On Monday, during what was supposed to be a solidifying hearing for 2024 Olympic bid in front of the Boston City Council, USOC and IOC member Angela Ruggiero reopened a supposedly closed discussion with a single candid remark.
“There’s no guarantee that Boston will be the city in September,” Ruggiero told the City Council, in reference to which city (if any) the United States Olympic Committee will endorse as its bid for the 2024 Summer Games. “Right now we need the strong support of Boston, but the USOC is in the phase where we’re hand-in-hand, we’re partnering. We want Boston to succeed, so we’re doing everything possible.”
It seemingly brought back to life an issue that USOC CEO Scott Blackmun had gone out of his way to deny vehemently earlier in May (and continues to do so), that somehow Los Angeles was preparing an Olympic plan to take over as the 2024 bid should Boston falter.
The fact is, this isn’t news.
If you really think that Boston’s meagerly supported Olympic bid was somehow a slam dunk, you’re obtuse.
Regardless of what Blackmun has been practically screaming for weeks about supporting Boston to the end, the USOC will never move forward with a bid that has less than half of the city’s population in their corner.
As history as proven on countless occasions, the thing that the International Olympic Committee fears to an infinitely higher degree than cost overruns is low public approval. This was showcased in London, where initially lower public approval was the number one fear in the city’s bid. And it also helps to explain why London eventually beat New York, whose own 2012 bid yielded an even lower approval rating. (Note: Both of those supposedly “low” polling numbers still far outstripped the current Boston 2024 numbers).
The IOC’s bid evaluation focus on several factors, with “public support” being specifically identified as a main category.
At the last WBUR poll, only 40 percent of the Boston area supported the bid. It was a 4 percent increase over the previous month, but the uptick was actually within the poll’s margin of error, calling into doubt any improvement.
In other words: It would be the first time in recent history that an Olympic bid went to the IOC without an established majority support among the local population.
Does that sound like a guaranteed bid? Of course not, because it would be a foolish venture for the USOC in those circumstances. Only if they can coax an improvement in the polling will Boston 2024 actually make it to the IOC’s official “Candidature Phase.”
As for the Boston Herald’s report that Los Angeles is ready and willing to step in should Boston 2024 falter, that’s an even more foolish notion than Boston’s bid going forward without a majority backing.
Even if the rumors are true and Los Angeles was able to rapidly reopen their defunct bid, would it truly stand a chance on the international stage after it already failed once? The USOC, lest anyone forget, already decided against the L.A. bid in January. Why would notoriously fickle and selective IOC voters feel any differently when given even more ambitious choices like Paris and Rome?
Image via Boston 2024
