Though it’s not planned to make any public revelations, United States Olympic Committee (USOC) Chair Larry Probst said that his board will choose only two or three cities to move forward with as they prepare to bid for the 2024 Olympic Games – and that decision may happen June 10 at a meeting in Boston.
“Those cities won’t be made public,” Probst told Sports Business Daily.
“We are going to try to manage this process so no one’s feelings get hurt or no one is spending too much money on a bid.”
It hasn’t been confirmed yet by the secretive USOC, but it seems highly likely that the organization will nominate a bid city to host the 2024 Olympic Games, the first bid since New York and Chicago were both soundly defeated in their efforts to host in 2012 and 2016 respectively.
“We want to bid. We’d like to bid. We are going through a process where we’re meeting with an undetermined number of cities.
“We have gone through round one, and we’re going through another round now.”
Rumored and reported cities on the list under consideration are Boston, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and Washington. New York and Philadelphia had been considering bids but both abandoned their plans earlier this week.
“We have to believe we have a pretty significant chance of winning that competition,” Probst explained.
“It has to be as close to perfect as possible.”
Probst didn’t explain how the USOC planned to keep the process, and the cities involved secret – a difficult task considering most successful bids are prepared amidst significant public consultation.
The USOC intends to make a final decision by the end of the year. Nominations will be due into the IOC in the latter half of 2015; a final vote on the host city will occur 2017.
International bids are expected to come from European capitals, Africa and the Middle-East.
