Why Boston's Sports Fans Rejected the Olympics Boondoggle—and L.A. Said Bring It On 为什么波士顿的体育迷拒绝承办劳民伤财的奥运会——而洛杉矶却说我来办 作者: Garrett Quinn @ 2015-9-15
译者: Who视之(@Who适之)
校对：沈沉（@你在何地-sxy）
来源: Reason， https://reason.com/archives/2015/09/15/why-bostons-sports-fans-rejected-the-oly The long, sad history of overspending on the inter national games. 国际性赛事超支的心酸历史 As the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) submits the city of Los Angeles as the country’s official nominee to host the 2024 Summer Games, sports fans in Boston are whooping it up like they did after the Red Sox finally won another World Series.
当美国奥委会正式提名洛杉矶代表美国申办2024年夏季奥运会，波士顿的体育迷欢呼雀跃，好似红袜队又拿下了一场世界系列赛。【 译注：美国棒球联盟和全国棒球联盟优胜者之间的年度比赛 】
And with good reason. Earlier this year, the USOC had picked Boston to represent America in the Olympics-host sweepstakes. Then the sports-mad fans of the Red Sox, the Bruins, the Celtics, and the Patriots told city fathers—especially Mayor Martin J. Walsh—to pound sand when it came to hosting the Olympic Games with tax dollars.
他们这么高兴是有道理的。今年早些时候，美国奥委会挑选波士顿代表美国参加奥运会主办城市的赌赛。那些红袜队、棕熊队、凯尔特人队和爱国者队的死忠们告诉市府大员们——特别是市长Martin J. Walsh——若是用纳税人的钱来办奥运会，就要把这主意掐死。
How Boston’s rabid sports fans rejected the Olympics—and how chumps in Los Angeles enthusiastically stepped up to potential bankruptcy—is a tale worth understanding, especially the next time your city or state tries selling voters on a new stadium or venue for billionaire sports team owners.
为啥波士顿的狂热体育迷拒绝奥运会，而洛杉矶的呆逼们兴高采烈地踏上潜在的破产之旅，这事值得弄弄明白，特别是下次你的城市或州政府为身家亿万的球队老板们着想，试图向选民们兜售新的体育场馆时。
The Summer Games routinely use billions of taxpayer dollars to throw the equivalent of a three-week-long international party that ends with a trashed house and a financial hangover that lasts for years. Montreal hosted the games in 1976 and built a stadium that was called the Big O. Since it took fully 30 years to pay off the municipal debt that underwrote the Games, locals dubbed it " the Big Owe ."
夏奥会一贯会花费纳税人几十上百亿美元，举办为期三周的国际大趴，结局是一地垃圾和延续若干年的财务宿醉症。蒙特利尔1976年承办了夏奥会，建了一座叫Big O的体育场。由于用了整整30年才还清为承办奥运会而发行的市政债，当地居民给这个体育场起了个“Big Owe”的外号【 译注：Owe是欠账的意思 】。
As sports economist Andrew Zimbalist has noted , the Summer Games might generate $6 billion in total revenue, half of which goes to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) while costing the host city $20 billion (London) or even $40 billion (Beijing). And don’t think that any new stadiums or infrastructure will have much of an economic afterlife. Indeed, the main achievement of the 2004 Athens games was to create modern ruins to match the ancient ones that actually draw tourists to Greece.
体育经济学家Andrew Zimbalist注意到，夏奥会可能产生了60亿美元的总收入，其中一半归国际奥委会，而主办城市会花费200亿美元（伦敦），甚至400亿美元（北京）。不要以为那些新的运动场馆和基础设施在会后能有什么经济效益。实际上，2004年雅典奥运会的主要成就，就是兴建了一批现代废墟来配合真正吸引游客到希腊去的古代废墟。
On top of all that the Olympics have an established reputation for bringing graft, a draconian security state, and horrific traffic and business disruption everywhere they go. "The important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win, but to participate," declared the creator of the modern Games, the Frenchman Pierre de Coubertin, who obviously wasn’t stuck paying any of the bills.
