The International Olympic Committee vote for the 2016 Summer Games is just a week away – next Friday in Copenhagen.

The vote will cap a two-year political campaign that has ranged across the globe and cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

One of four cities will win: Chicago, Rio de Janeiro, Madrid or Tokyo.

In my prior column, I detailed 10 reasons why Chicago will lose.

Here are 10 reasons why Chicago will win.

1. President Obama goes to Copenhagen on the bid’s behalf.

The president is the game-changer. Everyone knows it.

Will he go? We don’t yet know.

Should he go? Here’s an analysis from Mitt Romney, whose perspective is assuredly unique. Romney, after the eruption of scandal tarnished the organization of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games, was brought in to right the ship, which he did, seeing those Games through to financial and other successes. After that, he was elected governor of Massachusetts. Last year, Romney ran unsuccessfully for president on the Republican side. He said, “Of course, I am not as close to the IOC and their deliberations as I would need to make any reliable predictions on the prospects for Chicago. With that caveat, I’d say that if President Obama goes to Copenhagen, Chicago wins the bid and if he doesn’t, Chicago probably loses the bid. There’s a good deal of admiration for the United States this time around and the president has won a number of friends, particularly in Europe and Africa — we could get some votes from them if they know it is important to him. It’s also time for the big TV payor — the United States — to have the Games in the home market or at least in a prime time zone; Brazil does that too, of course. Got my fingers crossed – the Games would be transformative for the people of Chicago. They have no idea yet how wonderful the Olympic experience can be.”

2. It’s Obama, not Bush nor McCain

President George W. Bush, it must be noted, was an enthusiastic supporter of the American Olympic enterprise. He and First Lady Laura Bush attended the Beijing Games. Mrs. Bush led the U.S. delegation to the 2006 Torino Winter Games. The president’s father, President George H.W. Bush, was also a reliable supporter; he served as the U.S. team’s honorary chef de mission to the 2008 Games.

But of course the world is far wider than the Olympics. President Obama, in his speech this week to the United Nations, without mentioning President George W. Bush, acknowledged that he had taken office amid what he termed “an almost reflexive anti-Americanism.” Such sentiment clearly hindered New York’s failed 2005 bid for the 2012 Games, won by London. At the United Nations, Obama called for a “new era of engagement based on mutual interest and mutual respect,” such engagement keyed by “the hope that real change is possible, and the hope that America will be a leader in bringing about such change.”

Meanwhile, the Salt Lake City corruption crisis may seem to many like ancient Olympic history – after all, it already has been nearly 11 years since the first allegations of misconduct surfaced in connection with Salt Lake’s winning 2002 bid. But it is far from forgotten within the IOC that McCain, as chairman of the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, in 1999 oversaw a courtroom-style question-and-answer session triggered by the scandal at which two other senators called for the resignation of then-IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch.

3. The U.S. Olympic Committee’s international outreach strategy

President Obama summed up his UN speech by declaring the United States “stands ready to begin a new chapter of international cooperation.” That meshes seamlessly with the work underway for the past three years at the USOC.

New York’s dismal fourth-place showing in 2005 for those 2012 Games underscored the point – the USOC needed to start almost from scratch in reaching out to the world. The revamped policy has been led by Robert Fasulo, since 2006 the USOC”s international relations director, and Bob Ctvrtlik, its vice president for international affairs and until 2008 an IOC member. Fasulo, in a brilliant recital earlier this month at a USOC seminar in Chicago, made public for the first time the multifaceted approach that has keyed the strategy. It’s rooted, he said, thusly: “It’s not about us. It’s not about us winning more medals or getting more money or gaining a competitive edge. It’s about understanding our place in the world … and the expectation there is on the United States to use our resources, to use our capabilities, to make the Olympic movement stronger.”

4. Détente with the USOC – if it’s real

In a conference call last week with reporters, IOC president Jacques Rogge was asked about the impact on Chicago’s bid of “high-profile entanglements” involving the IOC and USOC – the first a long-running dispute over the USOC’s special shares of certain broadcast and marketing revenues, the second the announced launch of a USOC television network over IOC protest. The first was purportedly resolved by a March deal to study the revenue shares in 2013 with implementation of a new deal in 2020, the second by the USOC’s agreement in August to put the network on “pause.” In both instances a truce was called after Rogge met with Larry Probst, the USOC chairman. The announcement in August is remarkable. It may be that in the USOC’s 31-year history, it has not only never before so publicly caved in a business dispute with the IOC but done so with repeated apologies and contrition – an indication perhaps of genuine willingness to go beyond its station as the world’s leading national Olympic committee to find common ground and be the sort of partner the IOC always says it wants the USOC to be.

On the teleconference, Rogge downplayed the import of the “entanglements” on Chicago’s 2016 aspirations: “Those two things are out of the discussion now. I don’t expect a negative aspect.”

5. Trust and certainty

If Rogge has found in Probst a partner he can trust – that’s huge. Because there’s no doubt that Pat Ryan, the head of the Chicago bid, has in the two years of the bid campaign become widely viewed within Olympic circles as a man of substance – someone the IOC members can, and do, trust. And, as Rogge made plain on that same teleconference (without referring to Ryan or for that matter to anyone in the current campaign), a key factor – perhaps the key factor – in any Olympic bid contest is such trust. Why? Because the IOC is, in essence, a franchisor; the winning city gets the Games and all of the rest that comes with the Olympic franchise if a majority of the members believe the people running the bid can be trusted to do the job. “It’s the confidence you have in the people who have made the bid and will be the organizers of the Games,” Rogge said. “You give the Games seven years beforehand. You don’t give the Games to an anonymous city … you give the Games to a couple of people. The charisma of these people is very important.”

