The Anaheim City Council has assured the IOC that local venues such as Honda Center and Angel Stadium "would be available as Olympic venues" should L.A. be awarded the '24 Games, according to Scott Reid of the ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER. A Sept. 13 Anaheim City Council letter to IOC President Thomas Bach and other Anaheim documents "signal a shift" by LA 2024 from its original plan for a Games confined to the city and L.A. County to a venue plan that "has a broader footprint across the Southern California region and into Orange County." Bid cities are "scheduled to submit Stage II documents to the IOC next month." LA 2024's "initial venue plan focused on venue clusters" in the city and L.A. County. A downtown cluster "stretching from the Coliseum to LA Live would include venues for track and field, swimming, basketball and several other sports." The Anaheim documents "suggest the city would play a significant role in a revised venue plan." Meanwhile, the Rome City Council could vote as early as today to "formally end that city's bid and make it the latest major international city to reject efforts to host the Games." Hungary's National Election Committee "has until Oct. 6 to decide whether to hold a national referendum on whether Budapest should continue to pursue" the '24 Games. L.A. and Paris are the "only other cities still seeking to host the Games." The IOC will select the '24 host city on Sept. 13, 2017 in Peru (ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER, 9/22).
RIPPLE EFFECT: In L.A., David Wharton notes the effects of Rome dropping its bid on L.A. "could be sizable." Paris and L.A. "have been considered the front-runners" for the '24 Games from the start, and the "subtraction of Rome could lead to some political machinations when IOC voters cast their ballots." With one less candidate to "split the Western European vote, more support could gather behind Paris." However, that dynamic "could dissipate as the multi-round vote proceeds to its final stages." Budapest also "remains in the picture as a dark horse" (L.A. TIMES, 9/22). Meanwhile, veteran international sports marketer Patrick Nally called Rome’s departure good news for LA, because it underscores the profound challenges facing the IOC and will remind voters of the need for a drama-free Games. “My own instinct is that L.A. now clearly starts becoming by far the favorite, because it checks so many boxes to pacify a lot of the problems the IOC is facing,” said Nally, who has worked with the IOC, FIFA and numerous international federations since the '70s (Ben Fischer, Staff Writer).
HELLO? ANYONE THERE? The WALL STREET JOURNAL's Matthew Futterman wrote it is "becoming increasingly hard to find cities that actually want to host the Games." Germany "couldn't muster enough support in either Berlin or Hamburg to pursue a bid," while L.A. "subbed in for Boston, after citizens and politicians there revolted against that city's brief candidacy." This "drama was for a Summer Games." Every city was "supposed to want one of those still, or at least that's what IOC officials suggested when the competition" for the '22 Winter Games "devolved into a two city race" between Almaty, Kazakhstan, and Beijing. Oslo, Stockholm and Krakow were "among the cities that decided not to enter the fray because of financial concerns or lack of public support." The numbers associated with the Games "aren't pretty, even accounting for the infrastructure improvements that remain long after the Games are over" (WSJ.com, 9/21).
