Manchester should bid for the 2036 Olympics

By James O’Malley

My favourite thing about the Olympics is that the athletes are mostly normal people.

Incredibly fit normal people who have trained to almost inhuman levels of ability, sure, but for the most part they live lives closer to the way most of us live — and not like multimillionaire football stars. So for them, an Olympic win can be a genuinely life-changing moment — and it’s exciting to vicariously experience that with them.

The best stories though, are the underdog stories. Whether it is Mo Farah escaping genocide in his childhood, achieving athletic immortality at London 2012, or Laura Kenny fighting back from her injuries to score two more golds in Rio 2016, it’s incredibly satisfying to watch such a massive moment take place.

And it was when thinking about this that it hit me: There is still one underdog story that hasn’t been told at the Olympics. After decades of government underinvestment and being perennially stuck in London’s shadow, it’s really time for Manchester to go for gold. And that’s why I’m convinced that it should seriously bid to host the 2036 Olympics.

Old precedents don’t count

Now I know what you’re thinking: Manchester has been here before. In the late 1980s and 1990s, the city bid to host both the 1996 and 2000 Games, which of course ended up going to Atlanta and Sydney. At the time, the reason for the rejection was broadly thought to be concerns about whether Manchester had the right venues, and whether it was a sufficiently large international hub.

Then there was the issue identified by Damian Green, who worked in the Number 10 policy unit and later became a Cabinet Minister. In confidential notes revealed in 2019, he wrote that “no one in their right mind would spend three weeks in Manchester rather than Sydney. It is hard to imagine Manchester ever being successful.”

So why should Manchester expect something different to happen this time around?

The answer is simple: almost everything is different now.

For example, unlike thirty years ago, Manchester now has a suitable stadium and a world-class velodrome – not to mention a tonne of other sporting facilities. Most of the actual sports-specific infrastructure that Manchester would need, including an area of the city to serve as an Olympic Park, has already been built.

Sure, there are some technical challenges, such as the Etihad stadium being configured for football rather than athletics (as it was when it was when it was built for the 2002 Commonwealth Games) — but it does not exactly seem beyond the wit of man to solve this problem, not least because the stadium is already 90% of the way there. And hey, if Manchester or the International Olympic Committee (IOC) really does want something new, perhaps there is an opportunity to do something with Jim Ratcliffe’s plans for a new Old Trafford?

Similarly, you can imagine how the velodrome may need a lick of paint before the world descends on it — but again, crucially, it already exists. As do a number of smaller stadiums, arenas and pitches for smaller events like field hockey. And given we’re talking about 2036, that is probably just about enough time to iron out all of the bugs at the Co-Op Live Arena, so that it is ready to host the gymnastics or the basketball. (And if we’re really struggling, we could just re-use some of London 2012’s stuff. I mean, if Paris can get away with hosting the surfing in Tahiti, the IOC will probably forgive Manchester for putting the rowing in Windsor).

Essentially then, because Manchester has already hosted one major international multi-sport event, to a significant extent the playbook for how to run an Olympics has already been written. Yes, there will be some differences with Olympic requirements, but this gives Manchester an enormous head-start in terms of both planning, and demonstrating that it is capable of hosting. (I’d also personally love to see Olympic skateboarding take place in Depot Mayfield, to give the event a real Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater vibe.)

The money is the point

There is a broader change from the turn of the millennium too – and that’s in the nature of how the Olympics works.

When Manchester submitted its previous bids, the Games were taking place in an era when there was almost an expectation that billions and billions of dollars would be spent by the host country. For example, Atlanta and Sydney cost around $7bn and $8bn respectively, adjusted for inflation – and in more recent years, costs ballooned even further: London cost around $20bn, and Tokyo was $15bn.

In that context, it’s perhaps not surprising that Manchester may not want to bid. But in more recent years, there has been a cultural shift. In 2020, the IOC published a report outlining how the cost of hosting the games should be reduced to make them more sustainable. It was a consequence of the 2024 bidding process, which saw numerous cities begin and then withdraw bids on cost grounds – leaving Paris and Los Angeles the last cities standing. (They gave 2024 to Paris, and 2028 to Los Angeles, as a consolation prize — and presumably out of fear that 2028 might attract zero bids.)

