About 85 percent of Los Angeles County residents surveyed said they support Los Angeles hosting the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, Loyola Marymount University officials said Tuesday.
The telephone survey was conducted from Jan. 4 until Feb. 13 by the university’s Thomas and Dorothy Center for the Study of Los Angeles.
Researchers also asked respondents for their reasons for supporting or opposing the Olympics in Los Angeles.
Supporters said hosting the Olympics would boost the economy or create local jobs, while opponents expressed concern about costs and increased traffic congestion.
The center included the three Olympics-related questions as part of a 20- minute L.A. Region Public Opinion Survey conducted with 2,425 randomly chosen adults who live in the county.
The survey also took a pulse of the general outlook of Los Angeles County residents, and asked about “quality-of-life perceptions, personal economic well-being, economic concerns, overall life satisfaction and various civic issues,” according to the LMU report on the survey results.
Los Angeles, which also hosted the Summer Olympics in 1932 and 1984, is competing with Paris, Rome and Budapest to host the Games a third time. The International Olympic Committee will choose the 2024 host city in September 2017.
The survey was funded by the university and various donors, and “was not funded by any organization connected to the Olympics organizing effort,” according to LMU spokesman Mason Stockstill.
Fernando Guerra, LMU political science professor and the center’s director, noted that the concerns about the games “are the same we’ve heard publicly about potential drawbacks to hosting.”
“The increasing level of support shown in our survey suggests the organizing committee has made strides in addressing those issues,” he said.
The U.S. Olympic Committee also conducted a similar survey last August that found 81 percent of respondents supported the idea of the Olympics being held in Los Angeles, according to researchers.
Three members of the Los Angeles 2024 Olympics bid committee will be taking part in a talk at LMU tonight as part of a political science lecture series. They are Chief Operating Officer John Harper, Chief Communications Officer Jeff Millman and Senior Adviser Anita DeFrantz, who was president of the 1984 bid committee.
— Wire reports