NBC Chicago aired a “documentary” on the 2016 Olympic bid tonight, “Making Big Plans: The Story of Chicago’s Olympic Dreams.” The film was made by Mark Mitten, who was the Chief Brand Officer of the 2016 Committee, and Jim Schmidt, a creative director for Downtown Partners/Chicago – which did marketing work for the bid. WATCH …
Frank Deford has covered sports for major media outlets for decades. He does a weekly op-ed piece on NPR. Today he commented on the coats of mega-events, such as the Olympics and the World Cup.
“…as Vancouver goes about the nasty business of trying to pay off this winter’s Olympics, and as we approach the World Cup and South Africa sees its bill soar toward $5 billion, it’s worth reminding cities and countries that think they can be the apple of the world’s eye just by hosting a sports spectacular, that there are only two words you can be guaranteed will always highlight every Olympics and every World Cup nowadays, and those are: over budget.”
Frank, we could’ve used your voice last year. Oh well, we’ll remember what you said the next time an American mayor trots out the lies and exaggerations to justify their city’s Olympic bid.
The February 2010 issue of the American Planning Association’s magazine, Planning, gives a brief postmortem on the 2016 bid. The article asks the questions that no one in Chicago seemingly wants to face:
“What does a city gain, or lose, by hosting the Olympics? Did Chicago lose? Or did it win?” The author then goes on to tell his readers what No Games Chicago had been saying all along:
“Unfortunately, hosting the Games gets no medals as an urban development strategy. Host efforts tend to be over promised and underfunded, and seldom achieve the goals local organizers set out.” Download the full article.
Aren’t there some members of the American Planning Association in Chicago? Where were they when the bid was being proposed and marketed to the citizens of Chicago and the rest of Illinois?
Although No Games Chicago was the only source of research, data and community input critical of the 2016 bid there was a startling lack of interest by the local media on just who we were and why we were opposing the bid.
Months later, this short but lively profile of No Games organizer and spokesperson Francesca Rodriguez appeared in the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy’s newsletter.
“It completely eclipsed my life,” said Rodriquez of the whirlwind experience. “It was such a polarizing issue. If I told people I worked in this protest, they would look at me like I said something blasphemous.” But Rodriquez emerged armed with tangible community organizing and communications skills, equipping her just in time for her foray into formal public policy studies.”
From the Canadian Press:
A preliminary report estimates that hosting the 2010 Olympics cost Vancouver over a half a billion dollars.
The report will be presented to city council next week and suggests the lion’s share of the costs went to venues and local infrastructure improvements. The bottom line doesn’t include the cost to the city of taking over the $1 billion Olympic athletes village project.
Vancouver never had an omnibus budget for Olympic costs, though it earmarked $20 million to cover items like city celebrations and decorations.
The full cost of hosting the Games for the city is actually over $700 million, but was partly financed through contributions from the provincial and federal governments.
The report is expected to be made public, but an early copy was provided and publicized by a local rights advocate.
Thank you, No Games Chicago.
Chris Shaw is a professor at the University of British Columbia. He has been one of Canada’s leading anti-games activists. He started his opposition to the 2010 Vancouver games in September of 2002. Here is an excerpt from a column he recently published, “Eight billion dollars got Canadians high on the Olympics. Was it money …
This comment was posted to an anti-war email list that we subscribe to. Our discussions about the Olympics were mooted by events, but in case you are still dreaming about what might-have-been I quote below part of an email I received today from a former student who know lives in Canada (by “former student” don’t …
As the 2010 Olympics wind down in Vancouver, commentators and sports fans will be reviewing the footage and sorting through the performances, includng the death of one athlete. But here’s one statistic that will likely haunt the citizens there for some time to come – one billion. That’s how much debt the city is facing …
OK. it’s been a few months since Chicago lost its bid to host the 2016 Olympics. We asked you what should we do now, if anything. 567 of you took the time to take the online survey. Right after the October 2 decision most of the key organizers inside No Games were exhausted and returned …
Check out this video from activists in Vancouver. It gives you a taste of what Chicago was in for had we got the 2016 Olympics…