Tell us How a Past Olympics Have Benefited You!

Do you have an Olympic success story to share? An idea about how you and your community can benefit from a future Olympic experience here in Chicago? If so, please submit a video telling your tale and you’ll have a chance to win a chance to Vancouver in 2010. I recently spoke with a couple influential people from the most recent American host city with some interesting and uplifting Olympic stories to tell.

In 2002, Salt Lake City became the largest metropolitan area to ever host the winter Olympic Games. On the world’s biggest athletic stage, the region displayed its newly acquired status as a first-rate sports destination; in both economy and community. “It’s really hard to say anything negative about the Olympic experience. We had $91 million left over, so the nay-sayers who said we were going to be in a financial hole were way off. It was a lot about exposure and validation. People said hey, if they can host the Olympics then they can host our group and we can have a good time there,” stated Ski Utah President Nathan Rafferty. In the last year more visitors found their way to the region that hosted the 2002 Winter Olympics. “As the snow piled on so did the skiers,” remarked Rafferty. “Utah’s incredible snow, unparalleled accessibility and world class resorts continue to attract new visitors making it a crucial source of revenue for the state.”

The sports sector of Utah’s economy was thriving after 2002, and it continues to generate more positive return since. With the addition of a first-class soccer stadium/concert venue, sports and entertainment consumers are expected to increase in numbers and therefore provide more future growth. The University of Utah’s football program also got a boost from the 2002 Winter Olympics. The stadium underwent a $52 million expansion and renovation starting in 1997.

The US Men’s basketball team won Gold in Beijing with two members of the Utah Jazz, Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer, on their roster. Despite playing in the NBA’s smallest market, the Jazz are succeeding both on the court -currently in first place following back-to-back division title season- and in the board room. According to a Forbes.com study last year, the Jazz were ranked #16 in NBA team value at $342 million. Leading the way is Randy Rigby, President of the Larry H. Miller Sports and Entertainment group which owns the Jazz. Over the phone Rigby told me about the Olympic impact in the Salt Lake City metropolitan region. “One thing it did do was show people what a great place Utah is as a destination,” he said.

Do you have a similar tale? Then please submit a video for the contest and tell the world! Show the global community what the Olympics did for you and Why Chicago should host the Olympics.

Chicago’s Moving Sense of Community

Has there been a moment in your life when you’ve experienced the city of Chicago’s amazing sense of community? If so, please submit a video telling your story of togetherness, cohesivesness and collective euphoria and you can win a chance to Vancouver in 2010. Tell us about a time when the city’s cohesiveness made you realize we would be the perfect host for the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Last night, we saw the perfect example when millions of people paraded through the streets of Chicago celebrating one of our own, Barack Obama being elected President of the United States. A moment similar to this was when the Chicago White Sox won the 2005 World Series. On that magical fall evening three years ago, we all walked freely in the midst of the downtown streets while throngs of people screamed and cheered wildly. Motorists honked their horns while totals strangers hugged each other and sang together. All this warmth and fuzziness was also present on the nights that the Chicago Bulls won their six NBA Championships when the city, much like it did yesterday, spelled out festively thematic words and pictures in the lights of the city skyscrapers.

How powerful can Chicago’s sense of community become? Last night, I celebrated Barack’s historical victory with close friend Paul Sajovec, Chief of Staff to Alderman Waguespack, 32nd Ward of the City of Chicago. He told me the story of what he did when the Bulls won their first title. Paul spent the earlier part of his youth in Chicago before his family moved to Detroit. On the night the Bulls won the title, he drove to Chicago from Detroit by himself, to celebrate the title and then drove back the same night by himself. That’s how strong the pull of Chicago’s civic pride is.

I know you have similar stories of your own, so please submit a video for the contest and tell the world! Show the global community our collective passion and unity and Why Chicago should host the Olympics.

