The public relations battle over Boston’s Olympic bid heated up this past week with the release of a study about the impact of the games and a new public opinion poll showing a continued drop in public support. These developments were followed by calls from the governor, senate president and house speaker for an independent financial review and an announcement from Boston 2024 Chairman John Fish that the group would only move forward with the bid if it obtained the support of the majority of Boston voters.
The study, authored by the UMass Donahue Institute and commissioned by the Boston Foundation, concluded that the games could generate billions in revenue for the region — $4 billion in construction during the five years leading up to the event, $5 billion from operational impacts during the year of the games from activities such as venue management and ceremonies, and another $514 million from tourist spending above and beyond Boston’s already-high tourism revenue.
The report said it would create or support 4,100 jobs annually during the construction period spanning from 2018 to 2023, 50,000 jobs from operations of the games in 2024, and 4,300 jobs from increased tourist spending in 2024.
However, the report also offered stern warnings about potential pitfalls. It flagged the possibility for cost overruns, noting “extensive research suggesting that the final costs of modern Olympic Games are always significantly higher than the initial budget estimates.” It also noted that the long-term impact that the games might have on the region’s economy needs to be better understood, citing the potential for displacement of current economic activity.
Money concerns
No Boston Olympics, the main group opposing the 2024 bid, sent out a statement soon after the report’s release highlighting its concerns about the potential for cost overruns and raising doubts about the efficacy of an insurance policy that has been touted by Olympic proponents as an answer to potential overruns. The group also noted that while the construction industry would benefit from the games, the bid would do “little to nothing for critical Massachusetts industries such as technology, healthcare, or education.”
Boston 2024, the group behind the city’s Olympic bid, has focused its messaging about the Donahue report on the estimates of games-related economic enterprise and job creation. The group also has highlighted the report’s finding that although all recent Olympics have had cost overruns, the last three Olympic games in the US — Atlanta, Salt Lake City and Los Angeles — turned a profit.
The matter of turning a profit is somewhat technical, however. The Donahue report specifies that any references to profitable games refer specifically to the budget of the Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games. The OCOG budget is based on temporary games-specific expenditures like venue construction and privately-generated revenue streams such as ticket sales and sponsorships. (If there are overruns in the OCOG budget, host cities typically agree to cover the shortfalls, although Boston 2024 has stated they are planning to avoid this scenario and are working to purchase insurance to protect Boston from having to cover any overruns.)
Any kind of long-term projects for the region that are not games-specific — like investments in public transportation and infrastructure — cannot be paid for by the OCOG budget. They must be paid for by public-private partnerships. The Donahue report therefore clarifies that infrastructural spending “can be extensive and yet hard to compare among past Olympics games.”
The day after the report’s release, WBUR issued a new public opinion poll saying that public support for the Olympics bid had fallen to 36 percent, down from 44 percent in February and 51 percent in January. The poll also showed that for the first time in WBUR’s three polls this year, a majority — 52 percent — of those surveyed opposed bringing the 2024 Games to Boston. The survey was conducted with 504 registered voters in the Boston area.
No Boston Olympics quickly sent out a release describing the support for the games as “in free-fall” and highlighting Boston 2024’s significant financial resources that they characterized as going toward “selling” the bid to the public.
Boston 2024 also released a statement in response to the poll, pointing to what the group called “its increasingly successful grassroots campaign” and predicting that “the more one-on-one conversations we have — discussing the benefits and addressing the concerns – the more support will grow.” The group cited the bevy of public meetings being held across the region on the topic — 20 in 20 weeks hosted by the group in addition to nine hosted by Mayor Walsh in Boston — and referred again to the economic impact and job creation estimates included in the Donahue report.
Shifting strategy
In the wake of the public back-and-forth, elected officials and stakeholders announced several key developments to the bid process. On Monday, Governor Baker, Senate President Stan Rosenberg, and House Speaker Robert DeLeo announced they are seeking a consultant to analyze the potential impacts of Boston hosting the Olympics. The administration aims to select one by the end of April who would produce a report by July. The report would examine the costs, responsibilities, and potential risks of overruns the Olympics might inflict on state and local government.
Also on Monday, Boston 2024 released an outline of 10 commitments that the group pledged to meet as a condition for submitting a final bid to the International Olympic Committee. The commitments included promises to submit a bid to the IOC only if a majority of people in Massachusetts supported bidding for the games, and create a plan to protect the city and state from financial risk, including “multiple layers of insurance.”
Tuesday morning, Boston 2024 Chairman John Fish announced at a Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce breakfast that his group wanted to hold a statewide referendum on the bid and would take the lead in gathering the required signatures to get the ballot ready for November 2016. Fish also said that Boston 2024 would not move forward if it did not receive support from a majority of Boston voters, regardless of the statewide ballot’s outcome.
Fish said Governor Baker and Mayor Walsh had agreed with his referendum proposal in conversations Monday night. On Tuesday, Walsh released a statement calling the games an “opportunity to envision and build together the next chapter in Boston’s history” and said the bid should only move forward “in a way that will bring the greatest benefit to the City and its neighborhoods.”
No Boston Olympics released a statement immediately after Fish’s announcement, saying they were “glad to see Boston2024 embrace that idea after months of rejecting it.” They also said they looked forward to working with Boston 2024 on crafting the ballot language and continued to support the separate idea of a non-binding city-wide resolution this November, given the different material impact the games would have on the city compared to the rest of the state.
