If The Olympics Were in Chicago This Summer...

CHICAGO, IL - “The city of Chicago has been eliminated, and will not participate in the next round of votes.”

Those were the words of the head of the Olympic committee in October 2009 when revealing the first round of votes in the bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. Tokyo, Madrid and eventual bid winner Rio de Janeiro would stay in the hunt for another vote and the party would end early for Chicago, the city many pegged as the favorite to win the bid.

That was seven years ago. Quite a bit has happened in the Midwest’s largest city since.

There’s a new Mayor. Controversies and scandals have rocked the city’s school system, police department and City Hall. Since then, Chicago was the site of massive NATO protests and an epic standoff between supporters and protesters of GOP Presidential candidate Donald Trump.

But would all of that still have happened had the Olympic committee went in another direction and chose Chicago for the games?

Patch Facebook followers in both Evanston and the city's Beverly neighborhood shared their thoughts.

“(Richard M.) Daley would still be Mayor,” wrote one reader of Beverly-Mt. Greenwood Patch.

Seeing as how the longtime former Mayor, President Barack Obama and famous then Chicago talk show host Oprah Winfrey championed the bid, that seems likely.

But disagreements ensued in whether or not having the Olympics here would have been a good thing. Most were against the alternate reality possibility.

“The South Side land grab would be much more aggressive and the courts would be clogged with eminent domain lawsuits,” wrote another reader.

A popular Evanston business district Facebook page posted that the city would be “even broker,” but that current Mayor Rahm Emanuel would give up his “obsession with the Lucas Museum.”

Which opens up a whole new set of doors on whether the opening of the Star Wars-centric museum here would even be a possibility.

A voice for the Olympic bid here said there “wouldn’t be talk of canceling (the games),” referring to talks of putting off the Rio games this year due to dangers associated with the Zika virus.

But another chimed in, stating the city is better off without the show.

“Pensions would still be unfunded, they city would be three times in debt that it is now. Murders would be the same, if not higher.”

Chicago didn’t need the Olympics to fulfill its sports excitement, either. Since the bid failure, the city has hosted three Stanley Cup championship parades and two NFL Draft events.