Yeah I know, they should bid for 2026 or something like that. It would 30 something years removed from the last one.
Houston had the best US Bid when they were going for it in 2012. We were actually in the Final Four left with New York, San Francisco, Washington DC. New York got the nod even though New Yorkers didn't want it. They got the bid because of 9/11 Sympathy. There was an article in chron by David Barron talking about the Houston bid a few weeks ago. Let me go find it.
http://blog.chron.com/sportsmedia/2012/07/the-year-the-olympics-didnt-come-to-houston/ http://www.chron.com/sports/olympic...2012-Olympics-and-what-could-have-3707698.php In that mystical fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man, the 2012 Olympics are about to begin in Houston, Texas, USA. Scalpers are marking up prices for the last of the 140,000 tickets for the Opening Ceremony at Olympic Park on Kirby Drive. Speculation swirls as to which local legend - Carl Lewis? George Foreman? Mary Lou Retton? - will light the Olympic flame on the evening of July 20. Athletes are flooding into the Olympic Village, which will be future student housing at the University of Houston and Texas Southern University. And Usain Bolt, the fastest man in the world, is proclaiming what wonders will be wrought under the translucent roof of the Astrodome, renovated in 2007 for a mere $86 million as the world's crown jewel of track and field venues. It's Houston 2012, Frontier of the Future. Look. Cheer. Gape. Applaud. And blink. Alas, you're back in three-dimensional space, where the 2012 Olympics will unfold in London and the British government is poised to spend $14 billion for pomp, circumstance and infrastructure in hopes of a $20 billion economic windfall in Her Majesty's diamond jubilee year. In Houston, meanwhile, the Astrodome waits, unused, in magnificent dilapidation. Repairs to Hofheinz Pavilion are planned but unfunded. Teenagers can't believe the notion the Rockets ever played at the building they know as Lakewood Church on the Southwest Freeway. And the Bayou City remains the home of Olympic champions, but not, for the foreseeable future, an Olympic city. But with a few twists in the time-space continuum and in the murky domain of Olympic movement politics, it could have happened. Houston was one of four finalists to be the U.S. Olympic Committee's bid city for 2012. It and Washington, D.C.-Baltimore were eliminated in August 2002 in favor of San Francisco and New York City, and New York was selected in November 2002 as the U.S. committee's choice. The Big Apple, however, was trounced in the July 2005 International Olympic Committee vote that awarded the 2012 Games to London. A year later, Houston was a candidate to be the U.S. committee's 2016 bid city but lost to Chicago, which was thrashed even more thoroughly than New York in the 2009 international vote that awarded those Games to Rio de Janeiro. With those factors at work, even Rod Serling, who, as the creator of the television series "The Twilight Zone," worked wonders in the fifth dimension of imagination, might struggle to construct a scenario that would include a Houston 2012 Olympics. Certainly George DeMontrond, chairman of the Houston 2012 Foundation, acknowledges that Houston faced an uphill battle in any parallel universe, let alone this one. "With the USOC in some disarray at the time and with the politics of the Olympics, I'm not sure anyone could have won," he said. "It wasn't that New York and Chicago were beaten, but they were beaten soundly. "I believe our bid would have worked and that the Olympics in Houston would have worked. We had a wonderful situation. But I don't think any U.S. city had a real chance for 2012." Contract dispute The New York and Chicago defeats hinged in large part on a decade-long dispute over the 1996 contract that gave the U.S. Olympic Committee a 12.75 percent share of broadcast rights paid by U.S. networks for TV rights plus a 20-percent share of revenue from top Olympic marketing partners. In June, the dispute was settled. The U.S. committee agreed to pay a portion of administrative costs for the Olympics, beginning in 2020, and take a smaller share of increased TV revenue and marketing partnerships. Last week, committee officials said they will decide by December whether to enter a bid city for the 2024 Summer Games or 2026 Winter Olympics. "Candidly, I would be very surprised if we didn't submit a bid for either '24 or '26," said Scott Blackmon, the U.S. Olympic Committee's CEO. "But as between those two, we haven't made any decision." So Ring Fever may return to the U.S. beginning in 2013. Dallas has expressed interest in bidding for 2024 if the committee opts for a summer bid, and San Francisco, Chicago and Washington, D.C., are likely entrants. But what of Houston? The Houston 2012 Foundation ceased to be in 2002 - in fact, it was the final full-time occupant of the Astrodome - and the city's future as an international sports destination now rests with the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority. Appeal factor Business has picked up in the years since the failed Olympic bid. USA Boxing held its Olympic trials at the George R. Brown Convention Center before the 2008 Games, USA Gymnastics held its men's national championships at Reliant Arena in 2008 and USA Track and Field staged its Olympic marathon trials here in January. Janis Schmees, executive director of the city-county sports group, is studying plans to bid on the world swimming championships, using a temporary pool at Toyota Center, and the Olympic track and field trials in 2016 before the Rio Games. Schmees already has signed up the 2015 world weightlifting championships, and a Rugby World Cup bid may be in the offing after a recent U.S.