Mayor Marty Walsh: Boston Has 'Fair Shot' At Hosting 2024 Olympics

Boston mayor Marty Walsh has a lot of other stuff to worry about these days as the city digs out of yet another snowstorm. But Boston’s bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympics still looms large.

Walsh said Tuesday on WEEI’s “Dennis and Callahan” that he believes Boston has a “fair shot” to win the bid for 2024, though the mayor cautioned that doing so must make sense from a financial standpoint. The United States hasn’t hosted the Summer Olympics since Atlanta played host in 1996.

“It’s been 30 years since we had an Olympics in the United States, so I think we have a fair shot with that case,” Walsh said. “I also think the (International Olympic Committee) is looking, saying we need to bring these costs down. The popularity of these games isn’t where it was, say, in the 80s or ’84. They have to rebrand themselves and that is where we’re trying to look at here in Boston, is rebranding what the Olympic model would be — not just in the United States, but in the world.

“It is a lot of money for a 14-day event, and it is a lot of money for a 30-day event when you put in the paralympic games. I think as long as the financial model that we’re talking about works, we’re OK. If it doesn’t work, then we have from now until 2017, and I will be the first to say we’re not going for it if the financial model doesn’t work.”

The U.S. Olympic Committee announced last month that Boston would be the country’s candidate city. Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and San Francisco were the other three U.S. finalists. Boston still has some stiff international competition, though, as there’s no telling how much money other countries might be willing to spend in their quest to win the 2024 bid.

“I think that is where we have a disadvantage,” Walsh said Tuesday. “We’re talking about a walkable, economical Olympics here in the City of Boston that can be done under a certain cost. I think we can’t control what other countries will pay for the Olympics. You look at Russia and Sochi and what happened there. That was a large investment. I am not sure if the number was $51 billion, but you we’re talking tens of billions of dollars that were invested in that part of that country to host the Olympics.

“You can’t tell me other countries didn’t have better bids that could have went in because, from what I understand, this wasn’t even a village before the Olympics were chosen. Then all of a sudden they built a village for the Olympics and what is happening there now? I think we have a fair shot, but I don’t know what the politics are higher up.”

Clearly, it’s still very early in the 2024 Olympic process, as a host city won’t be named until 2017. Boston’s situation certainly is worth monitoring.