GamesBids.com’s BidIndex was adjusted today on news that U.S. President Barack Obama will travel to Copenhagen to be part of Chicago’s Olympic bid presentation.
Chicago’s score is up 1.23 points to 61.24 – it’s highest in the campaign – but not enough to overtake the frontrunner, Rio de Janeiro.
Rio fell marginally on the news, dropping only 0.19 points to 61.42. Tokyo lost 0.18 to 59.02.
Madrid, with the lowest BidIndex, remained unchanged at 57.80.
“This is a very significant development,” said Robert Livingstone, Producer of GamesBids.com.
“It is very possible that the last two bids – London for 2012 and Sochi for 2014 – were won because their nations’ leaders spoke to IOC voters hours before the final vote. There is no doubt that the President’s visit to Copenhagen will translate to much needed votes in this very tight race.”
This adjustment comes just eighteen days after the last BidIndex edition was released revealing that Chicago had bounced from last to second place (read details here).
The race among the four candidates remains very close. BidIndex is a mathematical model developed by GamesBids.com that when applied to an Olympic Bid, produces a number that can be used to rate a bid relative to past successful bids – and possibly gauge its potential success. London’s winning 2012 bid had a final BidIndex score of 65.07 while Sochi’s winning 2014 Winter Games bids scored 63.17.
BidIndex is not intended to rate the bids based solely on technical quality, but on how the bids will perform based on IOC voting patterns. History has proven that the best technical bids often do not win but other factors such as geo-politics usually have a significant impact.
Read full BidIndex details here.
BIDINDEX
Chicago: 61.24 – up 1.23
Madrid: 57.80 – unch.
Rio: 61.42 – down 0.19
Tokyo: 59.02 – down 0.18
