To bid or not to bid : Olympic reform and the 2030 Barcelona bid

Abstract

This thesis will use the opportunity presented by the Barcelona bid to further research on wider and deeper questions around the Olympic governance. The case posed by the Olympic aspirations of Barcelona presents a suitable case study to debate around Olympic governance and reform given its place in time. The 2030 Winter Olympic bidding process will be the first one to embrace the so-called Agenda 2020+5 (OA+), a reform package introduced by IOC-president Thomas Bach at the beginning of his first term in 2014. This reform package responded to an existential thread as defined by Bach himself (Palmer, 2015). The subtitle of the reform was change or be changed” implying that the IOC was indeed in critical need of a new strategic roadmap. The longevity of the renewed Olympic ambitions in Barcelona allows us to assess the impact of the reform in a quasi-natural experiment. Because the first bid proposed in 2012 to host the 2022 WOG was designed before the implementation of the OA, it does not follow the new guidelines set up by the IOC in terms of sustainability and cost efficiency. This gives us the opportunity to compare such bid with the one from today’s and observe its evolution. The bid for the 2030 WOG is a continuation of the first bid but adapted to the OA+ the set of recommendations proposed by the IOC to make the games more attractive for the host regions. In doing so, I hope to contribute to the better understanding of concepts like Olympic governance, Olympic heritage, and institutional reform.