David Diaz Brings Underdog Story Home

My “Principal for a Day” experience held a very consistent theme. Olympic Boxer and former WBC Lightweight Champion David Diaz returned to his alma mater, Carl Von Linne School on Chicago’s north side, telling a Rocky like underdog story. During an assembly in his honor, a Chicago 2016 promotional video entitled “Surprises” was shown highlighting how Chicago as a city surpasses expectations. This video highlighted the many ways that this city has pleasantly surprised the world; just like Diaz has during his career. Listed very generously at 5’6” and 139 pounds, Diaz articulated in his speech how he’s been constantly told that he “was too small and too short to make it as a boxer.”

However, Diaz persevered, inspired by his favorite boxer Julio Cesar Chavez, and continued to defy the critics on his way up through the boxing circuit. A video displayed some of his career highlights before Diaz mentioned the fact that he lost his last bout decisively. His rousing words “It’s not about whether you get knocked down, it’s what you do when you get up off the matt,” struck a positive chord with the crowd in attendance. His morning at the same school from which he graduated in 1990 included signing autographs for students, catching up with some of his past teachers and taking questions from children that didn’t “pull any punches,” pun intended.

His day concluded with reading to a class of third-graders. The story was about Olympic Champion Billy Mills, the second Native American ever to win a gold medal. Mills won the 10,000 meter run in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics which made him the only American ever to win gold in this event. Most consider his victory in 1964 to be the greatest upset in Olympic history. Therefore, the story Diaz read reflected both his personal story and the message of the 2016 video shown during the assembly.

Do you have your own underdog story related to 2016 to tell? How about an uplifting, inspiring story about the city and its bid for the Olympics? If so, submit your video!

Passion for Chicago Fire Burns Bright

One Olympic sport with growing popularity in both Chicago and the nation overall is soccer. It’s appealing to the youth of this country with over 19 million children currently participating in the sport. The Chicago Fire, the Second City’s Major League Soccer team, was founded on October 8, 1997, the 126th anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. In the Fire’s inaugural season of 1998 the club won the MLS Cup and the U.S. Open Cup. They also won the U.S. Open Cup in 2000, ’03 and ‘06. And they were also runner-up for the MLS Cup twice (’00, ’03).

The Chicago Fire logo is modeled from a standard Fire Department crest, featuring what a Florian’s cross. The city’s fire department is one of many that utilize this symbol. The team’s first GM, Peter Wilt, sought to create a logo with a classic image like the NHL’s Original Six franchises and also evoke the symbols and brands associated with European soccer clubs.

Home Fires

In 2008, the Fire had one of their better years at the gate drawing an average of 17,034, well above their all-time average of 15,717. The team played at the famous home of the Chicago Bears NFL franchise, Soldier Field both before (1998-2001) and after the renovation (2004–2005). From 2002–2003 the team played their home games a formidable distance from the city, in Naperville’s Cardinal Stadium. They currently play in their own stadium, Toyota Park located at 71st and Harlem Avenue in the southwest suburb of Bridgeview. Toyota Park, also one of the city’s premier summer concert venues, is owned by that municipality.

The “Ring of Fire” was established in 2003 by the team and the club’s Alumni Association to honor those who have made special contributions to the cause of making the Chicago Fire a proud and successful club. Aside from the charter member, only current “Ring of Fire” members can select new inductees, and no more than one can be selected within any one year. The names of the “Ring of Fire” are prominently displayed at Toyota Park.

Competition

Like the many trophy games of college football, a special and original prize goes to the victor between the Fire and FC Dallas. Since 2001, the two teams compete annually for the Brimstone Cup. FC Dallas is the Fire’s biggest rival, but the events of recent years have stimulated a new rivalry between the Fire and the New England Revolution, another team with nickname paying homage to the city’s history and culture. The Revolution-Fire rivalry is starting to resemble that of Major League Baseball’s Boston Red Sox-New York Yankees or Minnesota Twins-Chicago White Sox because the clubs have ended each other’s season (whether in the playoffs or during the regular season) every year since 2001. The Fire’s current squad is coached by Denis Hamlet and captained by Cuahtemoc Blanc.