不仅如此，奥林匹克运动已经建立起这样一个名声：它走到哪，哪就会有贪腐、苛刻的安保，以及严重的交通和商务混乱。现代奥林匹克创始人，法国人顾拜旦宣称：“奥运会重在参与而不是取胜。”这人显然不管付账。
Earlier this year, Boston seemed up for the challenge and was selected to be the city that the USOC would put forward to host the 2024 Games. To its slim credit, the IOC had reformed some of its practices after a stunning show of disinterest from western democracies in hosting the 2022 Winter Olympics (an even bigger money-loser than the Summer Games). The reforms, known as Agenda 2020 , are designed to make hosting the games less financially burdensome and will be applied for the first time during the bidding for the 2024 Summer Olympics.
今年早间，波士顿看着像要去挑战一下，被美国奥委会选为竞办2024奥运会的城市。得承认，在西方民主国家对举办2022年冬奥会（这是个比夏奥会更能亏钱的玩意）显示了令人震惊的冷淡之后，国际奥委会对其做法进行了一些改革。这些改革称为“2020议程”，将在竞办2024年夏奥会时实施，目的是让承办奥运会的经济负担不至于过分沉重。
After Boston’s bid was initially approved by the USOC, more and more details of the financing started dripping out and the city’s enthusiasm went softer than one of Tom Brady’s footballs. While it’s true that the people of Boston are diehard, always-annoying sports fans you want to punch in the neck, they are not suckers and have a long, proud history of telling team owners and elected official to take a hike when it comes to paying for sports venues.
波士顿的竞办申请被美国奥委会批准后，越来越多的融资细节开始泄露，市民的热情变得比Tom Brady【 译注：美式橄榄球四分卫 】的某个传球还弱。虽然波士顿人是死硬的、让人讨厌的、欠揍的体育迷，但这些人一点不蠢；如果球队老板和民选官员想让纳税人掏钱建体育场馆，波士顿人对这种想法的回答有着长久的光荣传统：您哪凉快哪呆着去。
In the 1990s the Patriot and Red Sox sought to build waterfront stadiums on the South Boston Waterfront as part of project dubbed the MegaPlex. The plan only required a tiny commitment from taxpayers but it was still too much to placate the dialed-in citizens of Boston. The plan eventually died when late Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino turned against it. 1990年代，爱国者队和红袜队想在波士顿南部滨水地带兴建滨水体育场，作为名为MegaPlex项目的一部分。这个计划只需要纳税人一点微小的承诺，但仍然不能安抚那些打电话反对的市民。该计划在已故市长Thomas M. Menino转而反对后夭折。
Now, the once vacant area is home to a booming innovation district and soaring residential towers. When the Bruins and Celtics replaced the rat infested Boston Garden with a new building in 1995, it was build with private money after much public handwringing.
现如今，那片原先的空地上建起了生机勃勃的创新产业园区和高高的住宅楼。棕熊队和凯尔特人队在1995年把鼠患猖獗的波士顿花园重建，在公众表示很大关注之后，花的是私人老板的钱。
In 2015, a rag-tag group of activists and young professionals organized against the 2024 bid in an extremely effective manner that put pressure on elected officials to stop the games and created a climate of intense negativity around Boston’s Olympic bid. It was a remarkable display of activism. It pitted the city’s captains of industry against a group of activists with little more than pennies to rub together and smartphones.
2015年，一群由活动分子和年轻的专业人士组成的草根组织了一次非常有效的反申奥活动，使民选官员受到阻止赛会的压力，并为波士顿的申办活动创造了极为负面的气氛。这群除了几块钱和智能手机外啥都没有的活动分子，得以和波士顿的行业大佬们叫阵。
The group pushing the bid had their hands tied by various USOC decrees and limitations . They couldn’t respond quickly and effectively to their opponents and they committed all sorts of unforced errors that stoked the anti-Olympics sentiment: Property owners were caught off guard about venue locations , residents were not contacted before the plan was devised, and community stakeholders were only included in the process when it was all but too late.
