Who wants to go to Omaha anyway? Let's have it in Las Vegas.
Hear, hear. At least somewhere other than Omaha. Vegas would be great because an event like Trials would hardly register as a blip on the radar in terms of the hotel rooms needed.
USA Swimming is going to be looking for a venue capable of and willing to do the 50M temporary pool inside an arena, with 50M secondary pool nearby. They won't be returning to the permanent aquatic center with limited seating. They'll want an arena capable of seating about 15,000-17,000 with the pool installed. I'm assuming this will narrow the field considerably. I think St. Paul, MN was the last one standing along with Omaha last time around.
Maybe Detroit will bid on the event in 2012. That is another lame city that will have ample hotel and venue space with the US auto industry going out of business.
No one is disputing Omaha did a great job. But, if they don't have the ability to support two smaller events, then they lose out. Won't the Royuals use the new stadium or have other events scheduled there? If not, well then they are pretty poor planners.
As for the question "Who wants to go to Omaha anyway?" the answer is lots of swimming fans, given the success of the trials this summer.
True, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't have rather gone somewhere else.
A little background for those outside the area. Every time the NCAA tells Omaha to bend over and take it or else lose the CWS, the city says "thank you very much and may I have another?"
This time around, Omaha is taking it up the rear to the tune of a brand new, $100+ million baseball stadium that will be used for exactly 2 weeks out of the year. The new stadium will sit adjacent to the Qwest Center, which is the reason why the 2 events cannot overlap.
As for the question "Who wants to go to Omaha anyway?" the answer is lots of swimming fans, given the success of the trials this summer. If you had asked the question before 2008, I would have said "Who knows?" But there is no question that the 2008 trials were wildly successful. The 2012 Olympic Swim trials would barely be a blip on the radar in a city like Las Vegas or some larger metropolitan community where swimming would be buried in the middle of the sports section behind off-season football transactions and the first of 1000 meaningless regular season baseball games.
Southern California all the way! You have probably the largest percentage of swimmers going to the trials coming out of CA (or at least CA schools) going to the trials anyhow.
