No agony of defeat in canceled Olympics bid
With the possible exception of a sports team that rises from the ash heap to championship contention, it takes time to get the public excited about something to a level where it can generate and sustain widespread support.
Perhaps given a longer time frame, Boston would still be in the hunt to host the 2024 Summer Olympic Games. But even though the Boston organizers were still in the first half of a two-year-long contest to win the bid, the U.S. Olympic Committee shortened the game and pronounced the equivalent of a “two-minute warning” last month to Gov. Charlie Baker and Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh: Commit to the effort — including a guarantee to use public money to pay for cost overruns — or the game is over.
Fortunately, Walsh refused to play when he announced last week that he wouldn't sign on and “mortgage” the city, even though he enthusiastically supported the bid for the games. Baker, for his part, wasn't going to do the dance with the USOC either until he was satisfied that the state wouldn't suffer a similar fate. (His report from a consulting group is several weeks from completion.) Both leaders deserve commendation for acting responsibly on behalf of their respective taxpayers.
Perhaps the global exposure in hosting the world's athletes for two or three weeks would have generated a long-term economic boost and accelerated a long-delayed improvement in our transportation infrastructure — even in Central Massachusetts. But the effort generated much more skepticism and hard questions that, without adequate answers, failed to win significant public backing. The fact that the advocacy group Boston 2024 significantly modified its original plan in favor of a new one in June further stalled any momentum the effort might have generated. According to monthly polls by radio station WBUR and MassInc, only 42 percent of residents statewide supported the effort. In the Boston area, support was even lower, at 40 percent, down from a high of 51 percent in a January poll.
So, the USOC will look elsewhere, likely Los Angeles, in search for a U.S. representative bid. Los Angeles may be the right choice, just 31 years after it hosted the 1984 Games, which turned a profit and did not need city money to pay for cost overruns. At least LA has an infrastructure advantage out of the gate.
Massachusetts, with its globally recognized colleges and innovation culture, would have made a worthy Olympic host. And Central Massachusetts would have received some of that activity with handball events at the DCU Center. But as support waned over the last several months, it became clear that hosting the games would not have been necessary to enhance the region's economic and cultural vitality — especially if the financial outcome were to have been similar to the multibillion-dollar deficits created in recent Olympic Games.
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