By Scotty Schenck, news correspondent
The Olympic torch has been passed from country to country. Boston is one of the cities in the US being considered for the 2024 bid that would be presented to the International Olympics Committee in 2017. Other American cities that have been short-listed by the committee include Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington.
While some Bostonians take pride in the prospect of hosting the Olympics, not everyone agrees. A nonprofit, grassroots organization called No Boston Olympics is working to make sure that Boston won’t end up hosting the Games.
Although some believe hosting the Olympics will bring increased tourism and an economic boom to host cities, Chris Dempsey, co-chair of No Boston Olympics, said this is false. Instead, he thinks the event will put massive strain on the economy of the city that tries to host the Olympics.
“Olympics do not create economic benefits,” Dempsey said. “Study after study by independent economists have found that there’s really no real long-term impact of hosting the Games, and in the short-term, what Olympics do is they actually displace economic activity that otherwise would have occurred.”
Dempsey not only sees hosting the Olympic Games as not having economic benefits but also sees them as having large costs and, in the end, bringing damage to the economies of the cities in which they are held.
“We see huge opportunity costs in hosting the Games. We see the fact that you would have our civic agenda essentially hijacked to focus on a three-week part in the year 2024 as an immense distraction from much more important priorities like education, health care, fixing our basic transportation infrastructure,” Dempsey said. “All the things that we want our civic leaders and our elected officials to be focused, the things we vote them into office to do, they won’t be focused on because they’ll be focused on throwing this big party.”
No Boston Olympics’ co-chairs recently sent a letter to the United States Olympic Committee, with a list of grievances about the proposal to hold the Olympics in Boston.
“We are great admirers of our Olympic athletes, and we respect the efforts of the USOC to advance the Olympic spirit,” the letter said. “Choosing Boston as the sole US finalist for 2024 will threaten those efforts by relying on a bid that requires building a new Olympic stadium, velodrome, aquatics center and Olympic Village – all from scratch.”
However, not everyone agrees with No Boston Olympics. In fact, Boston 2024, the committee working to secure the City of Boston the Olympic bid and prepare for the proposed Games, refutes Dempsey’s argument that hosting the Olympics would spell disaster for Boston.
“The opportunity to host the Summer Olympics in Boston presents a unique chance for business, civic and political leaders to have a robust conversation about urban planning to decide what we want the city and the region to look like in the coming decades,” a Boston 2024 press statement said on Nov. 12. “The planning and execution of the Games would complement and bolster long-term transportation, infrastructure and economic development needs and serve as a catalyst for much-needed improvement projects already in the works.”
The Boston 2024 website also said that the Olympic Games do not rely on government spending, stating: “fact: The Games are not dependent on government funding. The only public investment will be in roadway, transportation and infrastructure improvements, most of which are already in the planning stages and are needed with or without the Olympics.”
However, Dempsey said that similar promises were made in Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympics, when a private investor said it would build the Olympic Village but then backed out, leaving the Canadian taxpayers on the hook for millions. A story by the CBC News reported that the Millennium Development Corporation pulled the project due to an economic downturn. They also reported that the cost to build this affordable housing was $110 million, an amount that was eventually charged to taxpayers after the corporation was unable to complete the project.
The Boston 2024 website linked to a “Special Commission Report” about the feasibility of the Olympic Games being held in Boston. However, this report, which includes a section entitled “Olympics Budgeting and Finance Strategy,” does not list an estimated figure.
“Olympics are incredibly expensive,” Dempsey said. “The average [cost] of the last four Summer Olympic Games is actually $19 billion. This clocks in at roughly seven times the City of Boston’s annual budget, which was $2.6 billion in 2014.
Over the past 18 years, the price of the Olympic Games has steadily risen. ABC News reported the cost for the Atlanta Summer Olympics in 1996 as approximately $2 billion. In 2002, CNBC reported that the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics cost $2 billion. The Wall Street Journal reported that China estimated the Beijing Olympics in 2008 to cost $40 billion and the reported cost of the Sochi Winter Olympics was approximately $50 billion.
