Detroit not a player for 2024 Games
Detroit will not play host to the 2024 Summer Olympics.
It’s shocking, of course, so take a minute to digest that information.
Mayor Dave Bing, the Basketball Hall of Famer who starred for Syracuse and the Detroit Pistons, took the city out of consideration with a letter to the U.S. Olympic Committee, according to the Huffington Post.
The letter was in response to a USOC query to the mayors of 35 cities to gauge interest in pursuing the 2024 bid. Las Vegas was on that list, according to the story.
“Unfortunately, due to the timing and uncertainty of Detroit’s long-term financial stability, we must respectfully decline to participate,” Bing wrote.
At the moment Detroit is waiting to find out what plans Michigan has for it under the state’s emergency financial manager law, and the idea of the city putting forth a serious effort at securing the Olympic Games is ludicrous at best.
Host cities must pay a $10 million processing fee upfront, commit to a $3 billion operating budget, have in place a workable transportation system and build an Olympic Village for 16,500 athletes.
Detroit is having enough trouble ensuring trash pickup and police and fire services. So Detroit is out.
Los Angeles has expressed major interest, and if Detroit was even a remote possibility, other cities also must be giving serious consideration to a bid.
Can you imagine how impressed the world would be if for two weeks in 2024, all eyes were on Bakersfield?
■ FENCED IN — For as long as there have been pro sports, there have been groupies.
There are plenty of names for women who seek out brief encounters with athletes, and they vary from sport to sport.
Rodeo has buckle bunnies, wrestling has ring rats and the collective team sports have the more generic jersey chasers.
Pit lizards often has been heard in motor sports, but with NASCAR week in full effect in Las Vegas, perhaps the greatest thing we learned is a new moniker for groupies on the circuit.
A chain-link fence often separates the drivers from areas around the track where fans congregate.
Young ladies hoping to get a driver’s attention often wear half-shirts or tie up their tops to expose their midriffs. They press right up against the fence hoping to give themselves the best chance of being noticed.
Thus resulting in the best groupie name we have heard in sports: waffle bellies.
■ TRUE TAKE — By now, you probably have seen the clip of Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman eviscerating Skip Bayless on ESPN’s “First Take” on Thursday.
Sherman delivered the type of verbal assault that practically anyone who has watched more than five minutes of Bayless no doubt has dreamed about.
But Bill Simmons, a columnist on ESPN.com’s Grantland site, tweeted his belief that there were no winners in the ordeal.
“I thought it was awful and embarrassing to everyone involved. Seriously,” he posted. “But what bothers me about the reaction to that segment is people saying Richard Sherman ‘won.’ Nobody won. Everyone lost. Including ESPN.”
Awful and embarrassing.
That actually could be the new promotional tagline ESPN uses for all of its projects that include Bayless.
COMPILED BY ADAM HILL
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
