Tuesday, the United States Olympic Committee announced that it would, contrary to reports, submit a formal bid from an American city to host the 2024 Summer Olympic Games. The United States has not hosted the Summer Olympics since 1996 Games were held in Atlanta, but innovative bids by Boston and San Francisco and strong bids by previous hosts Los Angeles and New York seek to end that drought.
The American bids want to do nothing short of disrupting the way in which Olympics are hosted and managed. The ramifications are important to the future of the Olympic Games and the ability of so many other nations to be future hosts of the Games. It is natural that the disruption comes from Boston and San Francisco, the world’s two most prominent centers of disruptive innovation and entrepreneurship.
What would make the 2024 the Disruptive Games? It’s the innovative way in which the organizers are thinking about critical issues of infrastructure, facilities and financing.
Both cities estimate that it will cost them about $4.5 billion to host the Summer Games. For comparison, the Beijing Olympics cost $40 billion and the recent Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia clocked in over $50 billion. Hosting and managing the games for 10% of the previous cost requires innovation in financing, process, technology and public policy.
First, both the San Francisco and Boston bids are heavy on the use of new, modular construction technologies for the construction of “pop-up” stadiums for large events like the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, and for the creation of an Olympic Village. Modular construction and manufacturing is a relatively new field that integrates some of the best concepts around outsourcing, combined with lean principals, to disaggregate the construction and manufacturing supply chain. In Boston, the modularly-built Olympic Village would be near the University of Massachusetts Boston, and be converted to local affordable housing upon completion of the Games. In San Francisco, a popup stadium near Candlestick Park would come down after the Games and the land redeveloped.
The second characteristic of these bids that drastically reduces costs is the reliance on partner organizations that already have physical expansion plans in place. In Boston, this means the large universities in the area – Harvard, MIT, Boston University, Northeastern, Boston College, the University of Massachusetts and Tufts, along with several smaller colleges and universities. With global demand increasing robustly to attend elite private institutions in areas like Greater Boston, these universities are already in the midst of billion-dollar fundraising campaigns intended to boost academics, dormitories and athletic facilities. By integrating their existing growth plans into an Olympic strategy, the Boston bid offloads the cost from taxpayers to local, private organizations.
Lastly, both the San Francisco and Boston bids promise to be completely privately funded. The Boston host committee has even committed to putting in place an insurance policy to ensure that any losses are not transferred to the taxpayer. Both bids believe that corporate sponsorship, local philanthropy and revenue from the Games will cover their costs. In Massachusetts, the state has already approved a $13 billion transportation bond bill that will improve public transportation and local highways – again offloading potential costs for the Olympic Committee to consider.
For most of this century, the United States has been an also-ran to host the Summer Games. Every cycle, we submit strong bids – previously by Chicago and New York. And every cycle, the International Olympic Committee chooses a nation that is willing to commit unlimited government funds to host a 3-4 week event. In addition to the ridiculous sums spent by the Chinese and Russian governments, we often hear about the problems with cost-overruns and working conditions in the lead up to the Brazil Games. In the United States, we would never agree to subsidize $40 billion for the Games, particularly given the hefty security costs in the United States. Indeed, in Boston, there has been a vigorous debate about whether the Olympics should be a priority, with a group formed to oppose the formal bid.
Many previous American cities have also submitted bids that leverage existing facilities. But the Olympic Committee has always gone for the flashier, more expensive bids. The difference this time is that technology and manufacturing innovation have advanced to the point where they can have both. They can have their new, world-class stadium in Boston or San Francisco, a new Olympic village and modern facilities. And our cities can host without being saddled with crushing debt and unusable facilities after the Games are done.
This is particularly important for the future of the Games. It was irresponsible of the Chinese and Russian governments to host expensive Olympics while huge swaths of their populations still live in poverty and lack proper access to education or health care. The same debate swirls in developing countries. If we can succeed at hosting the Games at a drastically reduced cost, it provides a model for India, South Africa, Indonesia and others for the future.
