Having grown up in a wannabe, second tier city – that would be Worcester, Massachusetts – I have some sympathy with Tulsa, Oklahoma’s decision to put their hat in the first ring and at least start to think about the 2024 Olympics.
Tulsa, you may ask.
Tulsa, indeed.
The U.S. Olympic Committee has recently sent Tulsa a letter “asking whether they might be interested in hosting the games.”
It’s not exactly an exclusive list. Here’s the full roster of those who got tapped on the shoulder:
Phoenix, Arizona
Los Angeles, California
Sacramento, California
San Diego, California
San Francisco, California
San Jose, California
Denver, Colorado
Washington, D.C.
Jacksonville, Florida
Miami, Florida
Orlando, Florida
Atlanta, Georgia
Chicago, Illinois
Indianapolis, Indiana
Baltimore, Maryland
Boston, Massachusetts
Detroit, Michigan
Minneapolis, Minnesota
St. Louis, Missouri
Las Vegas, Nevada
New York, New York
Rochester, New York
Charlotte, North Carolina
Columbus, Ohio
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Portland, Oregon
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Memphis, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Austin, Texas
Dallas, Texas
Houston, Texas
San Antonio, Texas
Seattle, WashingtonSource: Team USA.
Tulsa isn’t the only “as if” town on the list. It would be hard to imagine Rochester, NY or Columbus, Ohio as a destination that would make Olympics fans around the world pep up and say “I’m there!” Not exactly London or Beijing.
And laid back, alt hipster Portland, Oregon? LOL on that one. Could the appropriate level of USA! USA! USA! rah-rah come out of the laid back, ironic, pierced nose, coffee house, micro brewery and bicycle shop brigade?
Realistically, no one expects Tulsa to become the jewel in the U.S.O.C.’s 2024 bid crown. Can you imagine the reaction of the International Olympic Committee? If they crapped on Chicago’s bid, can you imagine what they’d make of Tulsa’s?
And it’s not as if the U.S.O.C. looked at the map and decided to luck Tulsa from obscurity. Surely if they were going to pick someplace in Oklahoma, where the wind comes rushing down the plain, it would have been the larger Oklahoma City. But Tulsa apparently expressed an interest and asked to be invited. So they were.
Buoyed by its success hosting a major fishing tournament this winter, Oklahoma's second-largest city is now dreaming of something faster, higher, stronger: the 2024 Summer Olympics. (Source: MSNBC.)
That wasn’t just any major fishing tournament, baby, that was the Bassmaster Classic, which was one by Cliff Pace of Petal, Mississippi. And lest you even think of sneering, Mr. Pace – or, rather, Bassmaster Pace - won $500K for reeling in nearly 55 pounds of bass during the tourney. And that $500K probably goes pretty durned far in Petal, Mississippi. Further, anyway, than any city on the U.S.O.C. invite list, including Tulsa, Oklahoma.
But as impressive as hosting the Bassmaster Classic is, of course, it does not attract the audience or world attention that the Olympics garners. I don’t think so, anyway. Or was I the only one who missed the opening and closing ceremonies, with the march of the world anglers and the baiting of the Bassmaster Hook, which I believe was the culmination of a 5,000 run with a bucket of worms.
As for the Olympic city bid, Tulsa is kinda-sorta in it to win it:
"I see this as a great opportunity, I really do," Mayor Dewey Bartlett said. "If we come off looking a little lighthearted on it, so much the better, but we are serious about putting our name out there."
While they may be at least quasi-serious, the city also faces serious problems in mounting their bid:
The Tulsa area has around 13,000 hotel rooms, far fewer than the 45,000 required, and [Neil] Mavis [a member of the Tulsa 2024 Olympic Exploratory Committee] said the city would have to finance and build an Olympic stadium to host major events. Tulsa's largest facilities now are the 30,000-seat Skelly Field at H.A. Chapman Stadium on the University of Tulsa's midtown campus and the 19,000-seat indoor arena at the BOK Center downtown.
What, pray tell, would Tulsa do with those 32,000 new hotel rooms once the Olympics were over?
Plus it costs about $3.5 billion to host the Olympics, which works out to an awful lot of per capita for a city with only about 400,000 citizens.
As for the charms of Tulsa, I wouldn’t mind seeing the Woody Guthrie Center, if I were passing through, but I can’t imagine Tulsa becoming a destination city. Personally, of the list of cities on the U.S.O.C. list, Tulsa would, I’m afraid, place dead last if I had to prioritize. (Yes, I would rather go to Detroit.)
Clay Bird, the city's chief economic development officer, admired the groundwork laid by Mavis and others. But he cautioned that city officials were approaching the opportunity merely to "see what's out there" and not because they think Tulsa has a decent shot at landing the 2024 Olympics.
"I don't want people to think that we have such rose-colored glasses on that we're going to jump into this with everything we have and compete," Bird said. "We believe in our community, but we don't want to be a laughingstock. We don't want to lose credibility."
What this “opportunity” does give Tulsa, however, is a chance to think about what other types of major, but perhaps not colossal and global in nature, events they could host.
Which is more of less that type of thing that Worcester boosters would do.
So good on ye, Tulsa.
I’m pretty sure that you won’t be hosting the 2024 Olympics, but I suspect there are an awful lot of Bassmaster Classics out there that would be de-lighted to hold their events in Tulsa. None come to immediate mind, of course, but you never know.
In the meantime, I’m hoping that with this post, “Take Me Back to Tulsa” stops rocketing around in my skull.
Take me back to Tulsa, I’m too young to marry…
You don’t know this tune? Bob Wills, by way of Asleep at the Wheel.
Bet they know it in Tulsa.
Worcester, alas, has nothing comparable.
Take me back to Worcester, I’m too young to marry….
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