Pittsburgh among cities invited to bid for 2024 Summer Olympics (York: home, closing)

[airwave09]

Yes, the hotel room issue is a complete non-starter. Also, if a new Olympic stadium has to be built due to an inability to retrofit Heinz Field for the task... that's another nearly impossible roadblock. Where are they going to put a new 100,000 seat stadium and not have it sit empty for eternity thereafter? Hmmm... let me guess, in Schenley park so Pitt can fill it up after the games are over right? LMAO!!!

Literally the only long term benefit that I could see this having for the region (if by some miracle it were to actually occur), would be a completely revamped public transit system. But oh... how great a benefit if would be! A light rail extension to the airport would be all but guaranteed. I also believe that a spur to the Southside and East End would have to happen. You are not going to be moving that many people around on port authority buses alone.

Can't forget about Amtrak either, instead of a cancelled Pennsylvanian how about upgraded HSR route direct to the Megalopolis? Obama already has the Keystone line on his future HSR map, and you can bet the farm that an Olympic bid would push it right to the front of the list of priority routes.

Best case scenario for Pittsburgh is to have the city leadership play hardball and pull out all of the stops to get a bid, lock in the deals for major transportation upgrades from the feds as well as the state (get shovels in the ground), and then not get chosen by the IOC.

[SteelCityRising]

How long before those still clinging to the albatross that was the Civic Arena chime in proclaiming it would have been a great Olympic venue?

[hnsq]

Originally Posted by UKyank

Montreal 1976 - $2 Billion Loss

Los Angeles 1984- $250 million Profit

Seoul 1988 - $300 million Profit

Barcelona 1992 - $5 million Profit

Atlanta 1996 - $10 million Profit

Sydney 2000 - Breakeven

Salt Lake City 2002 - $101 million Profit

Athens 2004 - $15 billion Loss

Beijing 2008 - $146 million Profit

Vancouver 2010 - Breakeven

London 2012 - Breakeven

All profits in the millions, all losses in the billions. Do you really want to risk a multi billion dollar loss? I sure don't.

Originally Posted by MathmanMathman

Ok, fine, cite Atlanta.

I fully agree that there were a select few cities who benefited financially from the Olympics (ignoring the nationalized debt incurred, which profit figures ignore), but the facts are very clear that the fast majority of cities who host the Olympics go millions if not billions of dollars in debt just to have the pride to say "we hosted the Olympics". Are you seriously willing to take the chance of billions of dollars of future tax revenue for the city just to hope that Pittsburgh is one of the few exceptions who makes money?

Personally, I have more compassion for the city's residents than that.

[UKyank]

Originally Posted by hnsq

All profits in the millions, all losses in the billions. Do you really want to risk a multi billion dollar loss? I sure don't.

I fully agree that there were a select few cities who benefited financially from the Olympics (ignoring the nationalized debt incurred, which profit figures ignore), but the facts are very clear that the fast majority of cities who host the Olympics go millions if not billions of dollars in debt just to have the pride to say "we hosted the Olympics". Are you seriously willing to take the chance of billions of dollars of future tax revenue for the city just to hope that Pittsburgh is one of the few exceptions who makes money?

Personally, I have more compassion for the city's residents than that.

Thats why you should look to the Salt Lake City model & get the Feds in incur all the expenses for you

[ElijahAstin]

Pittsburgh can't handle the Summer Olympics the same way Philly or Baltimore or Cleveland or pretty much any other older Northeastern/Midwestern city that isn't New York, Chicago, DC, or (maybe) Boston can't handle it.

On the other hand, I think Nemacolin would do great with a winter olympics, but that's another issue entirely.

[hnsq]

Originally Posted by UKyank

Thats why you should look to the Salt Lake City model & get the Feds in incur all the expenses for you

I agree that you can benefit as a city at the expense of more national debt, but do we really want to do that? I don't want Pittsburgh to benefit at the expense of the nation.

[Blackbeauty212]

2 biggest issues for Pittsburgh not being able to handle Summer Olympics

A - Terrible Transportation Infrastructure

B - Not Enough Hotel Rooms

[ferraris]

Originally Posted by Blackbeauty212

2 biggest issues for Pittsburgh not being able to handle Summer Olympics

A - Terrible Transportation Infrastructure

B - Not Enough Hotel Rooms

I'm surprised everyone keeps pointing out hotel rooms. I don't think the Olympic housing units would have to necessarily remain as hotels after the Olympics. They could be turned into apartments or even offices afterward. Sure it would still be a lot of apartment buildings, but it sure seems a lot more realistic than a 100,000 seater Olympic Stadium.

[Clint.]

Pittsburgh is at a disadvantage because of its size. It's much smaller than other recent host cities and would have a more difficult time absorbing/distributing the costs without help from outside bodies; it looks like it would be the smallest host city ever, or at least in the previous 50 years. Here is the approximate size of each city at the time it hosted (I included the metro population for the smaller cities on the lists).

2024.....?Pittsburgh?......315,000 (?) - Metro pop of 2.4 million (?)

2016.....Rio de Janeiro....6,323,037
2012.....London.............8,173,194
2008.....Beijing............. ~ 19,000,000
2004.....Athens............ ~ 700,000 - Metro pop of 3.8 million
2000.....Sydney.............3,948,000
1996.....Atlanta............ ~ 400,000 - Metro pop of 3.5 million
1992.....Barcelona..........1.7 million
1988.....Seoul................10,286,503
1984.....Los Angeles...... ~ 3,050,000
1980.....Moscow........... ~ 7,850,000
1976.....Montreal.......... ~ 1,100,000
1972.....Munich..............1,338,924

It would be a great opportunity to revitalize the city - if it was done prudently (which is a huge if). But the legacy costs could be huge as well. The sports infrastructure alone, independent of the financial costs, could very well end up as blights on the landscape.

[Bong477]

It is a honor to be nominated...