Biggest Olympic decision: Who’s on first?

IOC recommends joint approval of 2024, 2028 bids. L.A., Paris only candidates.

Now that Olympic leaders have recommended both Los Angeles and Paris be awarded an upcoming Summer Games, all parties involved face a busy summer.

With its announcement on Friday, the executive board of the International Olympic Committee officially set in motion a process by which the 2024 bid race would produce two winners, one for 2024 and the other for 2028.

The unusual “dual-allocation” proposal comes at a time when the Olympic movement has seen numerous potential hosts withdraw from consideration, scared away by the billions of dollars required to stage the massive sporting event.

“This represents a golden opportunity for the Olympic Games,” IOC President Thomas Bach said, adding: “It’s hard to imagine something better.”

But there could be a few hiccups along the way, especially if — as expected — Paris insists on going first and L.A. attempts to negotiate concessions in exchange for waiting around.

On Friday, Bach threw some water on the idea of handing L.A. a bigger slice of IOC revenues or other perks.

“I don’t think you need to reward if you give somebody a present,” he said.

At this point, no deal has been struck or even discussed in detail, the IOC president insisted. He emphasized the importance of proceeding step by step over the next few months.

The sequence actually began in spring when IOC leaders first hinted at their desire to name two winners and broached the subject with bid officials from each city.

Now that the executive board has read an internal report on the proposal and offered its unanimous approval, IOC members will have a chance to vote at a mid-July meeting in Switzerland.

Some of those members might resist if they feel relegated to rubber-stamping an idea pushed through by leadership. Bach seemed mindful of this when he mentioned the need to respect a sequence that includes next month’s vote.

He sounded less concerned about potential complaints from cities that might be hoping to mount bids for 2028.

“In German, we have a saying … it is better to have a small bird in your hand than a big bird on the roof,” he said. “Here we have two big birds in our hands and I cannot see any small birds on the roof. There may be some f lying over the roof and making some noise but none of them has landed on the roof.”

Under a two-winner arrangement, Paris would be expected to get 2024 if only because bid leaders in the French capital have repeatedly insisted that key elements of their proposal, including the construction of an expensive athletes village, cannot be postponed.

The response from Paris on Friday welcomed the decision to “review bidding processes” but stuck to a focus on 2024.

LA 2024, by comparison, seemed to reiterate a willingness to be flexible.

“We welcome the IOC executive board’s decision to recognize two excellent bids from two of the world’s greatest cities,” Mayor Eric Garcetti and bid chairman Casey Wasserman said in a joint statement. “We look forward to sharing our unique story with the IOC membership in July and working together to offer the best path forward for our city and the Olympic Movement’s future.”

Bach refused to speculate on the pecking order between the cities, saying his past conversations with Paris “were very open, so nobody closed the door [on 2028].”

As for appeasing the bidder that goes later, he left open the possibility of modifying “the one or the other clause in the host city contract.”

A controversial provision in that contract requires the host city government to assume responsibility for any outstanding debts should organizers run out of money. The liability was sizable in places such as Montreal and Athens when past Games ran up huge deficits.

The last time Los Angeles hosted the Olympics, in 1984, it was the only city in contention and was able to get the clause removed.

This time, LA 2024 has made no such effort, confident it can save money by using existing facilities and cover a $5.3-billion budget through broadcast money, corporate sponsorships, ticket sales and other revenue sources.

Looking ahead, Bach hoped a July vote of approval would allow him to quickly finalize negotiations with his bid candidates, securing an agreement before September’s selection vote.

“It is about creating this win-win situation together,” he said. “This then will be the topic of the discussions.”