should Boston even be considering hosting the Olympics..??

Yes 100% absolutely. I think the city would be perfect for it. With all of the colleges in the city, so much of the infrastructure is already there. Very few cities in the US or world are more passionate about sports.

President Elizabeth Warren could help by providing Boston with a $100B stimulus grant.

The infrastructure is there but would need significant upgrades. A new Olympic stauidum would need to be built, along with aquatic center. significant upgrades to public transport. Estimates put the price between 8-10 billion. if the olympic committee can raise 10 billion of private funds, I am all for it.

NO

If they spread the stadiums and venues out like LA it might work.

I sort of like what Oslo did and just bail on the whole idea of hosting an Olympics. I'm not sure any city should try to host an Olympics. But Boston has as good a case for hosting one as any other US city does.

I think a city should only host the Olympics if it can actually make good post-event use of any development projects and infrastructure improvements. If NYC built a few thousand hotel rooms/units of housing and added a subway line in order to host the Olympics, those things would be very useful to the city after the completion of the games. If most other cities do the same, they will just have an unused subway line and a bunch of vacant housing and hotel rooms after the games.

I also think a city should be selected that doesn't require much new construction to begin with. A large city will already have dozens of venues of various types. Why pick a place where you have to build a ton of new venues that will all sit empty after the games?

I think a city like NYC is best. Most of the venues needed already exist and any additional infrastructure/real estate development will be used after the games. Not sure if Boston is really in the same position.

I think Boston would be perfectly capable of holding an Olympics without all kinds of new facilities. The problem is the absurd bloat that's come along over the years, that we certainly shouldn't be paying for in this city. If the IOC insists that cities waste billions building stadiums that'll just rot after the games, then we shouldn't bid, and hopefully the IOC starts to get the message.

I'm pretty sure we're still paying for The Big Dig. So no thanks.

Freelove wrote:

I think Boston would be perfectly capable of holding an Olympics without all kinds of new facilities. The problem is the absurd bloat that's come along over the years, that we certainly shouldn't be paying for in this city. If the IOC insists that cities waste billions building stadiums that'll just rot after the games, then we shouldn't bid, and hopefully the IOC starts to get the message.

You don't have a stadium for hosting the Opening/Closing ceremonies and the track and field events. Maybe Gillette for the ceremonies, but where do you hold the track and field events?

NYC same thing. Where do you hold the track and field events? Is GIants Stadium your opening closing/ceremony stadium even though it's in New Jersey?

MeHereYouWhere?! wrote:

You don't have a stadium for hosting the Opening/Closing ceremonies and the track and field events. Maybe Gillette for the ceremonies, but where do you hold the track and field events?

NYC same thing. Where do you hold the track and field events? Is GIants Stadium your opening closing/ceremony stadium even though it's in New Jersey?

Giants Stadium no longer exists. It was demolished in 2010.

The NFL teams now play at MetLife Stadium which is right next to where the old Giant Stadium used to be.

None of the US cities that are considering bids have adequate stadiums. All of them will need to build and that to me is wasted money for a facility that will be unused or underused ever after. That's why I think it's time for the Olympics to have a permanent site, or maybe multiple rotating sites, with previously existing facilities. But then IOC officials would no longer be bribed by cities wanting to host the Games and that's why I think it was great that Oslo told them to stuff it.

Slight Change wrote:

Giants Stadium no longer exists. It was demolished in 2010.

The NFL teams now play at MetLife Stadium which is right next to where the old Giant Stadium used to be.

I meant MetLife Stadium. I still call it Giants Stadium even though they demolished that one. How about I refer to it as New Giants Stadium?

What if we did away with having cities host, and made it countrywide instead?

In the US for example, you could have track at Stanford/Drake/Whatever, swimming somewhere else, rowing in Boston, gymnastics somewhere, etc. etc.

No need for new facilities, maybe just freshen some up. It would make things easier.

That idea has been advanced before in other forms. The counter argument has been that the Olympic Ideal involves athletes from all over the world coming together which isn't going to happen nearly as much if you've got sports happening hundreds or thousands of miles apart.

HRE wrote:

None of the US cities that are considering bids have adequate stadiums. All of them will need to build and that to me is wasted money for a facility that will be unused or underused ever after. That's why I think it's time for the Olympics to have a permanent site, or maybe multiple rotating sites, with previously existing facilities. But then IOC officials would no longer be bribed by cities wanting to host the Games and that's why I think it was great that Oslo told them to stuff it.

I would beg to differ here in that a DC stadium wouldn't actually be used. It is pretty common knowledge that 1. The Redskins are looking to leave their current stadium when (if not before) the lease expires and 2. DC Olympic Committee officials have thought of the idea of an Olympic Stadium then turning it over to the Redskins and 3. Several members of DC council really want the Redskins back in DC (although with the new mayor, this may be change)

I'm sure Dan Snyder, the owner of the Redskins, loves this idea. DC Olympic Committee would spend public (taxpayer) dollars for the stadium, use it and then basically give it to Snyder (maybe make him pay for whatever renovations are needed). Synder then sells the the entire FedEx field site that he owns (parking and stadium) to a developer for a pretty penny since it's inside the Beltway. Win-win for Snyder.

Convincing the residents of DC of this plan may be a hard sell after the Nationals Park fiasco ($600 million, all taxpayer money).

Boston might make sense, but I don't think the politics would work out.

If Harvard/MIT/BU/BC or any of the local universities with enormous endowments partnered up they could update their own facilities with the help of public funds. Harvard has an aging swim center, and a huge endowment - I don't see why they couldn't build the aquatic center and then make use of it post-Olympics.

I don't know how far the athletes village normally is, but Fort Devens has a lot of space that could be torn down, then rebuilt...

There is also talk of a new Revolution stadium that could possibly be partnered up with the Kraft group and then scaled down after the Olympics.

...eh, whatever. It's not going to happen.

Didn't know that DC was one of the cities considering a bid. This plan certainly adds up; a guy with massive wealth gets something that makes him even wealthier paid for by the public.

br0ski wrote:

Estimates put the price between 8-10 billion.

So we are talking about 30-35 billion?