The Philadelphia Business Journal reports that Philadelphia’s bid for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games could be a windfall for the region – worth billions of dollars in economic impact, if other Olympiads in other cities are a marker. But the newspaper said a losing bid could drain the coffers of much needed private money.
Joseph Torsella, head of Philadelphia 2016, told a recent press conference, “we’re going to need to come together. We’re going to come together. If they decide to proceed with a bid we’re going to have to put together the kind of multilayers, multiyear, multiperson partnership that we specialize in”.
According to Sale Lake, which hosted the 2002 Winter Games, the so-called legacy impact is $4.8 million a year in winter-sports business.
The newspaper reports that for every city that won the Olympics, there are usually three or four others that lost.
Political consultant Steph Rosenfeld said, “as a region, we’ll have to make the economic, social and political case that hosting the Olympics is an extraordinary, long-term investment worth of considerable private and public sector support. But it’s hard to imagine a funding scenario that doesn’t include some of the tab being picked up by citizens one way or another”.
Meanwhile Margy Osmond, director of what was called the Olympic Commerce Centre from 1997 through the Sydney 2000 Summer Olympic Games and now the Sydney chamber’s chief executive, is a keynote speaker at the second State of the Region Tuesday and will say to Philadelphia, “go for it. I think it’s the most wonderful thing for any city to do, just to go through the bidding process. It’s a chance to sit down and ask, ‘what do we want to get out of the process? What legacies would we want to get out of it’”? Osmond was to meet with members of the 2016 working panel Monday.
Her visit comes a couple of weeks after the USOC’s visit to the five cities hoping to become the U.S. candidate to bid for the 2016 Games.
Hugh Long, the Wachovia CEO for Pennsylvania and Delaware whose primary role is securing private funding for a potential bid said, “I felt even better about it after that meeting was over. And I think, in a few more weeks judging from the USOC’s reaction, I think I’ll feel even better”.
