OT: Brisbane to host 2032 Summer Olympics
I'm trying to remember the last time a city/metro area this small hosted the Summer games? Montreal in 76, Munich in 72 maybe.
This is cool. I forgot Paris & LA got them, then Australia in '32.
I have my Apple Maps voice set to an Austrailian accent. The place & people fascinate me for some reason. Esp. Perth.
Never been but would love to take the wife. Have heard amazing things and have some friends who went in our youth that still have friends there now and have returned several times since, they just can’t get enough. That’s sort of how wife and I felt in Ireland on our honeymoon. Wanted to move there but my profession makes it hard to leave the US and get work immediately at a viable pay scale
It's always seemed like California with accents. So I've never had any desire to go there. It's never seemed different / exotic enough to be worth the trip for me.
Australia is nothing like California, but ok.
Death Valley, maybe. California is very diverse. You can go surfing in the morning and skiing in the afternoon.
Australia isn't all desert. The east coast (where most people live) gets a good amount of rain.
My colleague is from Australia. I know a little about it as a result. Most people in California live along the coast because the southern part is desert-like.
The east coast of Australia is something more like the Southeast here. Sydney gets pretty humid.
The south/west of Australia (Perth, Adelaide) is more like California climate-wise. That’s their wine country.
Sydney is much much drier than the southeast though. And you can snowboard in Australia. My friend did it. People are down voting the poster who said it's like CA with different accents, but he's actually pretty accurate IMO, especially when you consider you could go somewhere like Thailand or Bali or the Philippines going that far. Being in Korea, Australia still isn't close, way more expensive than other places, and far less distant culturally from us. Think of it this way, if you had to rank countries by how similar they are to California, what ranks closer than Australia? Again, not knocking anyone for going or loving it, and that doesn't mean it actually isn't different from CA, of course it is. Everyone says good things, but I still haven't gone for those reasons. If I want adventure I can go to nearby countries. When I'm more willing to spend money and go somewhere more developed, I'd rather go to Europe, but that's just me.
Not really true. The wife and I have been all over Australia, in many places not even Aussies have been.
Perth and the areas south in Western Australia are very similar to SoCal, but going back 60+ years. (We live in SoCal) I'm guessing you haven't been to the west of Australia since you obviously live in California.
I've been to 50+ countries, and Australia remains my favorite country.
This is a good analogy. Brisbane/Gold Coast kind of remind me of what SoCal was like 30-40 years ago. Two big differences is they drive on the left and you get sun rises not sunsets.
It’s a long flight but if you can upgrade for a lay flat bed it’s quite manageable.
If you go to Australia try and hit Tasmania, it’s beautiful and they have some of the best whisky the world.
I've had the opportunity to work with folks from all over the world and Australians are pretty much at the top of the list. And their culture and topography strike me as being dissimilar to California.
I don't think your description is accurate at all, but doesn't "California with accents" sound pretty cool?
There are plenty of accents as it is in California ?
So put another way, you've never actually been there, have some unfounded and uneducated presuppositions about the place, and therefore have no desire to visit. Flawless logic.
Perth is the bomb. One of my favorite port calls.
Worked with a guy from there many years ago. He loved it.
Out of curiosity, does anyone know how Olympic bidding works in countries with strong subnational units of government? I'll use the United States and the 2036 Olympics as my hypothetical. Dallas decides wants to host. Who puts forward the bid? Does Dallas make its bid? Or does Texas or the USOC do it on behalf of Dallas?
AFAIK, the city is responsible, with local governing bodies (state, USOC) assisting with support.
I know for Atlanta it all started with Billy Payne. It was his idea and he brought in former mayor (and UN ambassador) Andy Young. They traveled all over the world for a few years pitching Atlanta.
Probably talking out of turn here, but I'm guessing the USOC either canvasses cities for a possible bid or the cities reach out to the USOC. The USOC then works with the cities to prepare a bid. I'm guessing a lot of this is making them understand how much this will cost and having a good feel for what facilities are needed. I also sense the Americans don't bid internationally if they don't sense they have a pretty good shot to win--they probably passed completely on 2032 since LA is hosting in 2028.
At some point in the process the USOC has to select one US city, if multiple want to bid, to represent the Committee towards the IOC. I'm not sure if this is voted on or if they just force other cities to bow out.
That’s correct and I should’ve added that to my comment. For the 1996 games the USOC voted and Atlanta won against a few other cities. I think Minneapolis was one of them.
So if I understand you and M Go Cue correctly, the process really runs through USOC. Cities have to take the initiative, but the USOC acts as a gatekeeper. If multiple cities express interest, the USOC effectively conducts its own prebid process before selecting a finalist. I would assume that the process works similarly in other countries.
Yeah, I think that’s right. Then after the USOC makes their US pick, the city’s committee takes it to the International Olympic Committee.
Yes, the USOC submits the official U.S. bid to the IOC. Incidentally, there was a time when the USOC was betting hard on Detroit. The city came extremely close to winning the bid to the 1968 Games.
I think it fair to say that the USOC expects to be on the receiving end of the bribes, along with the international selection committee. That’s why cities ‘represent’ themselves.
This will never happen because the corrupt money that exists in the bidding process, but there really should be just one host city per continent and they rotate amongst each other. It would be much better for the cities that host, and it would kick out a lot of the corruption.
North America: Los Angeles
South America: Rio
Europe: London
Asia: Tokyo
Australia: Sydney or Melbourne
Africa: By just economic standards it would be South Africa, but there goes all that anti-corruption talk. Maybe Senegal?
