Conversations about facility availability between Boston 2024 and local colleges "soon will begin in earnest," according to John Powers of the BOSTON GLOBE. What UMass-Boston, Harvard, Boston Univ., Boston College, MIT, Northeastern, Tufts and UMass-Lowell "will need to know is how early and for how long they’ll have to turn over their facilities, how much they’ll be compensated for their use, and how much Olympic security, with its fences and checkpoints and guards, will restrict access and movement." The university cluster is "at the core of the Boston bid, with campus sites proposed for nearly a third of the three dozen sports, as well as for athlete and media housing." UMass-Boston "would be the location of the Olympic village." BU’s Agganis Arena "would stage the badminton competition and its student dorms would be used for media, as would Northeastern’s West Village." BC’s Conte Forum "would be the women’s basketball venue, while MIT’s Briggs Field could be utilized for archery." UMass-Lowell’s Tsongas Center "would host the boxing competition." Harvard "has been tapped for seven sports -- swimming, diving, synchronized swimming, water polo, field hockey, tennis, and fencing." University involvement, "which was one of the bid committee’s key selling points, is vital to a plan that emphasizes the use of existing or temporary facilities that are close to public transportation." For all of the local universities, the central question "is whether the benefits of hosting Olympic events outweigh the inconvenience of giving up facilities for months and rearranging schedules." While Harvard "is open to the idea of staging a significant portion of the Games, its involvement is nowhere near certain." School spokesperson Jeff Neal said Harvard "has made no decisions and given no commitments." Powers noted Atlanta and L.A. "relied heavily upon local educational institutions" for the '84 and '96 Games, respectively (BOSTON GLOBE, 3/1).
WE WANT IN! In Boston, Michael Levenson reported the proposed Boston '24 Olympics are "being pulled in every direction by local power brokers who want to share in the glory and reap what they see as the economic benefits of the Games." Mayors and business leaders "are pushing planners of the Boston Olympics to ship events to their areas, honing sales pitches that add another layer of political pressure and logistical challenges to the city’s bid." The local campaigns to lure Olympic action far from Boston "began months ago but are expected to intensify." Boston 2024 CEO Richard Davey said that the prospects "are strong for early round volleyball in Holyoke and basketball in Springfield because those cities were the birthplaces of those sports." But Levenson wrote, "Not every hamlet and hill town can host an Olympic event." Davey did acknowledge that local municipalities that do not host events "could still offer practice facilities or house teams that arrive early to train" (BOSTON GLOBE, 3/1).
