There’s the Final Four, and then there’s the final three.
That’s where San Diego, which recently threw its hat into the ring for the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, is hoping to be sometime in May when the U.S. Olympic Committee narrows a field of about seven cities to three.
Last month, a local exploratory committee sent an 80-page proposal to the USOC, highlighting the region’s qualifications and reasons why it can be this nation’s host city.
Vincent Mudd, chairman of the local committee, said the main messages to the decision-makers at the USOC are that San Diego is a great sports city and that it has sufficient infrastructure — or could soon build it — to host the month-long international extravaganza. And while it’s a passionate message, it’s not a desperate one.
“It’s not that we need the Olympics in the future,” Mudd said. “San Diego is a great city and getting better, and the Olympics fit nicely into our existing plans.”
4 Venues, $4 Billion Needed To Host
Mudd said the San Diego region has about 80 percent of the required venues and infrastructure needed for an Olympic Games. Of the four major facilities the area lacks, two have been talked about for years and can be built for long-term future uses: a new football stadium and an indoor sports arena.
Mudd said two key venues needed are a track and field stadium, estimated to cost $500 million, and an Olympic aquatic center with five 50-meter pools, estimated at $70 million. Both facilities could be retrofitted for future uses.
The idea is not to build expensive venues solely for the Games that can’t be used after they’re over, Mudd said.
A new football stadium, which would be used for the opening ceremonies and other sports, would cost $1 billion to $1.5 billion, Mudd said, while an indoor arena is estimated at $70 million to $120 million.
Combined with a variety of other needs, mainly for transportation, San Diego is looking at capital investment of about $4 billion to become Olympic-ready.
However, that figure represents a worst-case scenario assuming such things as the stadium and sports arena aren’t in place, Mudd said. The cost estimates on the venues were in 2014 dollars and would escalate by 2022 when they need to be in place, he said.
Assets that Olympic decision-makers require and that the city already has include a sufficient number of quality hotel rooms and a demonstrable desire to host the event in the form of volunteer help. Regarding the latter, Mudd said some 700 people have signed up on the group’s website, sd2024ec.org.
Also, an expanded San Diego Convention Center could serve as the international media center, Mudd said, adding that the pending litigation hovering over the center’s expansion will, it is hoped, be resolved before the decade is over.
Mudd said the efforts to attract the Olympic Summer Games here began some five years ago, and cost about $750,000 — all from private donations — to get the city into the group of seven semifinal cities. Should it be selected among the top two or three, it’ll need an additional $2.8 million to $3.8 million to provide more detailed plans and solutions to the USOC, he said.
Plenty of Competition, Uncertainty
The competition to become the host city is stiff, and includes Los Angeles, which hosted the Summer Games in 1932 and 1984. There’s also Washington, D.C., which made an unsuccessful bid for the 2012 Summer Games when the USOC selected New York for its entrant that year. The International Olympic Committee selected London for those Games, and it chose Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 Summer Games over Chicago and other cities.
Other cities reportedly in the mix for a USOC bid for the 2024 Summer Games are Boston, Dallas, Philadelphia and San Francisco.
The two consecutive unsuccessful U.S. bids in 2012 and 2016 prompted some second guessing of the USOC, resulting in it not bidding for the 2020 Summer Games. Those games were awarded to Tokyo, which was among the cities rejected for the 2016 Summer Games.
Scott Blackmun, chief executive of the USOC, said earlier this month the group wants to be able to select its host city by the end of this year and to submit its bid by 2015. The IOC is scheduled to make its decision by 2017.
However, Blackmun also said, “We haven’t made a decision if we’re going to bid at all for 2024.”
Mudd has heard the naysayers on the Olympian effort, and lets the criticism slide easily off his back. He said there was ample negativity surrounding such projects as Balboa Park, built nearly 100 years ago; the San Diego-Coronado Bridge; and Petco Park when they were proposed.
“And these things all got done in San Diego,” he said.