The Cougar Chronicle

Issue date: 8/25/08 Section: Features

Media Credit: Brent Jones Emil and Patricia Jones Convocation Center

As billions of people now bask in the afterglow of what, by many standards, have been an exceptional Olympic Games in Beijing over the past two weeks, a small group of Chicagoans is returning to the city from China this week with perhaps renewed determination to duplicate that country's success in securing the games for its more than 1 billion people. And CSU is at the heart of Chicago's bid to secure the Olympics.

The Emil and Patricia Jones Convocation Center is slated to play host to the preliminary rounds of Olympic basketball in 2016, according to information submitted to the International Olympic Committee by Chicago 2016 - the city's organizing committee for the games. U.S. men's basketball garnered a lot of attention at this year's games following the so-called Dream Team's uncharacteristic third place finish in Athens in 2004. In Beijing, the United States emerged undefeated and brought home gold after a nail-biting finish over tough competitor Spain.

Similar excitement could place CSU - located in what Chicago 2016 calls the "South Cluster" of potential Olympic event sites - at the center of international attention and provide the university with an opportunity to increase revenue capture. Just how much revenue, the university hasn't said; but any event the size of Olympic basketball could yield profits larger than any receipts from previous events held at the convocation center, according to Steve Peters, president of VenuWorks, the firm that manages the convocation center.

Peters says his Iowa-based firm has never managed an Olympic event and would imagine that most of the logistics for Olympic competition would be handled by Chicago 2016. Those logistics involve security, waste management, transportation and more - needs that could pad the wallets of South Side residents with added income should Chicago secure the XXXI Olympiad.

But any such financial benefits, for the campus or area residents, are far away; and the university is presently tasked with turning the Jones center, a 140,000 sq. ft. facility, into a revenue generating edifice. University officials, at press time, did not respond to questions about the profitability of the handful of events that have been held at the convocation center since its opening in 2007, including last year's match-up between the U.S. men's volleyball team and Italy, and an Aug. 16 performance by R&B group Bel Biv DeVoe.

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