Ryan, a hugely successful businessman, gets things done. There can be little question that Mayor Richard M. Daley gets things done in Chicago. And, assuming he’s re-elected in 2012, Obama would still be president in 2016 – when Olympic Stadium would open just blocks from his home on the city’s South Side.

6. It’s the economy, IOC members

This 2016 election takes place amid a global economic downturn. The IOC and the Olympic movement are far from immune. Just a few days ago, in an unprecedented gesture, the IOC announced it would help cover the Vancouver 2010 organizing committee – now facing a $37 million shortfall on its $1.75 billion operating budget – if those Games end up in the red. On Friday, meanwhile, the British-based Olympic web newsletter Inside the Games reported the IOC hopes to recover about $2.5 million in investments tied to financier Bernie Madoff – about half of what it lost.

Olympic finance is the farthest thing from boring. The accounting tale from recent Olympic Games:

Athens in 2004: massive delays and cost overruns, the final bill somewhere about $12 billion.

Beiing 2008: at least $40 billion to get ready – the astronomical final number, whatever it is, has not been made public.

London’s 2012 public funding package now runs to about $13 billion, far more than had been envisioned in 2005, the authorities there now using the Games as a far-reaching development tool for the city’s eastern precincts.

The 2014 project in Sochi involves turning a Black Sea summer resort in Russia into a winter destination – a speculative affair that will run well into the billions.

Thus the query: in a climate of economic austerity, might a safe choice hold a distinct advantage?

To ask the question another way: right now, given everything going on in the world, is it tenable for the IOC to embark on another huge project? Rio’s capital costs, for instance, and this is a projection that doesn’t factor in delay or overruns: $11.1 billion. Chicago’s: $1 billion, almost all of it in a single project, an athletes’ village, and anyone who suggests there might be trouble funding such a lakeside development doesn’t understand the first thing about business or politics in Chicago.

Moreover, a Chicago Games would undoubtedly stir American corporate and broadcast interests. The IOC needs new top-tier corporate sponsors; the Midwest is fresh Olympic territory, loaded with big companies. As for the broadcast fees, there’s this: The IOC recently announced TV rights deals in Brazil and Spain for the 2014 and 2016 Games worth, respectively, $210 million and $100 million. NBC is paying $2.1 billion for the U.S. rights to the 2010 and 2012 Games. That’s pretty simple math - $2.1 billion is 10 times more than $210 million.

7. The “host-city contract” and the “joint marketing program agreement”

In the niche that is Olympic bidding, these technicalities have proven a source of considerable friction to prior U.S. bids. Not so Chicago.

The mayor of the winning host city has to sign a standard IOC contract. The IOC demands certain governmental guarantees. A 49-0 Chicago city council vote earlier this month gave Daley the authority to sign – city and state guarantees now interwoven with the added support of privately purchased insurance. Candidly, this Chicago plan ought to be understood and embraced by future bids as a sensible risk-sharing model.

The JMPA, which would allocate certain revenues between a Chicago organizing committee and the USOC – it’s done. Haggling over the JMPA in the hours before the 2005 vote helped doom New York’s chances.

8. The Chicago lakefront

The venue plan clusters most everything near or just south of The Loop; everything is close to everything else. And McCormick Place, the huge convention center, would be an Olympic facility perhaps like no other; it would play host to 11 Olympic sports as well as the world’s broadcasters and press.

Meanwhile, a Summer Games lasts 17 days. That’s a lot of time for fans to try to figure out what to do when not watching the sports themselves. Where to eat? In Chicago, no problem. Are there museums and galleries? Some of the best in the world. Is there shopping? ‘Til you drop, along Michigan Avenue, within easy walking distance from most Olympic sports venues.
One other thing: The vistas in Rio are magnificent. But it’s a fact, too, that the skyline in Chicago would make for the sort of compelling visuals that TV just loves.

9. Tokyo goes out first, then Rio, leaving Chicago and Madrid in the final round

Such a scenario is not unthinkable. Nothing in an IOC election is unthinkable because all IOC elections are quirky if not volatile affairs.

There’s hardly a guarantee, for instance, that Chicago would make the final round. But if it does, it would work best for Chicago if Rio and Madrid split the so-called Latin vote in the second round and Madrid, pushed by former IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch, gets the best of that – because then the choice facing the IOC in the third, and final, round would be whether to go to Chicago or stay in Europe.

The Games were held in Europe in 2004 and 2006 and will be again in 2012 and 2014. That makes going there again in 2016 a considerably tougher sell – five times to Europe in seven editions? This, too: the U.S. broadcaster – whoever that’s going to be for 2014 and 2016, the deal not yet done – would be looking at the economic utility of Sochi and then Madrid to the package. It’s gracious to say neither is an optimal time zone for American prime-time.

10. If not now, when?

That’s the Rio case for South America in 2016. But it applies, too, to Chicago. The best bid the United States has ever put forward features a great venue plan, the prospect of enhanced finances throughout the Olympic movement, a classic public-private partnership and support from the city, state and federal governments that reaches directly to the White House. If that’s not good enough, what is?

If Chicago were to lose, the odds of a 2020 U.S. bid would seem dim, indeed, in the wake of IOC rejections of first New York and then Chicago.

After that, it’s going to be the 100 th anniversary of the 1924 Paris Games in 2024; moreover, if the 2010 World Cup goes well, South Africa for 2024 would seem a natural bid. That might well take the United States to 2028, maybe even 2032, the 100th anniversary of the 1932 Los Angeles Games.

The majority of Olympic revenues come from American entities – is it in the IOC’s best interest to stay away from the United States for what may be a profoundly extended period of years? Really?

This entry was posted on Friday, September 25th, 2009 at 1:17 pm and is filed under alanabrahamson. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.