2018 Olympics? Aw, Let’s Do Something Else

By Randy Harward, 2-21-06

Some among us believe hosting another Olympics is a good idea: why? What did the 2002 Winter Olympics do for Utah, really? We got some tourism money, some serious TV time. The LDS Church put on a public-realtions debutante gown and flashed its pearly whites at the world. Cheap Trick and the Foo Fighters played to 150 people in a tent. We have some new winter sports venues and several Olympics-related adornments around the city. There was that juicy scandal. People made serious money on cheap shit. (And we got to laugh at the expense of the purchasers of said crap.) Are we better off now than we were four years ago? Enough that another Olympics sixteen years after the fact is a good idea?

The Olympics, whether in Salt Lake City or Torino or Nagano, is just a big convention. All the pomp and ceremony is just pomp and ceremony. Skiing? Snowboarding? Ice Skating? Common, and no different whether it's done by Americans or Russians or Jamaicans. Luge, bobsledding? As good on TV as it is live. Curling? Huh?

It's redundant. There was good reason to be proud when we won the bid. And we did such a good job showing the world how reverent and quiet (and relaxed--remember how we gave our liquor laws that hot stone massage?) we can be even when hosting the biggest party in the world. We're even, from what I hear, beating Torino in the TV ratings department. (Bully for us!) But it's over. They've been here, we've done that. Why, only four years later, are some of us longing for another go?

Sure, we have experience. And there's the ready-made infrastructure; we could re-use the winter sports facilities, temporarily turn them into earners. That leaves tourism bucks and face time, and pursuing either just makes us look greedy. Only three cities have repeat-hosted the Winter Games: Lake Placid, New York (1932, 1980), St. Moritz, Switzerland (1928, 1948) and Innsbruck, Austria (1964, 1976). The United States has hosted them three times. Give someone else chance.

As to exposure... Do we really want Salt Lake City to be known forever for winter sports and Mormons (and two weeks out of the year, film festivals)? Everyone's so hot to show the rest of the world that we're not just a bunch of tightasses on skis; let's give them something different. Why don't we create an event that emphasizes one of our other attributes, like Southern Utah or any of our canyons in the summer? Perhaps a music festival like Bonnaroo or Coachella? A mountain-based X Games? Burning-in-My-Bosom Man? Naturally, almost anything won't be as lucrative as the Olympics--but not all dividends are liquid. [End of article]