Ryan Lochte is the comedy gift that keeps on giving, isn’t he? On Thursday’s episode of @Midnight, host Chris Hardwick was noting how the Summer Olympics Committee is having trouble finding a country to host the 2024 Games, and said that this (Photoshopped) sign is the only current Rio Olympic tourist attraction.
“You might remember the Rio Olympics as that thing that happened that looks like it smelled bad. Well, the International Olympic Committee is already looking for a city to host the 2024 Games, but nobody wants them! Surprise! … Cities used to be willing to accept the huge cost, believing it would be offset in the increase in tourism. But the only tourist attraction that Rio got was a big sign that said ‘Here’s Where Ryan Lochte Took A Piss’.”
Here’s the clip (warning: NSFW).
Hardwick is correct, by the way. Five cities received Olympic bids for 2024, but two — Hamburg and Rome — have already withdrawn. The others are Los Angeles, Paris and Budapest.
Should LA accept the Games?
“The games overrun with 100 percent consistency. No other type of mega project is this consistent regarding cost overrun,” researchers from Oxford’s Saïd Business School wrote in an academic paper in 2013. “Other project types are typically on budget from time to time, but not the Olympics.”
Public funding for the Olympics seems to be a model of the past, with Los Angeles relying on privatized financing and using existing sports stadiums as venues in its proposal to the International Olympic Committee.
With this model, the California city would actually make a profit.
And LA seems to be enthusiastic about getting the Games, as their hype video below proves. The video claims, for some reason, that two of its selling points are “real mermaids”, and “stars” (as in, stars in the sky). But it may not matter — by next year, when the 2024 host city is chosen, LA may be the only remaining choice.
