Local officials in Tulsa are considering a bid for the 2024 Summer Olympic Games. Neil Mavis, a member of the Tulsa 2024 Olympic Exploratory Committee said, “some people think of Tulsa as a flyover, dust bowl town. Many people think of cowboys and Indians. Bidding for the Olympics is the one way to change those stereotypes”.
Tulsa is among the smallest on the list of the nearly three dozen cities the USOC is looking to as potential hosts for the 2024 Games.
Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett said, “I see this as a great opportunity. I really do. If we come off looking a little light-hearted on it, so much the better, but we are serious about putting our name out there”.
Mavis estimates it would take a $3.5 billion budget to host the Games, but insisted no local tax dollars would be used.
He said Tulsa is about the same size, infrastructure-wise, as Atlanta was in 1988 when it successfully bid for the 1996 Games.
Mavis said he would farm out events to other sites in Oklahoma, as Atlanta did in Georgia. He also noted the city already has suitable venues for several sports, listing 25-plus sites for everything from badminton, to the marathon, to table tennis.
The city’s chief economic development officer Clary Bird, while admiring the groundwork laid by Mavis and others, cautioned that city officials were approaching the opportunity merely to “see what’s out there” and not because they think Tulsa has a decent shot at landing the 2024 Games.
He said, “I don’t want people to think that we have such rose-coloured glasses on that we’re going to jump into this with everything we have and compete. We believe in our community, but we don’t want to be a laughing stock. We don’t want to lose credibility”.
