Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Some cities I think could easily be considered for the top 10:
You're obviously not a baseball fan or you'd never leave out St. Louis!
I voted Boston, NY, Philly, Chicago, and Other (St. Louis).
Some cities like St. Louis may be a Mecca for only one sport but I think the history and fan base for that one sport is so strong it has to be included in the discussion.
A place like Green Bay, though it has the same level of fan support and history, is just not a major city. Same for San Antonio in basketball.
Disagree. If you're a "sports capital", wouldn't the venues already be pretty much in place?
This goes back to the OP article and then just going with legacy sports that people are comfortable with and using that as the yardstick.
All of the cities that ever said, "Boy, we sure did dodge a bullet by not (getting picked for that convention/bullding that light rail system/agreeing to that downtown development deal/hosting the Olympics)" aren't necessarily wrong in their reasoning, but understand all of those things would almost certainly increase their stature.
So you can't have it both ways-you can be right about the reasons for not wanting it, but then can't just summarily write them off because you didn't get them.
You missunderstand me.
Any city would love the chance to host, but not every one can.
You oversimplified things. It's one thing to need a convention center or a rail line and hosting a major sporting event gives you the perfect excuse to build it.
It's a totally different thing to build massive stadiums that are just too big for your population, multiple swimming venues and housing venues that you just will never use again.
LA is large, Paris and London are the center of the universe for their countries. These Cities need fewer upgrades and they will undoubtedly use the upgrades in the future.
I am not sure how you are taking this as a slight against LA when I said LA is among a few that make it work. Here are photos of cities where things were just abandoned after the games: https://www.housebeautiful.com/lifes...lympic-venues/
SoCal has 20 million people. They will make use of whatever they build. Some places are just not that lucky.
You missunderstand me.
Any city would love the chance to host, but not every one can.
You oversimplified things. It's one thing to need a convention center or a rail line and hosting a major sporting event gives you the perfect excuse to build it.
It's a totally different thing to build massive stadiums that are just too big for your population, multiple swimming venues and housing venues that you just will never use again.
LA is large, Paris and London are the center of the universe for their countries. These Cities need fewer upgrades and they will undoubtedly use the upgrades in the future.
I am not sure how you are taking this as a slight against LA when I said LA is among a few that make it work. Here are photos of cities where things were just abandoned after the games: https://www.housebeautiful.com/lifes...lympic-venues/
SoCal has 20 million people. They will make use of whatever they build. Some places are just not that lucky.
Not as a slight against any city, but the Olympics.
There's a thread going on right now that's nearing 1000 posts that discusses Boston's comparability to Chicago.
Part of the reasoning is that Boston is the locus of an 8 million CSA.
What better way to highlight this by hosting the Olympics? You could have venues in Providence and set everything up in a way that showcases Boston as the center of a massive region (New England).
It seems like we're saying Boston's stature would be unchanged with the Olympics, I vehemently disagree.
Exactly. LA is perfect for the Olympics, because its warm without humidity and is building up their transportation system while adding a lot of stadiums. No other city really can host the Olympics in the US, at this moment. If they had chose Boston, it would have been a hot mess.
The Winter Olympics are 4x smaller, and the IOC are still having trouble selecting a bid... it got delayed a whole year, we don't even know who will be hosting it in 2030 yet.
The Olympics are terrible on the economies of the cities that build up these infrastructures and have to maintain them. I would say Atlanta benefited from hosting them a long time ago, and most of its facilities now have been moved to convention centers or still nature projects. Also, not all places in the US can support the summer sports. Is there a river good for whitewater rafting competitions? Atlanta used the Toccoa (one of the only north-flowing rivers in the world) that goes into Tennessee. Does LA have such an option, or did LA dam it all up for water and power?
My honest vote would be to move the summer Olympics, permanently, back to Greece who invented it. The Winter Olympics can then be one that travels or is a reliable location of which I wouldn't know. Not all places are good for winter sports with the right snow quality and access to important infrastructure (airport, etc.) especially since mountains themselves are very poor for city building for obvious reasons. And climate change affects the Winter Olympics much more so than Summer Olympics.
Also on a related subject outside of the Olympics, Atlanta is going to be the US Soccer HQ. So I think Atlanta, despite not having a hockey team, should definitely have more votes outside of what is on this poll.
"U.S. Soccer plans to construct the nation’s first-ever designated National Training Center in the Atlanta area funded in part by the contribution from The Home Depot co-founder and Atlanta United owner. The facility will serve as headquarters for the U.S. Soccer Federation, creating a central hub for the entire soccer community, including coaches and referees, to access best-in-class training, technology and infrastructure to promote successful and sustainable playing environments throughout the country. For players, the National Training Center will provide the best environment, guaranteeing uninterrupted access to elite infrastructure for training, development, recovery and performance analysis – cultivating expertise and excellence in the sport on an international level.