Chicago has a built-in passion for soccer, taking over Soldier Field when high profile games come to Chicago, especially Mexico.  Having other global fans at our doorstep in 2016 would be fantastic - bring it on!

Only the Olympics Can Match the Autumn Sports Overload

October brings the busiest time of the year for sports, and the multitude of choices might cause overload for the fan. It’s a plethora of choices on parallel with the amount of art displayed in the churches and museums of Flornence, Italy. When I visited the “flowering city on the Arno River,” I was amazed by how much marble and canvas had been aesthetically crafted across the city, the multitude of options made it hard to choose what I wanted to see it first and fit it all in the time I was allotted. That’s what it currently feels like as a sports fan in autumn, especially so on the weekend. The Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games bring the same kind of incessant excitement as sporting events take place pretty much the entire day, ever day, for two weeks straight. In Beijing, we saw that the vast difference in time zone gave us televised events at all hours of the day. In order to televise most of the sporting events taking place, you see all the NBC networks (MSNBC, CNBC etc.) carrying them. During the Olympics, sports is the lead on the news channels. Similarly, all the ESPN Networks (ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNClassic, ESPN360 etc.) are currently jam-packed with their live event schedules.

To handle the sports overload that this segment of the calendar year brings, it takes a city like Chicago with teams involved in all the major professional and collegiate sports. A great sports town like Chicago, that handles the huge number of current choices and events, is perfect for hosting the Olympic and Paralymipc Games, which include the same scenario.

Northwestern Alum and Olympic Gold-Medalist Matt Grevers, served as Grand Marshal for Northwestern University’s Homecoming. Grevers, who won the silver medal in the 100m backstroke at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, and was a part of two Gold Medal winning relay teams, was also honored during the Homecoming football game.  I caught up with Grevers at Ryan Field’s Randy Walker Terrace after he just spent a couple hours signing autographs for hundreds of fans. “If you go to Bears, Cubs, Sox, Blackhawks games you realize there’s a certain intensity. These people really appreciate their sports, they LIVE through their sports, people are so passionate about it,” Grevers said. The Lake Forest, IL native also discussed the elite status that professional athletes possess in the Chicago area and how that carries over to the collegiate game. “Even the college level, the athletes walk around the community and receive great respect for that they’ve done,” Grevers stated.

Here’s what ESPN SportsCenter has to condense into their hour long broadcasts each weekend:

-The Major League Baseball playoffs…with day games as well as night games in the first round, it’s like an October version of March Madness, the action is constant. If your team isn’t in it, chances are one (or more) of your friends do have a team in the tourney.

-NBA basketball preseason begins. The preseason scrimmages lead us to regular season tip-off around Halloween. College basketball preseason, with its season opening “Midnight Madness” pep rallies occur in the middle of the tenth month as well. The commencing of b-ball season occurs at the exact same time that baseball is in its postseason. In other words, America’s main winter and summer games overlap at this time making it inherently unique.

-The NHL season begins in mid October, following a busy preseason that started in mid September. Ice Hockey gets going at a time when the weather is often still quite warm in most of the country. In other words, all four major sports often take place on the same day.

-College football hits intra-conference season. Although not an Olympic sport, these games are much more meaningful than the early season non conference tune ups. October Saturdays in the Midwest often mean Homecoming weekend and more outdoor sporting options than even the summer can possess. Sundays become even more exciting for many as the NFL is in midseason and the sports industry works over time on the weekends.

Chicago, the nation’s third largest media market has a sports media industry and venue infrastructure already in place to routinely promote and present the numerous sports entertainment options to both the fan and the consumer year round. The Second City smoothly handles this sports overload every year, which further demonstrates its ability to do the same as a prospective Olympic and Paralympic Games host.

“It is probably the number one sports-fan city in the world,” Grevers said.