An Olympics in Boston?

The prospect of hosting a Summer Olympics in Boston has been bandied about for many years, but it now appears as though things might get serious in light of Boston’s selection as the top choice of American cities to contend for the designation world-wide in 2024.

As far as we know, in terms of dollars and cents, hosting an Olympics games makes no sense. They always lose money and impose a cost on the local taxpayers. We’re still paying for the Big Dig after all — which means that for the lifetime of most of us, we’ll still be paying off whatever we need to borrow to host a Summer Olympics.

But we will be the first to concede that not everything can be measured in dollars and cents, and if anything can fit into that category, a Summer Olympics certainly does.

So as the facts surrounding Boston’s bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympics become more widely-known to the public, we hope that everyone keeps an open mind. If the worst that happens is that the bonds (or whatever financial vehicle is used to finance it) costs each of us a few dollars a year in extra taxes (or whatever revenue stream is needed  to pay for it), wouldn’t the prospect of having an Olympics in Boston be worth it?