The Battle to Host the 2012 Summer Olympic Games

"Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the contest of the new millennium. Only one of nine contestants can win the multi-billion dollar prize that awaits the winner of the bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympic Games. The rest leave with nothing.

So settle back, order two years’ supply of popcorn and watch the contest unfold. The competing bidders have just entered the arena!"

There are few contests on earth like an Olympic bid. It puts the prize of untold wealth for a winning city in the hands of an assorted group of 128 sports administrators, billionaires, royalty and athletes that make up the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

There is a belief that the 2012 Olympic bid will be a sterile affair after the well publicised reforms created by the IOC to stem the flow of corruption charges following the Salt Lake City "bribes for votes" scandal. But the 2012 bid has all the hallmarks of being a gladiatorial contest.

The leading contestants read like a "Who’s Who" of iconic, cosmopolitan, glamorous cities: Paris, London, New York and Madrid. Joining these are Moscow and Leipzig together with the Latin American cities – Rio de Janeiro and Havana. The line-up is completed by Istanbul, making its fourth consecutive Summer Games bid.

The winning city can look forward to a glittering prize of inward investment, increased tourism, a legacy of sports facilities and an improved city infrastructure – not forgetting the Olympic Games itself. Such a contest deserves a level playing field.

Despite IOC claims to the contrary, the 128 voting members of the IOC will inevitably be swayed to some extent by geopolitics and emotion. On the geopolitical front, questions that vex 2012 Olympic bid commentators include:

• Will the anti-U.S. (and to a lesser extent the anti-UK) sentiment, which is widely reported around the world, negatively affect the New York and London bids?
• Will Madrid be able to call upon the votes of Latin America based on historic and political ties while there are two bidding cities from that region?
• How will the voting members from eastern European countries react to the Moscow and Leipzig bids?

Then there is the old issue of whether the Olympic Games are rotated equitably around the continents. The IOC would strongly deny that there is even an unofficial rotation policy. The chart below, however, does highlight a discernible pattern that keeps the rotation conspiracy theorists awake at night.

The rotation conspiracy theorists claim that Vancouver was always going to win the bid to host the 2010 Games (announced in Prague on July 2, 2003). They point out that the Games were highly unlikely to be held consecutively in Asia thus ruling out Pyeongchang. Equally, while Europe will hold two consecutive Games (most unusually) in 2004 and 2006, the Winter Games were very unlikely to be awarded consecutively to Europe. That ruled out Salzburg and opened the way for Vancouver – which happened to also have a highly competent bid.

The case for Vancouver was strengthened with the IOC recently re-awarding continued North American television rights to NBC in a deal worth over $2bn. NBC need the Games to be held in their time-zone on a regular basis and are believed to favour the Winter Games over the Summer Games.

Feeling thoroughly vindicated by Vancouver’s success, the conspiracy theorists are adamant that the 2012 Games will move back to Europe. New York City 2012, on the other hand, point to the precedent of Los Angeles ’84 and Calgary ’88. This, they claim, proves there is no rotation policy and their bid has an equal chance.

…and so the myths, rumours and theories go round and round.

On the emotional front, IOC members may be susceptible to a variety of factors for the 2012 bid. These include:

• New York and the legacy of September 11. However hard NYC2012 tries to distance itself from the tragedy, the IOC voters will have the images regularly reinforced through the media.
• Istanbul’s persistence. This will be the Turkish capital’s fourth consecutive attempt and there comes a point when sympathy becomes a commodity.
• Paris’ second consecutive bid. Unlike Istanbul, Paris was believed to be a strong contender for the 2008 Games following its success in staging the 1998 FIFA World Cup. The Parisians' preparedness to come back immediately after failing to get more than ten votes for 2008 will earn significant IOC respect.
• The prospect of regenerating the recession-hit Leipzig region of the former East Germany will provide its own compelling emotional argument.
• Rio de Janeiro will argue with passion that the Games have never been to South America and that their time is overdue.

Public relations and marketing would normally be able to draw on so much emotion. The IOC, however, has limited the amount of time and money cities can spend on communicating their bid.

Public relations will be strictly limited to domestic markets until autumn 2004, leaving only eight months to mount a meaningful global PR campaign. These limits did not seem to deter the Beijing 2008 bid team, however. A major charm offensive was mounted on the world’s media and turned perception in their favour within only six months.

The smart bid cities this time round will be the ones that abide by the rules but, through strong communications techniques and creative use of all delivery channels, are still able to reach IOC members and their key influencers.

For example, Olympic bid committees are no longer able to pay for the travel and accommodation of visiting international media. This could dramatically cut publicity of its oxygen supply, so already some of the 2012 bid cities are planning to circumvent the rule with media being invited to visit by tourist boards or inward investment groups.

The overarching factor, however, should be the technical competence of each bid. This is measured against ten rigorous selection criteria, which measures bid cities’ plans for athletes’ comfort and convenience, city infrastructure, transport, accommodation, security, stadia and sports facilities and the legacy left behind in all these areas. The IOC President, Dr. Jacques Rogge, has recently confirmed that security is the most important of the selection criteria.

Ultimately, each bidding city has to make the shortlist in spring 2004, then submit a comprehensive bid file, host a probing IOC evaluation commission and finally make a dramatic and compelling presentation to all IOC members in Singapore in July 2005.

All of this is set within the tight constraints of the IOC’s new bidding rules where lobbying individual members is strictly controlled. To cap it all, IOC members vote in a secret ballot and no one need ever find out how their votes were cast.

It is this mixture of sports, politics and raw emotion that will fuel the contest. It will be tough, bruising and maybe even dirty on occasion - but always fascinating.

Open the popcorn and let battle commence!

By John Tibbs, managing director of Weber Shandwick’s London-based Global Bid Unit.

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