"When you look at some of the benefits that other cities have realized after the Games, it becomes very titillating," said Joyce Wilkerson, Mayor Street's chief of staff, who attended the students' presentation. "We're going to think about what [the administration's] role would be."
Also attending were Phillies president Dave Montgomery and team chairman Bill Giles, whose presence underscored the significant role to be taken by the private sector. In previous bids by U.S. cities, a leader with big visions quickly emerged to spearhead a pitch that can take 10 years. The process includes persuading the business community to finance an initial bid that could cost $10 million to $15 million.
To date, the only official actions taken by the sports congress were a 1994 study of Philadelphia's Olympic possibilities by Ernst & Young that evaluated the city's athletic facilities, and a similar study completed last summer by Kenneth L. Shropshire, chairman of the legal studies department at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
The graduate students' study takes an even deeper look at what it would take to bring the Olympics to town.
It identifies the best sites for every Olympic game: Soccer at the new Eagles stadium. Badminton at the Convention Center. Modern Pentathlon in Pennypack Park. Beach volleyball in Atlantic City.
Among the city's biggest challenges, the study said, would be convincing the voters who select the host city that Philadelphia is a "world-class city," a feat that "will require strategic changes in the city's landscape in conjunction with a persuasive marketing strategy."
