Academic

Winning by losing, Olympic bid edition

By Tung Yin

My good friend Nick Johnson has a funny and insightful post arguing that Chicago is better off for not having won the bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games, because cities that host the Olympics usually end up paying for the privilege, rather than making money on tourism, etc.  

In a vaguely analogous way, it kind of reminds me of what happened in Los Angeles after both professional football teams left -- the Raiders to Oakland and the Rams to St. Louis.  Instantly, Sunday football improved tenfold!  Instead of blacked out games (because neither team sold out), we were treated to the *best* games of the day.  Good riddance, I came to see.

Full post as published by The Yin Blog on October 05, 2009 (boomark / email).