Plus, you'd do away with the massive amounts of infrastructure waste when they construct these additional facilities and then never use them again.
It would be almost 3 decades before the games returned to any of those cities. In addition, the majority of the facilities constructed for the games would have most likely been torn down by the time they returned. What city will pay to maintain that many facilities, which are built much larger than needed, for almost 3 decades?
The reason for choosing those cities in particular (and they they have been chosen recently) is because they need almost no infrastructure to be built specifically for the Olympics (not sure if Rio qualifies for this, however). The reason for doing it this way would be exactly for the reason you're suggesting.
Surely maintaining costs less than building new. And they may not have a choice. Fewer and fewer cities are bidding. The IOC was pleading for someone besides China to take the upcoming Winter Olympics since they just did it there fairly recently. Cities and countries are tired of spending a fortune on infrastructure for one-time use. Also, per the terms of the contract, Japan doesn't even have the authority to cancel their Olympics, which is insane. That could make future potential hosts even more cautious.
Surely maintaining costs less than building new
It's better to not have to do either.
Say I'm a Rio resident and my city signs on to this plan. Rio hosted the Olympics in 2016, so the next time in the rotation is what, 2036? And then 2056, 2076 and 2096?
Four more Olympics! Sounds awesome until you remember that this is about eight total weeks of competition the rest of the century. For that, my tax reais go to keeping up a bunch of natatoriums, softball fields, taekwondo arenas, rowing venues and all that other crap until the end of time. That is a brutal cost-benefit exchange.
I'd rather have the city rip the band-aid off and sell those places to developers, who can build something of use on those sites instead.
I think the real solution is to award the Olympics to countries instead of cities. Spread the cost out. Why did London and Paris need to be separate Olympic hosts? The UK and France could have split the thing.
But the facilities can be used at other times. And if they'll be maintained they'll attract talent. Facilities get used it's just often not worth it when you're not considering the Olympics again.
But I do think spreading it out is also fine. Doesn't need to be different countries even. Could be a country or region. Like instead of NYC it could be spread throughout the northeast corridor. Certainly would be easier in places with good train and bus systems.
Yes, but much of the infrastructure is non-Olympic. Highways, rail, and airports top the list. You have arenas and stadiums, but they are multi purpose for soccer, football, basketball, etc. And the Olympic Village too, but the units are converted to apartments later.
Many of the venues like pools and velodromes these days are temporary and dismantled following the Olympics.
I will say I lived in Atlanta at the time and while I enjoyed the events, it had all the charm of a flea market. The street vendors made it very tacky. They couldn't even get athletes to the competitions on time.
This would make too much sense. But yeah, a lot of people involved in the bidding process would be out jobs and we couldn't have that.
Corruption in SA?! Never...
The corruption is the whole point of the Olympics. The IOC makes FIFA and the NCAA look ethical.
Does it need to be rotated around the continents? The facilities would be in use once every 20 years. That might be worse than now from a financial standpoint, as cities could not convert their white-elephant venues for other purposes, but instead would have to maintain them in that state for their turn in the rotation (or else build new venues every 20 years).
They should just have one permanent host city. Building all this stuff might make sense if it's used every four years. Athens would be a sentimental choice, if the Greek economy can handle it.
Like I said above - the reason for choosing these cities is because they don't need to build for the Olympics or maintain for the Olympics, they're already doing that for the other uses. LA didn't build SoFi stadium for the Olympics and it will be kept up by the Rams and Chargers (really the Rams) in the interim.
That might be true for Los Angeles, but for Rio? The hypothetical African host city? Building venues is only part of the issue. You also have to find a use for them after the Games are over.
To date, the cities that have not suffered too much financially from hosting have managed to repurpose their venues for other things, or constructed some of them on the cheap and dismantled them. London converted its Olympic stadium into a soccer venue, turned its Olympic village into public housing, and made some of its other venues temporary and took them down. London has managed to repurposed most of its Olympic park, but that also means that it's not ready to host the Olympics again.
This suggestion would require a bunch of sports arenas to never be repurposed and sit idly for 20 years at a time. That would be a very poor use of resources, spending millions in annual upkeep of arenas that are used once a generation. (If they don't spend much on their upkeep they can watch them slowly rot away.).
If a city needs to keep a whole Olympic complex intact permanently, it really should host every four years to offset that expense.
One permanent host would be great for that country. Bidding would be fierce I bet. Not sure why you don't think Rio could handle it. It's just as large a population as LA in the metro area. Sao Paulo is actually much bigger than either metro region and only 6 hours by car according to Google maps.
Corruption is bad. Having 5 countries monopolize hosting is also bad.
What's the point of hosting? To provide a good experience for the event, fans and athletes? Or to give an economic boost to some city? A handful of cities are just very easily able to host the Olympics and most are not.
To give the public massive debt to inflate the egos of useless aristocrats.
30% chance someone in the Olympic Village gets eaten by a spider or snake. Their deadly animals have been on steroids for centuries.
But it'll be winter in Brisbane when the Summer Olympics are being played. How is that gonna work?
July average H/L temps: 69/51
August: 72/53
Seems quite pleasant there that time of year. Weather is quite similar to Los Angeles except "winter" (northern hemisphere summer) is also Brisbane's dry season which also works in the Olympics favor.
Sydney hosted the 2000 Olympics in September (their late winter/early spring) and it wasn't a problem. It should be even less of an issue in Brisbane, which is closer to the equator.
Thanks. My post was actually in jest, but I guess that didn't come across clearly.
Lol the whole of Australia is gonna be a desert by 2032, good luck with that.