This is not to say that Olympic Games never turn a profit, however. According to China Daily, the Beijing Olympics made a profit of $146 million, roughly 3.3 percent of all of the costs.
Most American-hosted Olympic Games have been able to create profits, but they have used millions of dollars in taxpayer money. A Huffington Post report states that the Atlanta Olympics made a profit of $10 million. However, ABC News reported that an estimated $609 million of federal funds was used to cover the cost of the games, most of which came from taxation. The Salt Lake City Olympics saw a similar effect, where $609 million of federal funds was required, according to Marketplace World. CNBC stated that a $100 million profit was claimed by organizers. The 1980 Lake Placid Olympics was the most recent American-held Olympic Games where there was a deficit – $8.5 million – and the New York State government had to intervene to stop financial devastation, according to CNBC.
“At the end of the day, what the [International Olympic Committee (IOC)] is conducting is an auction…that’s going to go to the bidder that bids the highest,” Dempsey said.
Dempsey said that these costs are created by boosters, who create extravagant plans and raise the costs of the games to entice the IOC to take their bid for the Olympic Games and leave taxpayers with the bill.
Finnegan Distinguished Professor of Economics James Kwoka says that Boston may not be the ideal city for the Olympics because it is constrained by geography, and making venues for athletes would cost more than if other cities were to do the same. Furthermore, he said many businesses in areas that held the Games in previous years reported business disruptions.
“Economists are skeptical at the value of these things,” Kwoka said. “You tend to discover that [the benefits] do not measure up.”
Kwoka also said that benefits accrued due to the Games come with stolen business from other local events. He said that some information about new roads and transportation attributed solely to the Games is misleading. He also said that the pride people associate with hosting the Olympics perpetuates this flawed economic view.
“People view having Olympics as having an enduring tourist value,” Kwoka said.
Kwoka said that one way to solve this infrastructure dilemma would be to cycle between three to five cities that would already have the infrastructure built. This would stop the continual infrastructure building costs in different cities for each Olympic event.
Northeastern students spoke differently on the benefits and disadvantages to an Olympic-friendly infrastructure.
Sophomore physical therapy major Jess Rihm said she would rather see the money go to help nonprofit organizations that aid refugees, homeless persons and veterans or other humanitarian efforts.
“The money is there but would probably be better put elsewhere,” Rihm said. “You have everyone lacking the necessities while you’re building infrastructure like that.”
Not all students are opposed, however. Junior accounting major Jonathan Letts said that there are economic benefits, but Boston is not in the right position to reap those benefits.
“There are a lot of places in this country that could be benefitted from [sic] the infrastructure boost,” Letts said. He also said that without growth to accompany the infrastructure boost, the Games would leave citizens with billions of dollars invested in buildings and no one to fill them.
“The economy here is doing well, but this would not benefit [Boston] in the long term or the short term,” he said.
Boston University (BU) professor at the Pardee School of Global Studies Joseph Wippl said he believes that the Olympics could bring good things to Boston.
“Boston already gets a lot of tourism, but if it had the Olympics it would encourage more,” Wippl said. According to Wippl, it would modernize transportation for the city, but there would also have to be heavy organizational support.
“It would have to be a major effort of improving the infrastructure,” Wippl said.
As a graduate student at the University of Minnesota, Wippl conducted research in Munich from 1970 to 1971. He said he saw firsthand the infrastructure and growth of the city during that period, preparing for the 1972 Summer Olympics. He described them as “the most successful Olympics in modern times.”
Wippl also said that he saw massive changes to the city’s transportation, such as the creation of the S-Bahn, an electric rail transit system that extends to several cities outside of Munich, and a subway system for inside the city.
“Those Olympics made Munich into a world city,” Wippl said.
As far as a message goes, No Boston Olympics’ website states its own concisely: “Boston is one of the great cities on the earth, and we don’t need rings to prove it.”
Photo courtesy Calvin James, Creative Commons