-Italy game drew 17,214 - the largest crowd for a USA Rugby event - at BBVA Compass Stadium. But those and similar events appear for the moment to be the extent of Houston's aspirations in the realm of Olympic sports. "The question of whether you want to bid is a good one at a time when the economic environment has changed so much," Schmees said. "Those bids are costly, and they take a lot of time and effort. "But I believe we now have stronger relationships with international sports than we had a decade ago. I think we should bid for events in an intelligent way and bring the ones that are going to be profitable. They may not sound sexy, but they may make money." The 2012 bid, for example, included $86 million to retrofit the Astrodome with a 400-meter track, which, in retrospect, sounds like a bargain in light of current options to demolish the Dome or to spend hundreds of millions to outfit it as a multipurpose center or as a downsized arena for the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. With the Dome likely out of play for any sports-related purpose, Schmees said the city could host the U.S. trials or the national track and field championships at Humble's Turner Stadium, which recently received a $26 million upgrade that included a new video board for the AAU's Junior Olympics this summer. "If we look at the variety of venues we have, we can probably host anything we desire," she said. More focused, single-sport bids, or perhaps a run at the Pan American Games, are less subject to the issue that even local boosters acknowledge as the toughest task facing a Houston bid. "There remains an issue of whether Houston is perceived in the U.S. as a destination city," DeMontrond said. "My belief is that the Olympic community has to realize that people don't go to the Olympics for much other than to go to the Olympics. "Cities with 'Disney appeal' have issues. New York is classic of that. Chicago was a better choice in that regard. It's much easier to get around Chicago in terms of what it would have been like getting to venues in New York and dealing with the extra infusion of people. And in San Francisco's bid, most of the venues were not in San Francisco. "It was clear to the USOC that our bid in 2012 was the best technical bid, but it became more about place. They call it 'international appeal.' I call it 'Disneyland.' " Dream deferred? Absent what he described as "some meaningful chance of success," DeMontrond questions a third Houston run at the U.S. bid city designation. "Twice we've been a stalking horse, with technically superior bids, yet we haven't reached the head of the class," he said. "I don't want to go through the process again just to provide a benchmark for other cities to jump over. But I still think Houston would be a great host city." Ring Fever, clearly, dies hard. Susan Bandy, who was Houston 2012's president and now is a deputy director for the city's public works and engineering department, said people still ask her about bringing the Olympics to Houston. "With the Olympics coming up, I think about it," she said. "I think there are people here who would like to see it happen in Houston. Whether there are enough, I don't know. "The Olympics will always be strong in the U.S. We're too big, and we love the Olympics too much, for us not to be a player." A successful Olympic bid would have solved the Astrodome issue and the rodeo's desire for a new arena - an 18,800-seat space that would have hosted gymnastics during the Olympics - that was planned for the northwest corner of Reliant Park to replace the current 40-year-old arena. Third bid a charm? But it didn't happen, for reasons of domestic and international politics and other issues, and questions of what-if still linger. "The Olympics would have been more realistic here than the U.S. selection committee gave us credit for," said Jack Kelly, the longtime consultant who worked with Houston 2012. "If Houston, with its three covered stadiums and even with its heat and humidity, had been in any country except the U.S., it would have been the leading candidate. "I think Houston could host an Olympic Games. It was not our time for 2012. Maybe it will be for the future."
And if you ever live for a extended period of time in a major metropolitan outside of the us would realize why you don't leave the USA.
First of all, what venues do you have in Beaumont? The only thing I can see Austin helping out is with soccer. in 1996, they played games "between the hedges" in Athens, Georgia. They always do stuff like this. They like to spread it near by. In fact, in 1968, they were playing soccer in Guadalajara.
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Better-luck-next-time-Houston-Olympics-bid-had-2802481.php Look at that bull**** article from 2002. **** you San Francisco, and your cable cars, full house, same sex marriages, that twisty street, earthquakes, a bridge, and your cousin Oakland.
I can't imagine how great a game at Sanford Stadium would be. Teeing it off between the hedges in front of 93 thousand soccer fans would be insane.
damn. Forgot to google search and see what our bid was. But from what I remember, baseball was to be played at Minute Maid Park, but I guess that's not happening anymore seeing as it's not an olympic sport anymore. Basketball is at Toyota center. Volleyball at the Hoff. Field Hockey at Tully Stadium Astrodome would have been Track and Field Equestrian events at the Sam Houston Race Track Golf at any of the courses here. I believe it would have been Memorial park. Reliant Center would have the Judo, fencing, stuff like that. They only thing they would need to have built was an aquatic center, and a velodrome. Anyone hear that Toyota Center is hosting a swimming event? I think the Olympic Trials or something for 2016's game.
