While S.F. Organizers Praise '24 Games Bid, Opponents Question Benefits Of Hosting

Organizers for S.F.’s bid for the ’24 Olympics said that the Games would not only “further elevate” the city’s standing as being among the world’s greatest, but they would “fast-track public projects that would benefit Bay Area residents for decades,” according to a front-page piece by Almond & Emmons of the SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS. Skeptics “ridicule such pronouncements as grandiose and roll their eyes at the organizers’ estimation that the Olympics could be staged” for $4.6B with “virtually no public funding.” S.F. organizing committee member Steve Strandberg said, “Our mantra really is, ‘Can we host an Olympics and leave the Bay Area better off for having done that?’ If we can’t, you should hold us to the standard. That’s what we think about every day as we lay out our plans.” Almond & Emmons note economists believe cities “often gloss over the actual costs when highlighting potential benefits.” Smith College professor Andrew Zimbalist said, “There have been a few cases where the Games were done properly, and all the stars aligned, and there ended up being some modest benefit. But in most cases, it doesn’t happen.” However, Strandberg said that economists’ contentions are “overblown.” He said, “It’s not relevant to include Games that were put on by sovereign states like Russia or China and compare them to how you would do something in the United States. We’d never look at the Chinese economic system or the Russian political system and say, ‘That’s how we do it here.’ So why would we assume that is how we would do an Olympic Games here?” (SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS, 1/7).

ALL ABOARD? In S.F., Coté & Lagos write the city’s bid, which “calls for concentrating most venues within the city and sprinkling others throughout the Bay Area, has also generated complaints from some residents about congestion and costs.” The city’s “notoriously fractious politics are also a point of concern.” Figures on the political left “warn the Olympics will only exacerbate eviction pressures in San Francisco and have vowed to take ‘political action’ to prevent public money from being used to host the Games.” USOC officials said that they have “conducted detailed polling in potential host cities to gauge local support.” Coté & Lagos note S.F. has “come up short four times before in efforts to host the Olympics.” Some observers, though, see the city’s “natural beauty, cultural cachet and thriving tech environment stacking up well against” an int’l field that may include Rome, Paris, Budapest and Istanbul (S.F. CHRONICLE, 1/7).