusetts should — today — bid for the Olympics. It would make more sense to cash the however-many billion dollars into one-dollar bills, stack them into piles, soak them with gasoline, and burn them to provide heat and light for the poor.
This proposal is insane.
a better city for decades or centuries.
The Olympics are a big party for 3 weeks in one summer.
Priorities, people.
“Boston could win a Olympics making all the promises in the world, then not deliver.” This is true. Recall Bejing’s promise to clean up their air (well, to as clean as Paris). They did take drastic steps like banning private cars, but they would have had to do without electricity, too, because ofall the coal-fired generating plants. In the end, they missed the goal.
Me agreeing with Howie Carr? Wow, maybe we can resolve Israel/Palestine and why not Iraq, too? Seriously, hosting the Olympics is a very bad idea. We can’t even do a health-care website, or constitute a Gambling Commission free of conflicts, so forget a Big Dig II, er Olympics. Of course, out here on the Western frontier we never benefited from Big Dig I; we just didn’t get any road or bridge work done for a decade or so. The Olympics would be more of the same. Boston is a very small city; let the Londons, Tokyos, Parises, and New Yorks bear the cost of an Olympics. Right now, we have the Red Sox and Casinos to worry about, and this summer that’s enough.
I actually think it might be fun. Crazy, insane, and probably corrupt, but fun.
But I have one condition. The increased costs must be born by the wealthy — the very boosters of the olympics must pay for it. If this is actually the only way we can get the Commonwealth to invest in an updated transit system, tens of thousands of units of housing, and the infrastructure to match, I could live with it, because it’s clear this legislature has no interest in that kind of thing otherwise. Implement the Patrick tax plan: decrease the sales tax, increase the income tax, increase the exemptions… Do that, and I can live with the construction headache for 8 years.
Just do me one other favor. Build the f’ing velodrome somewhere far away. Like… Delaware… Who needs it?
the money will *never* materialize.
Even if the federal government will subsidize us 50% — and that’s fairly generous compared to US history (not unprecedented, but more than average) — we’ll have a price tag of about $12-15 billion.
Then let’s remember that we may need to depend on a Republican Congress and possibly even President to get that much help — and a lot of those Republicans would love to watch a Boston Summer Olympics be a disaster.
Counting on the feds kicking in half seems stupid to me, not something we should enter into without real guarantees.
So, we’re talking anywhere from $12 to $30 billion. That’s like a whole new Big Dig and maybe bigger.
That’s maybe acceptable if 100% of it were going to things the state desperately needs — public transit expansion, new roads and bridges, clean energy and, most importantly, aid to schools — but only a fraction of that money would be dedicated to a fraction of those causes.
Even when that money is going toward those things, it will be going toward them in ways that would be good for 3 weeks in one summer, not for residents and workers everyday.
Then there’s the billions that will be spent on infrastructure projects that will amount to little more than blight the day after the Olympics, most especially a track and field stadium this city would have no need for, but would cost $1+ billion to build.
The worst is the $4+ billion (and likely a lot more than 4) that would be spent on security — money that will build nothing and doesn’t reflect the real costs in terms of the very real disruption it will cause. That’s unacceptable.
I’d love to have a celebration of all things Boston and Massachusetts, and I love the Summer Olympics… but not one that costs us at least $15 billion.
Hell, this city has barely been willing to fund First Night — and running First Night for an entire decade would cost pocket change compared to a Boston Olympics.
Where are you getting these figures from? I prefer discussion over “slamming the door” on ideas based on nothing but made-up figures.
Atlanta built a track-and-field stadium nobody needs…and turned it into a baseball stadium. LA turned theirs into a football stadium. Montreal turned their velodrome into a biosphere.
There are smart ways to do this. It helps nobody to pretend otherwise.
The biosphere was built for the World’s Fair, not the Olympics. The velodrome became a biodome.
As for the Olympic stadium,
Montreal is not, overall, a good example of doing it the smart way.
And yes, Montreal is the worst, absolute worst example of financing. I lived there for six years, I know that it left construction bills.
It also left a legacy and self-image of Montreal as a world-class city. It led to a real national awakening in Quebec. This is all something Boston claims to want, but doesn’t seem interested in actually making happen.
Whatever is meant by “world-class city,” I think Boston is already widely thought of as one. Getting back to Atlanta, is it now considered a WCC? Outside of Montreal (which I never thought of as a backwater), what other cities have assumed the mantle of WCC as a result of hosting an Olympics? The only examples I can think of either already were WCCs, or are still nowhere.
They did. and it was publicly financed to the tune of $239 million…and the Braves are leaving in 2017 and the stadium will likely be imploded.
The Braves played Georgia like a fiddle. The stadium isn’t the problem, the team is.
because of one: Aaron Hernandez.
You can’t just build a stadium that no one actually needed for anything else, and then complain when it turns out to be true.
Even more so here in Boston. There is absolutely no demand for a large stadium here.
The stadium was a huge hindrance to that neighborhood. Now that it’s gone, there’s going to be a ton of development there.
Done before… I’ve posted links on that in the past, not doing it again. A rough outline: LA got very, very little… Atlanta got a lot more, but considerably less than half. Utah ended up being bailed out to the point where it did get roughly half, but was a winter Olympics and happened in a different political climate.
As for cost… we know how much these bids are going for. They’re eye popping numbers.
Bear in mind the Olympics were cheaper when the US last hosted, before post 9/11 era security costs and before you had countries like China and Russia willing to dump money for prestige, without worry of democratic backlash.
