The United States Olympic Committee has picked Boston to
make the American bid for the 2024 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Frankly, the Olympic games long ago lost their appeal for
me, except for maybe some of the track events….and I say that always hoping
there won’t be any doping, y’know?
Seriously, just think for a minute about the thrill of
watching superbly conditioned human beings doing their athletic best to excel
on the field and in the pool and so on, it’s just not there for me anymore,
there’s too much commercialism, too much deadening media coverage (“Heidi, were
you disappointed when you only won the silver medal?”) and really too much
stuff that isn’t Olympic caliber, I mean, beach volleyball, trampolinists, come
on….
The other thing is that the Olympics sucks up money. It does
not provide any net economic benefit to the country/city that hosts the games….financially,
it’s a red ink kind of thing. Sure, it’s a big deal. It costs a whole lot of
money to be the venue for that big deal.
The committee that pushed Boston as the prospective U.S.
site was completely privately sponsored. In effect, the city of Boston didn’t
ask for this. I’m guessing most Bostonians don’t want their tax dollars to be
spent for the Olympics in 2024.
If the Boston bid goes forward, the private sponsors should
pay for everything. They should own any newly constructed facilities. The mayor
and the new Massachusetts governor should get out in front on this: no tax
breaks for new construction, no eminent domain proceedings, no free police and
emergency services.
Let the Olympics fans and the private sponsors pay for the
whole shebang.
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2015
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