支持申办的团体受到美国奥委会各种条例和限制的约束。他们未能及时有效地回应反对者，犯下很多本可避免的失误，使得反奥运情绪如火上浇油：业主们被场馆选址弄得猝不及防，居民们在规划设计之前没有得到通知，而利益相关的社区成员直到时机已过才被纳入进程中去。
The bid’s biggest public supporter, Mayor Martin J. Walsh, was often forced to publicly chastise the USOC and bid organizers for not releasing information in a timely or transparent manner. For many, the announcement that former Governor Deval Patrick was being paid $7,500 a day as a consultant on the project was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
申办活动最大的公共部门支持者，市长Martin Walsh，经常被迫公开批评美国奥委会和申办组织者没有及时透明地公开信息。对很多人来说，前任州长Deval Patrick每天可以得到7500美元的项目顾问费这一消息，是压断骆驼的最后一根稻草。 Opinion poll after opinion poll showed the public just did not trust the organizers to be honest about how much it would all cost locals. Boston’s bid conformed to the reforms outlined in the IOC’s reform agenda but the final sticking point was something that is still Olympic policy: Host cities must take a binding pledge that puts taxpayers on the hook for any cost overruns.
一个接一个的民意调查显示，公众就是不相信组织者对当地人需付总价的估算。波士顿的申办符合国际奥委会做出的改革，但最后胶着点仍然是奥林匹克的这个态度：主办城市必须做出有法律约束的保证，让纳税人为任何成本超支付账。
It wasn’t just Boston-area residents who soured. Elected officials across Massachusetts like Governor Charlie Baker and House Speaker Robert DeLeo balked at the idea of being on the hook and said publicly that they would not sign a taxpayer guarantee for the Olympics. Period. The USOC grew tired of the local reluctance and eventually pulled the bid on July 29 , after Walsh said he would not sign a taxpayer guarantee at a hastily called city hall press conference carried live on all local TV stations.
不仅仅是波士顿地区的居民对此不开心，马萨诸塞州各处的民选官员，比如州长Charlie Baker和众议院议长Robert DeLeo，都对做出这种承诺迟疑不决，公开说他们不会为奥运会签署纳税人的担保，这事没得谈。在一场面向所有当地电视台直播的匆忙召集的市府新闻发布会上，Walsh说他不会签署纳税人的保证，美国奥委会受不了波士顿的勉强，最后在7月29日撤回了竞办。
Meanwhile, all the way across the continent, a two-time Olympic host city waited in the wings to pick up the torch as soon as Boston threw it down: Los Angeles.
与此同时，横跨美国大陆的另一边，一个曾经两次举办奥运会、伺机而动的城市在波士顿放弃申办后，马上接棒了。洛杉矶来了。
The City of Angels hosted the Summer Games in 1932 and in 1984. Memories of those latter games are especially warm and fuzzy for Angelenos. In many ways, the ’84 Games were the coming-out party for L.A., a city that had grown rich in post-war America while never quite being taken seriously in America, much less the rest of the world. To this day and despite the city’s standing as the second-largest metropolis in the country, it nurses a cultural inferiority complex bigger than the budget of a Hollywood blockbuster.
天使之城在1932和1984举办过夏奥会。后一次的奥运会对洛杉矶人来说尤其感觉温馨可人。在很多方面，1984年奥运会是洛杉矶的成年派对，这座城市在战后美国富裕了起来，却一直没有被美国人认真对待过，更不要说在全世界了。直到今天，尽管洛杉矶是美国第二大城市，它的文化自卑情结比一场好莱坞大片的预算还要大。
In 1984, the tremendous performances of Carl Lewis, Mary Lou Retton, and both the men’s and women’s swim teams—along with a boycott by the Soviet Union, East Germany, and other Eastern bloc countries—resulted in the U.S. winning more than three times as many medals as any other country. More important to the current debate, the games were supervised by Peter Uberroth, who insisted on using existing facilities whenever possible, exercised ultra-rare but effective financial discipline, and leaned hard on local philanthropies to kick in lots of free money. The result was what is still widely hailed as " the most successful games ever ," at least from a public accountant’s point of view.