Beijing cost $35 billion or so. Russia $50. Not linking it – on phone – but it would be a quick Google search to confirm. London was a “cheaper” $15-20, much of which went into security (over $4 billion), but had the infrastructure, many Olympic facilities and hotels we don’t… and would have to build.
We couldn’t put on a $15-20 billion Olympics if we wanted – not in today’s security era and not in a way that could win a competitive bid, and not with such a corrupt and greedy IOC. Ours will have to cost more than London by necessity (and with inflation), making a $25-30 billion bid very realistic if we want to enter that race to the bottom. There’s a reason why our commission looking into a Boston Olympics won’t release a cost figure ballpark… and that’s it. They know it will instantly end any discussion of a Boston Olympics.
According to the UK government, the total, overall cost of the London 2012 Olympics was 8.9 b pounds which, as of today, is 15 billion US (I have no idea, nor any desire, to look at what that was in 2012…). According to the same article the subsidiary ‘game time’ operational costs were 3 billion, 2.2 billion of which were accounted for privately by such things as ticket sales, sponsorship, merchandise and the IOC. All of this was, actually, below the 9.3 B (pounds) budget. The winding down and follow on activities of converting some of the Olympic venues and removing the temporary will eat up most of the surplus and they expect to break even overall.
Maybe. Maybe not. I’m not convinced it would be $15B. I think we should set a ceiling of 10 to 12 B and submit that. If the IOC doesn’t go for it… eh… we tried. I’d like to see the Olympics come to Boston but I’m not going to mortgage the tiara to do so. I don’t see why we can’t get creative and get the cost down… it doesn’t have to go up up up…
Don’t bid if it isn’t serious. And between over a decade of inflation and the fact that we aren’t innately as ready, infrastructurally, as London means that, yes, we can say with certainty the Olympics will cost billions and billions more for us than London – at least a bid that could have some small chance to win.
Why the hell not? The Yankees spent more than that on Jacoby Ellsberry. Are we going to spend tens of millions of dollars in another comprehensive look at the city and the surrounding area? One not specifically directed at Olympics?
I didn’t think so.
I suppose, too, that we could go through Big Papi’s couch cushions looking for the spare 6-8 mil it’s gonna take to do this.
There is efficacy to the process. We can identify weaknesses. We can identify, definitively, that we are not able to handle the Olympics (if in fact we are not able to handle the Olympics…) You’re going to balk at 10 mil?
but those tens of millions also represent money that would have otherwise gone to something else. Our budget is not so filled with fat that having to come up with $40-60 million on an Olympic feasibility study and official wine-and-dine bid won’t hurt some marginalized group that doesn’t have the same clout as the head of the city’s largest construction firm.
The Yankees spent private money on Mr. Ellsberry (whoever that is). We are discussing spending public money here.
As long as we’re talking about absurd sports spending, I think it’s absurd that a region that is prosperous enough to spend what the Boston area spends on professional sports then watches our rail system rust, corrode, and fail because “we can’t afford it”.
To even contemplate a taxpayer-funded bid for yet more sports-related spending while we’re still starving our public transportation system is insultingly stupid.
It was as I described in my rough outline: LA got almost nothing, Atlanta got some, but less than half … and Utah got bailed out with half, in a day and age when the Olympics cost less.
We shouldn’t expect the feds to kick in that much today, though. Not with republicans in congress and not with these astronomical costs today.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=95650
One: I think the ‘astronomical costs’ aren’t as astronomical as you think. I think the presence, in the data of Beijing in 2008 and Sochi in 2014, inflate our perceptions of what it costs. I think the overall Greek dissaster in 2004 likewise inflates the perceptions. I think security costs are slightly higher than pre-9/11 games but I’m not sure by that much.
Two: it appears, to this reader anyways, as though you view the money spent as, merely, shovelled into a pit without any recoup whatsoever. The actual two weeks of the Olympics, it seems clear, pay for themselves… and the costs are infrastructure in the run up to the games. The prevailing theory is that we can put on a great games and emerge with a better infrastructure. Personally, I would have not problem with no Olympics and yet building a great infrastructure. I rather think, however, that no Olympics would leave us, more likely, with so-so infrastructure and the occasional panic into better infrastructure when the odd bridge collapses or a tunnel floods…
The question is, are we going to spend a deliberate 10 billion dollars on a deliberate, overall attempt, to make a better city? Can we do that absent the impetus an Olympic games would bring? I’d like to think we can. But, if that’s so… why not just do the Olympics anyways?
than Beijing or Sochi will have considerably costs.
London was a ‘moderately priced’ Olympics that cost $15 billion.
We won’t be able to spend less than that even to have a conservative games, not when London had a lot of Olympic caliber venues and infrastructure ready to go that we’d need to build.
Sadly, a lot of venues in Boston just wouldn’t be Olympic caliber, if we have them at all.
You’re just wrong on this. The security costs in London alone were almost as much as the Atlanta games cost in total.
London spent over a billion and a half on that security (I gave a higher figure in a post above because I didn’t realize the 1.6 billion they spent had already been converted — my apologies).
We’d be fools to think we could spend anything less than that + inflation on security. London had tens of thousands of security personnel for the Olympics… and so would we in Boston. I would hate to see the incredible disruption and economic damage that would cause in and of itself.
Plus, the IOC isn’t going to go for a $5 or $10 billion games if some country is willing to drop $30 or $50 billion on it — if there was even the possibility that we could meet all the criteria wed need at a sub $10 billion cost.
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