Olympic Bid Organizer Larry Baer Says New Oakland Stadium Not A Last-Minute Attempt To Woo USOC
SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) — San Francisco Giants CEO and 2024 Olympics bid organizer Larry Baer says a newly-announced plan to include a new Olympic stadium in Oakland that would later serve as the new home of the Raiders has been in the works for months.
Baer said the new stadium would need to have an oval configuration to host the opening and closing ceremonies as well as track and field competitions.
The United States Olympic Committee will meet at the Denver International Airport on Thursday afternoon to decide between the San Francisco Bay Area and three other finalists as to which will become the potential host site for 2024 Summer Olympics
The original plan was to build a temporary stadium in Brisbane and while Baer said that is still a possibility, the Oakland stadium solution is intriguing.
"If there's a missing piece to the financing to keep the Raiders here, this could be the Olympics, he said. "What you want with to have with the Olympics I think, is you want to have the ability, when the Olympics leave, to say that the community was improved—in lots of ways: transportation, housing, athletic facilities—andthat could happen as a result of the 2024 Olympics in San Francisco if we're lucky enough to go forward.
While the stadium proposal has been seen a seen by some as a last-minute attempt to get the bid, Baer said that is not the case.
"It wasn't last hour; it's been a combination of discussions with Oakland, with everybody over many months and I think what happened, in the way it was presented by the mayors of Oakland and San Francisco, is that they just want to make sure that USOC understood that Oakland was a very viable option as they are making their selection today," he said.
The USOC will select one region among the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and Boston to be the official U.S. bid city that will then go before an number of international cities. The final choice will be decided by the International Olympic Committee.
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