Olympics 2016? Show Chicagoist The Money.

By Sean Corbett in News on Dec 13, 2006 11:22PM

The story of Chicago’s bid for the Olympics thus far (in convenient web-links): In 2005 Maggie Haskins suggested Chicago as the US’ best shot at bringing home the games after New York didn’t get the 2012 bid, by mid 2006 we’re officially in the running, a revised bid this past September, a cool logo in October, and better odds when San Francisco dropped out a month ago. Now, where the rubber meets the road, who’s going to put up the money to make this thing happen?

We’ve got a good chance to best the competition: we’re a large, well known city, and we have a solid plan to do the games in style. The real question facing the people in charge is and has always been the economics. Is this going to be a money maker for the city the Midwest, and the country? If anyone can give a good answer to that question it’s the Economics Club of Chicago and its members. Some of those members being the original set of local businesses who offered to front the cost of making the bid. The Economics Club held a sold out 2000 seat dinner last night to hear Chicago’s proposal.

If Chicago wins the 2016 games, we at Chicagoist think it could be a bit like the Worlds Fairs were at the turn of the century. We have always wondered what it would be like to be host to the world, to see all of the new buildings going up and the completely strange traffic patterns that would ensue. Our old friends from far away places would have a really good reason to call us up for that visit we offered many years ago.

According to CBS, Daley has already secured most of the $25 million in commitments needed, and no local government money would be involved. It would be quite a feat to pull this off without going 300% over budget and raising Chicagoist’s income taxes to compensate but maybe spending on a budget will work out this time.