All right, we've been watching the Olympics this past week or so, but did it ever occur to you what a nightmare these events are for the host city?

I mean, imagine the giant infrastructure you have to create for the athletes, the press, and visitors from all over the world.

There are the multitude of venues, places for the athletes, and all those spectators to sleep and eat and be entertained.

All for two short weeks of exposure.

Well, guess what?

It originally looked like these 2026 winter games might not happen.

I'm Patty Steele.

What happens when nobody wants to come to your party?

That's next on the backstory.

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The backstory is back.

By the late 2010s, hosting the Olympics had become kind of a civic nightmare.

Cities were backing out, referendums were failing, budgets exploding.

The Winter Games in particular were starting to look like a relic.

Too expensive, too destructive, and too risky for democratic countries to justify.

So when the IOC opened bidding for the 26 Winter Olympics, something shocking, or maybe not so shocking, happened.

Almost nobody showed up.

Stockholm, Switzerland withdrew.

Graz Austria backed out.

Sapporo, Japan hesitated. Calgary, Canada said no again.

The Winter Olympics, once the crown jewel of global sport, were suddenly homeless. And that's when

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