Now there is a clear recognition that costs need to fall – hence why Paris 2024 and LA 2028 are both aiming to keep costs low by reusing existing buildings instead of constructing new ones, creating temporary venues for sports where maintaining them wouldn’t be sustainable in the long term, and attracting private sector investment. And these are all things, as per my sketch above, that Manchester already has.

So in terms of the actual mechanics of providing somewhere to hold the various competitions, I actually think Manchester could keep that part of the games relatively cheap.

However, I also think this is the wrong way to look at the Games – because I don’t think the cost question is quite the same as it is for other cities. Aside from paying someone to design a suitably Mancunian mascot (ideas in the comments…) and bribing the Gallagher brothers to reunite for the opening ceremony, I think the way to think about Manchester 2036 is that the capital investment is the point.

The real prize

Think back to London 2012. The real purpose of the Olympic bid back then wasn’t anything to do with showing off our sporting prowess or wanting to build a venue large enough to hold everyone who wanted to boo George Osborne. The people behind the bid had a not-so-hidden agenda.

"I didn't bid for the Olympics because I wanted three weeks of sport," former London Mayor Ken Livingstone once said, "I bid for the Olympics because it's the only way to get the billions of pounds out of the Government to develop the East End — to clean the soil, put in the infrastructure and build the housing."

It was a canny plan. The Stratford site in East London, and the Westfield shopping complex nearby, had long been earmarked for redevelopment, as it was one of the few remaining sites close to central London with enormous housing potential. Adding the Olympics into the mix was the catalyst: it supersized the planned investments in the area, and perhaps just as importantly, actually made sure that it would happen.

This is because the Olympic Park had a very clear, very hard deadline. If London hadn’t built the necessary infrastructure in time for the Games, it would have been spectacularly embarrassing for everyone involved – giving the developers the resources, and crucially the political will, to make the large-scale development happen at relative speed.

And in my view, this is the real prize for Manchester.

For decades we’ve witnessed politicians in Westminster make bold promises to the city, dangling the possibility of infrastructure investments and Northern Powerhouses in front of its citizens, only to cruelly snatch them away when their political priorities change.

The nadir of this was, of course, Rishi Sunak’s 2023 conference speech. Speaking in Manchester, the then Prime Minister announced that HS2 would be cut off at the knees, and would not reach beyond Birmingham – even though this will actually make passenger rail capacity worse than it is now. It was a strategic fuck-up for the entire country that, unless the new government reverses the decision, will reverberate for a century.

So what good are the Games?

Essentially, if Manchester were to host the Olympics, it would act as a huge driver of infrastructure investment. Just as London 2012 catalysed new extensions to the London Overground, and Docklands Light Railway, and left a legacy that strengthened the case for the Elizabeth Line. The same could happen to Manchester.

Whether it’s redeveloping North Manchester, sorting east-west rail connections, building a much-needed motorway to connect with Sheffield, or upgrading Manchester Airport, an Olympics on the horizon would act as the ultimate catalyst to make sure these much needed upgrades actually happen – and the ultimate insurance policy to ensure that they are completed.

It would also lead to a broader building boom, and would be an opportunity to build new housing (not least to serve as an Athlete’s Village) and new hotel capacity. Not to mention the investment would stimulate second and third-order demand for goods and services, helping the Manchester economy.

And hell, maybe it would even persuade the government to do the right thing, and build HS2 in full.

So have a think about it, Manchester. It’s time to finish your underdog story – and bring home the gold.

Ed: Plus, it’d be better than Birmingham, though that hasn’t stopped our sister newspaper The Dispatch making their pitch this weekend in an unfortunately timed scheduling clash!

James O’Malley writes on politics, policy, infrastructure and more at Odds and Ends of History and tweets as @Psythor.