1984年，美国的Carl Lewis，Mary Lou Retton，男女游泳队发挥卓越，加上苏联和东欧国家的抵制，美国得到的奖牌数比第二名的三倍还多。对于当前争议而言，更重要的是，这次运动会由Peter Uberroth主管，他坚持尽量使用现有设施，表现出少有但有效的财务纪律性，依靠当地的慈善力量，省下很多钱。结果是这届奥运会被称为“最成功的奥运会”，至少从会计角度看是这样。
In the ‘80s, L.A. and California were booming. Things are different this time around . The recession was not kind to Los Angeles and the city continues to amass debt, lose jobs, struggle to provide basic services, and hang on to its middle class. California in general is struggling to pay its bills, too, while keeping the lights on.
在80年代，洛杉矶和加州欣欣向荣，可这次情况不同了。经济衰退对洛杉矶毫不客气，该市一直在堆积债务，流失就业机会，忙于提供基本服务，求助于中产阶级。加州基本上也是在让灯亮着的同时挣扎着付清账单。
Yet this time around, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to support Mayor Eric Garcetti’s pursuit of the Games even though it means putting the city’s taxpayers on the line for any kind of cost overruns. And the state government has a history of coming to the city’s rescue. During their pursuit of the 2016 games, the California legislature set aside $250 million in state funds to help Los Angeles’s bid (it lost out to Rio de Janeiro). California Gov. Jerry Brown has not officially committed to financially backing the games but that did not stop bid organizers in Los Angeles from saying he was on board anyway. 可是这一次，洛杉矶市议会投票一致支持市长Eric Garcetti申办奥运会，尽管这意味着纳税人要为任何成本超支买单。该州政府有搭救市府的传统。在申办2016运动会时，加州议会拨出2.5亿美元州资金来帮助洛杉矶申办（最后不敌里约热内卢）。加州州长没有正式承诺在财务上支持运动会，但这并未阻止洛杉矶的申办者宣称州长和他们站在一起。
The rosy-colored view of the games is not limited to the California political elite. Sports columnists such like Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times tend to be uncritical boosters of Southern California and are enthusiastically on board . In Boston, there was almost uniform opposition to the games in the press and the reception from the sports media was more vicious than the drunks in the Fenway Park bleachers when the Yankees are in town. Even the limited polling on the games shows Los Angeles actually wants the games. Over 81 percent of respondents in a recent poll sponsored by the USOC said they backed the games.
对奥运会玫瑰色的展望并未局限于加州的政治精英，体育专栏作家们，如《洛杉矶时报》的Bill Plaschke，都是南加州不加批评的支持者，对申办全心支持。在波士顿，报界几乎一致反对奥运会，体育媒体的反应，比纽约扬基队来叫阵时，Fenway公园露天看台上醉鬼的骂声更加邪恶。有限的民意测验显示，洛杉矶人确实想申办奥运会。在最近一个美国奥委会组织的调查中，超过81%的受访者说他们支持。
So it seems that Los Angeles and its residents appear far more willing to mortgage their future to host a three-week party in 2024 for the world’s elite than Boston was. Come 2017, when the IOC will announce the winning city from applicants that include Paris, Toronto, Budapest, Hamburg, and Rome, Hollywood may well be breaking ground on yet another boulevard of broken dreams. That is, if Los Angeles is selected to host the game for a third time.
看来洛杉矶和它的居民比波士顿更加愿意把他们的未来抵押在2024年为世界精英们举办一次为时三周的国际派对。2017年奥委会将宣布巴黎、多伦多、布达佩斯特、汉堡、罗马这些申办城市中的胜者。如果洛杉矶第三次获选举办奥运会，好莱坞很可能要为另一条碎梦大道破土动工。
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