Toronto 2015 Pan American Games

[TO City of Light]

I'm not entirely sure on the Lisa S thing. With the lights turned way down, a pitcher of margaritas and 2:15 in the morning in the entertainment district .......

But the proposed logo, in and of itself, should ensure that the Toronto's effort is a bid to nowhere.

Guadalajara seems to have come up with something moderately more creative.

In this and other aspects, someone needs to tell the Toronto/Golden Horseshoe organizers that any international sporting event is serious business and, additional to the funding, will require some grown ups to work on it.

The video below is a good summary of the evolution of the Olympic emblems/logos/posters over the years. Try to ignore the Vangelis soundtrack if you can - way too Hollywood.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCHUNmhg0H0






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[TO City of Light]

The bid to nowhere

From the TorStar

'Toronto' dirty word to Pan Am bid pooh-bahs
October 03, 2008
DAVE PERKINS

There were jugglers and clowns, gymnasts and fencers and a couple of trampoline artists dazzling about 500 schmoozers yesterday at the official kickoff of the 2015 Pan Am Games bid. Yet the neatest trick was the one turned in by bid chair David Peterson.

The former premier is the handshaking face of the bid, now only a week from its first moment of truth, its initial presentation in Acapulco to the Pan American Sports Organization (PASO). The entire undertaking still is sorting itself out, lacing where and when details. The board of directors is not yet in place, even if Jagoda Pike, for another day the highest sheriff at this newspaper, has come aboard as president to cross t's and dot i's Peterson either can't or can't get around to. The guess here is that they will work well together.

That neat trick was Peterson introducing the mayor of this burg of ours, David Miller – who has, however grudgingly, joined the choir – without once saying the word Toronto. Peterson et al know exactly how to play this one out: Forget the word Toronto inside our borders, where everybody hates the place yada-yada, but stress it to the rest of the world, where it's a highly regarded destination.

So Peterson spoke of the "Greater Golden Horseshoe" bid and among the crowd, which featured athletes, sports bureaucrats and enough politicians to steal four boxcars, were all kinds of mayors and city elders from the smaller Ontario communities, the ones whose grassroots support will dictate the success of this endeavour.

For the record, the handout name was the "Toronto and Greater Golden Horseshoe Bid for the 2015 Pan/Parapan American Games." Say that fast three times.

The only time the word Toronto was stressed was on the unveiling of the logo, a stylized maple leaf made of pointy coloured sticks with "Toronto 2015" across the bottom. It's plain and simple, even if the launch wasn't.

The usual speeches were made and politically correct nods were made toward every possible offendable party. Cultural festivals were stressed and everyone rolled out the economic cherry pie that always gets sliced thick at times like these: the alleged $2 billion in economic activity and the quarter-million visitors and the 17,000 jobs and so on. You've heard it all before.

One question arose about the federal government's commitment, which seems to have lost $160 million worth of weight since Beijing. Back then, the word from Finance Minister Jim Flaherty was $660 million of the pretended cost of $1.8 billion. That works out to about 35 per cent, which is what Canadian Olympic Committee president Mike Chambers, Canada's man on the PASO board, believes the feds are committed to. Nobody could explain why Flaherty's letter yesterday, read in his absence due to a family situation, reduced the committed number to $500 million.

Peterson said he wondered about that, too, but other bid types said they have the commitment letter signed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and not to worry. (Peterson said Harper is "jazzed by the whole thing." That sounds good, but will sound better coming from the PM himself after votes are counted Oct. 14.)

Whatever the burbles about economic benefits and so on, there is one reason (it says here) to support this thing: that's the promise of top-notch athletic facilities for southern Ontario and the GTA. This province has become a wasteland for high-performance sports in too many areas. The two-week party, as enticing as it can sound, and the tourism draw attention. The only compelling reason to spend that kind of money is to provide a legacy of athletic facilities the province otherwise would never get.





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[wyliepoon]

The Toronto bid logo reminds me of the Canada 125/Trans Canada Trail logo...

*****

If the 2015 Games are really Toronto's to lose (and judging by the competition, it may very well be), then I'm not too concerned about our bid logo, especially since the bid logo won't be the same as the one for the actual games. Let's hope that if Toronto wins we will be able to come up with a better logo for the actual Games.

 

[carrefour]

How about you show us bids from other countries from any year that are nicer?

But to be honest - after seeing previous game logos (from such exciting cities like Indianapolis and Santo Domingo), Toronto's isn't so bad after all. I guess it is not tough to compete with mediocre.

As I always like to say: Go BIG or Go HOME.

 

[taal]

Compared to the above I'd argue it's not bad at all ... better then most.

But I agree with you and none of them are very interesting to begin with.

 

[Urban Shocker]

The V V V's on the bid logo make me think of Vancouver rather than Toronto. The closest local reference I can think of are OCAD's coloured stilts.

 

[FutureMayor]

FutureMayor Helps Launches Toronto 2015 Pan Am Bid

Louroz

 

[jn_12]

maybe a little big...

