Nine years ago, Boston withdrew its bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. While proponents like former Mayor Marty Walsh were defeated, another group called No Boston Olympics celebrated victory.
“I think that day was just, like, overwhelming joy,” Kelley Gossett, who oversaw communications for the group, told Boston Public Radio on Friday. “It was a beautiful moment.”
No Boston Olympics was born out of a late-night conversation between business school classmates Liam Kerr and Chris Dempsey. The two set up a Twitter handle to put out information and studies about the impact of the Olympics on past host cities.
“It turns out basically every time a democracy does one of these things, they end up regretting it,” Kerr said.
No Boston Olympics snowballed. Kerr described it as a David and Goliath situation, with community and social service advocates on one side and Boston’s business and political titans on the other.
No Boston Olympics argued the Olympics would be an expensive endeavor bringing little benefits to Massachusetts’ taxpayers in the long run.
“It’s pretty fun, we’ll admit, for two and a half weeks. But you’re left with this multibillion dollar hangover and a bunch of venues that you don’t really need for the long-term health of your city,” said Dempsey.
Proponents of bringing the games to Boston said it would spark necessary investments in transportation and housing. But Dempsey said elected officials should prioritize citizens who live and work in the city every day — not fix everything to serve a one-time event.
The group ultimately tipped the scales by convincing former Gov. Charlie Baker. They gave a slideshow presentation to Baker’s cabinet in which they laid out the financial risks to each taxpayer. By their calculations it was about nine times the risk per person in Boston than in France, Kerr said.
“Baker cracked the case,” said Kerr.
But the people beyond No Boston Olympics are not opposed to all big ideas.
“We should think big in this state,” said Dempsey. “We should be improving education in every classroom in the state. We should be fixing the T … But we also have to think smart. And the Olympics were never a smart idea.”
