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Boston 2024 Wants Majority Support Before Final Bid

Organizers for Boston’s 2024 Summer Olympic Games bid said Monday they won’t make a final bid to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) unless a majority of Massachusetts residents support it.

The bid took out full-page ads Monday in the Boston Globe and Boston Herald, days after a poll showed that a majority of Boston-area residents opposed the idea.  Many were concerned that city tax payers would be left to cover some of the estimated $9.5 billion costs of hosting the Summer Games.

In the ads the committee said, “there are legitimate concerns and potential risks associated with this effort that must be addressed in a thoughtful and transparent manner for the Games to work for Massachusetts”.

In a radio interview Boston 2024 CEO Richard Davey said, “our bid’s only going to be successful of we have that support”.

Davey said Boston 2024 wants a “measurable way” to show majority support for the Olympics, and there’s talk of a possible voter referendum.

The group did not specify how a majority support would be measured, whether through a ballot initiative or by polling.  National Olympic Committees have until September 15 to finalize nominations.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is expected to select a host city for the 2024 Summer Olympics in 2017.  Boston would be competing with Hamburg and Rome, and possibly Paris, Doha, Baku or Istanbul.

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