Tokyo may or may not be able to host this year’s Olympics.
Salt Lake City and Utah elected officials and business leaders want a Winter Olympics. The next available Winter Olympics is in 2030 but Los Angeles is hosting the 2028 Summer Olympics and the International Olympic Committee generally does not award back to back Olympics to countries or even the same continent. But money does talk and the IOC could be persuaded by a marketing partner like the American communication company Comcast that a 2030 United States Olympics is not a bad thing for Comcast’s NBC, Comcast’s multiple networks and Comcast’s multiple streaming platforms. After all, Comcast does give billions of dollars to the IOC.
The Olympics that people in Salt Lake City and Utah want are 10 and 14 years down the road. No one can predict what world events might interfere with an Olympics in 2030 or 2034 or even 2028 when Los Angeles has the Summer Games. In 2013, when Japan landed the 2020 Summer Games, no one could predict the coronavirus would cause a world health crisis. The Ladies Professional Golf Association recently canceled Thailand, Singapore and China events because of the coronavirus. The 2020 World Athletics Indoor Championship in Nanjing, China has been canceled. The Winter X-Games that was scheduled for China was canceled. Vietnam canceled all major February sporting events. The 2020 Tokyo Olympics’ organizers fought back against rumors of a postponement. There is no way Salt Lake City and Utah political and business leaders pushing for a Winter Olympics a decade away can plan for an illness outbreak. In 2016, the organizers of the Rio Olympics had to deal with far more than money shortages. There was a Zika virus outbreak. In May 2016, Major League Baseball canceled a two-game series in San Juan, Puerto Rico because of the virus. There are some serious unknowns when bidding for an Olympics years away.
