Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti spent the morning of Sept. 1 at City Hall, watching City Council debate legislative procedure and the budget of a possible Los Angeles Olympics. An hour after Council approved the bid, he walked onto the Santa Monica beach and pleaded to the world in three languages for the right to host the 2024 Summer Games.
During that 17-mile mayoral drive west, the Los Angeles 2024 bid pivoted abruptly from a details-oriented local debate to a global branding campaign that organizers hope to sustain up until the final vote in September 2017.
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USOC’s Scott Blackmun and Mayor Eric Garcetti
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES
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“This is a quest Los Angeles was made for,” Garcetti said, letting the sun-drenched beach speak for itself. “If the Olympic movement decided to build a brand new city that was founded on its ideals of pluralism, competition and harmony, they would have to build Los Angeles. But fortunately we’re already here.”
For much of 2015, the U.S. Olympic movement fought a rear-guard action against politicians, economists and activists over virtually every detail of the failed Boston bid. But with minimal opposition in Los Angeles, bid organizers are free to focus on the “story,” a crucial factor on the international stage.
“It’s probably a lot more important than you might think,” said Michael Payne, a former International Olympic Committee marketing chief who advised the successful London 2012 and Rio 2016 bids but is neutral in the 2024 race.
That’s because the final vote usually comes down to cities that have already demonstrated a basic capacity to host, Payne said, leaving voters to decide based on softer questions like “vision,” “Games concept” and “legacy” (all mandatory components of a bid). London won over voters on its pledge to rejuvenate an entire generation, while Rio convinced voters that South America was overdue to host the Games.
“Chicago had no narrative,” Payne said. “Chicago was just a straight-forward technical plan with a somewhat insular political outlook. So if I was advising Los Angeles, I’d say, what you want to do as a priority is: Identify what is your narrative and what is your story.”
The official announcement provided a glimpse into Los Angeles’ story, one that’s heavy on Hollywood, sports enthusiasm, weather and diversity. The city’s creative forces behind the entertainment industry would help inspire a new generation of athletes, Garcetti said. He also mentioned the 39 countries whose largest community of ex-patriots live in Los Angeles and the 200 languages spoken in the city.
“You see on the streets of our city the face of the world,” Garcetti said. “Those visitors that would come here in 2024 would feel at home and every athlete would have a home-field advantage in Los Angeles.”
Boston bid leaders made similarly broad pronouncements in their early days, but the message often was lost amid unanswered questions about venues and land use.
A day after the announcement, Los Angeles bid leaders also took a step to nationalize the bid by releasing a supportive comment from the White House, a step experts say is crucial to building support. (A poll during the Boston effort showed that Americans in general are eager to host the Olympics, even if particular cities are doubtful.)
Terrence Burns, managing director of Teneo Strategy and an Olympic bid expert, said it’s important for an Olympic hopeful to always keep an eye on the global competition even while addressing the local details.
“Because in today’s world, there is no such thing as a local message and an international message,” Burns said. “They’re all the same, they really are.”