 

[adma]

The best Pan Am logo remains this one. Case closed

 

[TOareaFan]

For the meantime, we should focus on ruining Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympics while getting our act together for a 2020 bid. I say one way bus tickets for all of our homeless to Chicago. (Madrid or Tokyo should have this wrapped up though).

Not Madrid....with 2012 in London....doubt that 2016 will be in Europe.

 

[TOareaFan]

IMO we should partner with the USA and go for the FIFA World Cup.

If "we" means Canada, maybe. If "we" means Toronto....no. FIFA awards the WC to countries, not cities....in fact they strictly limit the number of venues/games that can be played in any one city.

 

[wyliepoon]

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/081010/sports/ont_pan_am_bid

Venezuela pulls Pan Am bid; Toronto, two other cities still in running

Module body


By The Canadian Press
ADVERTISEMENT

TORONTO - Toronto has one fewer competitor in its quest to host the 2015 Pan Am Games.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty's office says the group representing the city of Caracas, Venezuela, announced Friday that it had declined to table its bid.

That leaves only Lima, Peru, and Bogota, Colombia in contention with Toronto.

McGuinty is in Acapulco, Mexico, this week to present his province's case for hosting the event to the Pan American Sports Organization.

The $1.77-billion bid involves Toronto and at least 11 other municipalities throughout the Golden Horseshoe and as far north as Barrie.

The last time Ontario hosted a major international sporting was the 1930 Commonwealth Games in Hamilton in 1930.

Former Ontario premier David Peterson is heading Toronto's bid.

"Ontario is ready, willing, eager and able to host the 2015 Pan Am Games. We will do everything in our power to live up to the spirit of the Games, and make the event truly unforgettable," McGuinty said in a release.

It's estimated the Games would generate some $2 billion in economic activity, create 17,000 jobs and attract about 250,000 tourists in the province.

The Pan Am Games, which involve athletes from 42 countries, are held every four years, with the 2011 Games scheduled for Guadalajara, Mexico. Canada last hosted the Games in 1999 in Winnipeg.

 

[wyliepoon]

FIFA awards the WC to countries, not cities....in fact they strictly limit the number of venues/games that can be played in any one city.

Interesting. Is there really a limit?

During the 2002 World Cup, in Korea Seoul was a host city, and so were two cities that lie in the Seoul Metropolitan area, Suwon and Incheon. In fact, both cities can be reached using Seoul's subway system. Similarly in Japan, even though Tokyo was not a host city, the Greater Tokyo Area had three host venues: in Yokohama, Saitama and Ibaraki.

 

[TOareaFan]

Interesting. Is there really a limit?

During the 2002 World Cup, in Korea Seoul was a host city, and so were two cities that lie in the Seoul Metropolitan area, Suwon and Incheon. In fact, both cities can be reached using Seoul's subway system. Similarly in Japan, even though Tokyo was not a host city, the Greater Tokyo Area had three host venues: in Yokohama, Saitama and Ibaraki.

You can use multiple venues within the same city but the way the limit is imposed you have to have a certain amount of distinct cities venues....what they really try to accomplish is not having too many groups playing in the same city at one time.....they do this for crowd control and to make sure there are sufficient hotels for the travelling fans/media etc.

 

[jn_12]

Again, I feel like a broken record... FIFA doesn't allow Co-Hosting anymore for World Cups after the mess from 2002. They changed their statutes in 2004 to reflect this.

So, let's say just for our bid they changed this rule... why would the US want to co-host the World Cup with Canada? What exactly does the US gain from that, when they can and have hosted it successfully on their own? They would lose television and sponsorship revenue, as well as being unable to maximize the economical impact it would have on the country. Also, why would they want to do business with a dysfunctional CSA (That's the Canadian Soccer Association)? There is absolutely no incentive to the US co-hosting a tournament, so we need to get that out of our heads.

Anyways since we can't piggy back a US bid, we don't have the infrastructure to host a profitable tournament. You need at the very least 10 venues that can hold 40k+. Germany had 12, Korea/Japan had 20 (10 each). Compared to every other footballing nation in the world, we have virtually nothing in terms of quality. Skydome and maybe (more like barely) BC Place are the closest we have to state of the art in Canada and those would still need upgrades. At best we would need to substantially upgrade Commonwealth, Montreal's Olympic Stadium (assuming it can be upgraded) and maybe use this Pan-Am Stadium. So there's 5, and one of them is more likely to be imploded than upgraded. Really, all you have to do is look at the quality of venues that were in Germany (and even the ones that will be used in South Africa) to realize that unless we want to be a laughing stock, we should forget about this idea.


As for the issue of stadiums and where they're located: FIFA allows a host nation to use a maximum of two stadiums in one city. South Africa will have two stadiums in Johannesburg (with another in nearby Pretoria) and most recently, for France in 98, Paris had 2, although technically one was in St Denis.