Jacksonville, Florida has pulled out of the running to host the 2016 Olympic Trials according to the Florida Times-Union. Meet organizers came to the decision after realizing that their arena, Veterans Memorial, was significantly smaller than their competitors.
“We’re very disappointed; we put a lot of work into this bid,” said Alan Verlander, executive director of Jacksonville Sports and Entertainment, to the Times-Union. “But there are things like venue size that are out of our control.”
As we discussed in the Jacksonville edition of our “Better Know an Olympic Trials Bid” series, the layout of Veterans’ Memorial for this meet would be just around 10,000 seats. That would be significantly smaller than the 14,000+ we’ve had for the last 8 years in Omaha.
This leaves just 5 bidders now for the honor of hosting an event that is estimated to bring over $10 million in economic impact. USA Swimming officials were in Greensboro, North Carolina in the last few weeks scoping out that bid, including during the ACC Women’s Championships that were hosted there.
- Greensboro, North Carolina
- Indianapolis, Indiana
- St. Louis, Missouri
- Omaha, Nebraksa
- San Antonio, Texas
Why change what works? Just keep it in Omaha. It already has those good vibes from past Trials. I haven’t heard anyone who thought it was a bad location.
If its held in Omaha, just schedule it so it does not overlap with the College World series – that created too much demand for hotels rooms at the same time –
Great weather, huge facility, hotels, and the Riverwalk right across the street. San Antonio!!!!!!
I agree. Enough said.