Boston 2024: Brattle Report is Misleading

(ATR) Boston 2024 says the Brattle Report simply compared their bid to previous Olympic Games without checking facts.

"We respectfully disagree with some of their assumptions and analyses and have identified several misrepresentations and/or errors within the report. Unfortunately, the Brattle Group never fact-checked many of their findings, which would have prevented these errors," Boston 2024 said.

The report was commissioned by the state for $250,000 and concluded that the Boston bid to host the 2024 Olympics seriously underestimated operating and construction costs. The report says the actual costs could be $3 billion more than the planned operating budget of $4.6 billion.

However, Boston attributes the report’s findings to a comparison to the London 2012 Olympic budget and not a thorough analysis of their detailed proposed budget.

"For the Olympic Stadium, Brattle merely assumed Boston would experience an overrun exactly the same as London’s (48%), and simply applied that percentage to our Olympic Stadium budget. No analysis of our detailed construction estimates was actually done to refute our cost estimate," Boston 2024 rebutted.

The lengthy response offered by Boston 2024 provides more examples of these comparisons, notably with construction costs for the aquatics venue and main press center.

Although the findings in the Brattle Report were released after the bid was pulled by the USOC and city of Boston, Boston Governor Charlie Baker says he would have refused to sign a host city contract given the findings. The findings "demonstrated that there were, in fact, significant risks," Baker said.

There were four main risks identified by the Brattle Group report: risks associated with revenue shortfalls; with increased operating costs; with relying on private developers; and with infrastructure investments needed to host the Olympic Games.

Among the risks pointed out by Baker include the proposed redevelopment of Widett Circle to be turned into an Olympic Park that would house the temporary stadium for the Games. The report claims this project and the redevelopment of Columbia Point into the athletes village would likely have cost overruns the bid did not account for.

"Past experience suggests these projects carry significant risk, with respect to both cost overruns and delays," the report says.

Boston 2024 says the analysis did not take into account the detailed construction costs provided in their bid proposal.

"The Brattle Group's analysis is a simple comparison of our budget to past Games including London. There was no effort to critique our venue by venue construction budgets which we provided, down to very specific costs of steel, concrete, plumbing, electrical and HVAC on a square foot basis," Boston 2024 said.

The Brattle Group says one of the primary causes of concern was not over construction costs themselves but over challenges with finding contractors to commit to the major developments.

"The biggest sources of risk, however, were related to securing commitments from private developers to construct the Midtown area and the athletes village, and those related to the necessary infrastructure investments," the report states.

"The Midtown and Columbia Point projects were subject to significant risks as to whether private developers would have committed to providing the funding. The financial returns to the private developers projected in Bid 2.0 might have been lower than necessary to cause developers to take on the risks," the report continued.

Although the bid team can criticize the findings, the final nails in the Boston bid’s coffin have already been sealed. The USOC is now contemplating a new bid to submit to the IOC by the September 15 deadline. Los Angeles has been tapped as the city to replace Boston as the United States candidate.

Written by Kevin Nutley

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