‘I’m rooting for India’s Olympics bid’, says U.S. Ambassador Eric Garcetti

You were part of the team that led the bidding process for LA. What was your vision at that time?

I had a vision of three things: First, can we fit the Olympics into cities instead of the other way round? Usually cities build new facilities and it’s expensive and the operations are profitable, but the capital costs put you in debt. So we said, can we figure out a way to help Los Angeles be an example of a model where the Olympics come and say ‘we want to be in your city, how can we accommodate you’ not ‘how can you accommodate us’?

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Second, figure out a way we could reignite the movement and connect Hollywood and values of freedom, entertainment. LA has always been a ‘Games’ changer. In 1932 we built the first Olympic Village, some of the first women’s events, the first photo finish, we made $1,000,000. In 1984, it was the first time there were private sponsorships and that helped make a profit of $350 million.

This time, we could be showing a ‘Sustainable Games’. So we’re not building a village, we’re using university dormitories at UCLA, we can save hundreds of millions of dollars. Third, to leave a human legacy. People look at the Olympics as a chance to rebuild their city. But we also wanted to leave a human legacy, to leave behind a generation of people inspired by sports.

Sustainability is the way forward but not too many countries are actually interested because of the cost overrun. What were the lessons you could take from Athens or Rio?

I think there’s two types of successful games: One is in cities that are ready to do it. Los Angeles could do the Olympics every four years if we wanted. We have to build almost nothing. The second is what I would say are the catalytic games and, if India were to bid, a chance not just to show the world, ‘We can host an Olympics and spend billions of dollars’ but to inspire the population to get behind sports as an experience. It’s a chance to build infrastructure for tourism, sports and to inspire health and fitness as a way of life. That, to me, is a success.

What do you think about the idea of multi-city Games?

Absolutely. We’re doing it in Los Angeles even in the face of critics who say you have to have everything in one place. That’s the old model. Even in Southern California, we’re going to have may be seven cities in the region and we’re going outside to Oklahoma. If the Olympics are going to be more accessible to more countries, we should look at the multi city model. 

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I know there’s talk about Gujarat and Mumbai, those are close enough. You don’t want to build everything in a place that can’t take it — Mumbai doesn’t have a lot of space to build; Gujarat might but you have excitement in Mumbai. 

How did the idea to include cricket in the LA Olympics come about?

Every Olympics you can do five demonstration sports. So (bid chairman) Casey Wasserman and I sat down and thought about those. We looked at cricket as the biggest sport watched by the most number of people of the most countries that still wasn’t an Olympic sport. It was top priority for us long before I knew I was going to be the ambassador here. 

Do you personally follow, play or understand cricket?

Totally! In fact, my speciality now is explaining to American VIPs how cricket is played in less than a minute! I don’t know every term or rule but I fell in love with it through T20. I played when I lived in the UK a little bit and I was like, oh ‘I’m more of a baseball player, this is too slow’. But now, T20 has really made me fall in love with it. It’s three hours, constant hitting and in some ways it’s more exciting than even baseball is. 

Do you think the recent T20 World Cup will help build excitement towards cricket in the USA during the Olympics?

Tremendously. Somebody told me that the US is number two in the world in terms of hours of cricket streamed online. We already have Indian and South Asian immigrants, we’ve got Australians and Brits and we have a huge following for cricket. If I were an investor, I would invest in cricket in the US right now. It’s going to be a decade probably before it becomes a major sport. But just as people said, ‘America is not a soccer country’. Now women’s soccer is doing amazing. Americans are realizing you don’t have to pick between baseball and cricket. I’m living proof you can love both. 

Olympics, at the end of the day, is about performances. And India is far behind on that front. Do you think being a host will make a difference?

I’m rooting for an Indian bid. I’ve expressed this to Prime Minister [Narendra Modi], I have said use me as a resource to learn how we won. I think that Olympics inspire and connect people but also ignite a nation around sports. What we’ve seen is that Indian youth love sports. They want more facilities, opportunities and programmes. 

But you don’t have to win the Olympics. It’s really about hosting the world, not just promoting your nation. Don’t think about it as a contest, think about it as an opportunity — for that village girl or the boy stuck in a slum to have that transformative story. I think it’s only a matter of time and, if done right, it can be a benefit not just to a few people. Wearing a medal can benefit every person.