While the National Training Center will be utilized by all 27 of U.S. Soccer’s National Teams, part of Blank’s contribution will specifically go towards the construction of facilities for U.S. Soccer’s nine Extended National Teams (ENTs), particularly in support of the Cerebral Palsy (CP), Deaf, and Power Soccer National Teams, including thoughtful design of locker rooms and training facilities to maximize accessibility for players."
Not as a slight against any city, but the Olympics.
There's a thread going on right now that's nearing 1000 posts that discusses Boston's comparability to Chicago.
Part of the reasoning is that Boston is the locus of an 8 million CSA.
What better way to highlight this by hosting the Olympics? You could have venues in Providence and set everything up in a way that showcases Boston as the center of a massive region (New England).
It seems like we're saying Boston's stature would be unchanged with the Olympics, I vehemently disagree.
Yeah, I think it would undoubtedly help Boston's international recognition. No, Boston is not Sochi or Turin - places most people outside of the region wouldn't know of it it weren't for the Olympics. But it's also not Tokyo, London, LA, or even Berlin - a place that most people around the world know of. It's probably in a similar position to Oslo, Atlanta, Barcelona, Montreal, Vancouver, etc. All cities that are known, but had their status boosted by being Olympic hosts.
To be fair, Boston's fairly well known in major world cities. Especially in places that are players in tech, healthcare, finance, etc. And you can go to remote parts of the world where people will know of and associate Boston with Harvard, MIT, and often one or a number of its sports teams. But hosting the Olympics would definitely expand Boston's recognition and association beyond Harvard/MIT and sports. It would arguably do more for places like Portland, Providence, Newport, etc. which would almost certainly go from places people haven't heard of to on the radar. Whether it would generate enough of a sustained economic impact to justify the billions in investment and disruption is another story.
You missunderstand me.
Any city would love the chance to host, but not every one can.
You oversimplified things. It's one thing to need a convention center or a rail line and hosting a major sporting event gives you the perfect excuse to build it.
It's a totally different thing to build massive stadiums that are just too big for your population, multiple swimming venues and housing venues that you just will never use again.
LA is large, Paris and London are the center of the universe for their countries. These Cities need fewer upgrades and they will undoubtedly use the upgrades in the future.
I am not sure how you are taking this as a slight against LA when I said LA is among a few that make it work. Here are photos of cities where things were just abandoned after the games: https://www.housebeautiful.com/lifes...lympic-venues/
SoCal has 20 million people. They will make use of whatever they build. Some places are just not that lucky.
Agree and the pictures in the link are depressing and beautiful (in the deconstructive and urban decay way, how very early Aughts iD magazine.) at once.
LA is large, Paris and London are the center of the universe for their countries. These Cities need fewer upgrades and they will undoubtedly use the upgrades in the future.
So one might think, but London actually built mostly new facilities and lots of temporary facilities. They spent a LOT of money to host the games. Way more than LA will. I'm not as sure about Paris but it looks like they have lots of what they need as well and aren't spending as much as London, which went through a once-in-a-lifetime type of regeneration.
Spending a few billion to build one stadium that will be put to frequent use is always a big controversy everywhere in the US. Building multiple ones that will sit idle is political suicide.
Qatar spent 220 Billion building 8 venues and a new city for the world cup. US leaders can only dream of getting away with that here. Now the Qataris are downsizing some stadiums and wondering what they are to do with others after spending a quarter of a TRILLION on one event.
To put that in perspective Qatar's GDP is 180B. That's 40B less than they spent on the WC. To make it even worse 7.5B in revenue was made from the games, of which Qatar received 1.56B. This folly would never fly here. It just doesn't make economic sense.
My honest vote would be to move the summer Olympics, permanently, back to Greece who invented it.
Greece/Athens can't support the modern Olympics. Aren't most of the facilities that they built in disrepair and examples of why smaller economies can't afford the Olympics? Like many cities they bet heavily on tourism increases that never materialized.
Spending a few billion to build one stadium that will be put to frequent use is always a big controversy everywhere in the US. Building multiple ones that will sit idle is political suicide.
Qatar spent 220 Billion building 8 venues and a new city for the world cup. US leaders can only dream of getting away with that here. Now the Qataris are downsizing some stadiums and wondering what they are to do with others after spending a quarter of a TRILLION on one event.
To put that in perspective Qatar's GDP is 180B. That's 40B less than they spent on the WC. To make it even worse 7.5B in revenue was made from the games, of which Qatar received 1.56B. This folly would never fly here. It just doesn't make economic sense.
We're getting off topic but to add to that I was watching a YouTube soccer show and the guys were in Qatar and said that the new city looks like a ghost town. The idea was that people would view Qatar as the next Dubai and that the super rich would move there and so far that's not happening at all.
Also, in that same region Saudi Arabia's new soccer league where they spent billions getting top players has few fans outside of a couple of teams and many games are in front of a couple thousand or even a few hundred fans. The top games only draw about 20,000 fans in stadiums that hold 3 times that number.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
