Rio is one of the finalists to host the 2016 Olympics. The International Olympic Selection Committee is here in town through the weekend. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva spoke with committee members on Thursday and prospects seem good that the Olympics will come to South America for the first time. 

The federal government in Brasilia has allocated 30 billion Reals (about $15 billion dollars) to improve transportation infrastructure, build stadiums, finance new hotel construction and tourist amenities should the IOC choose Rio. The other candidate cities are Chicago, Tokyo and Madrid, with the Spanish capital the only one not yet visited.  Brazil's Olympic bid received strong support from global sports marketing eminence grise Joao Havelange, former head of FIFA, the international football governing agency that organizes the World Cup.  

Sustainability and sports marketing can be a good fit when companies who sponsor the Olympics and other athletic events link "green" themes with their branding. But the economic crisis has hit advertising and public relations budgets hard and plans for sustainability and other "green" marketing themes for the 2012 London games will be impacted by the crunch as will all sports marketing programs in the traditional G7 nation markets.  What Brazil, and others in the emerging G20 economic group have going for themselves is that they are already doing more with less, as defined by their own cultural value systems, not by US sustainability analysts or northern hemisphere NGOs.   

The olympic site selection process is classic  power politics in the Machiavellian sense  In terms of popularity, Rio ranks #32 among the top city tourist locations just below LA and just ahead of Mexico City.  Tokyo comes in at #37 and Madrid is #25. Chicago is not among the top 50 on the above linked list.  London, which will host the 2012 Summer Olympics, is #1.

Here's where the IOC choice starts to get complicated.  China doesn't want Tokyo in 2016 because it is too soon to bring the games to Asia again after Beijing 08. And China still has a "Manchurian" spite problem with memories of  the ugly Japanese occupation of their land. Regardless of the Obama Chicago connection the Windy City effort doesn't have the mo-mentum as Mike Ditka would say.  Brazil is the New World and Madrid  has a lot of Old World and "mother country" baggage not to mention the teflon Basque terrorists and fundamentalist Islamist cells who don't need Twitter to show up in a New York minute.  Then too the Vatican did not give South America, now boasting the world's largest Roman Catholic population, a Cardinal until 1905.   

The rap on Rio is that it lacks an American-style freeway system, has a big time tourist crime problem and needs a lot more hotels.  But on the sustainability side, the Rio Metro is safe, clean and air conditioned.  Most buses run and taxis run on biofuel (25% for automobiles, 20% for buses).  New tourist and community police units are helping reduce crime in preparation for the 2014 World Cup, which Rio will host.  As for hotels, Brazil built a new capital, Brasilia, 800 miles inland fifty years ago and it took just five years.  The olympics are six years away. Rio's music, cultural diversity and party life would bring new dimensions to the Olympic experience.

Should Rio host the games, it would be a big boost for the Portuguese language and Lusophone culture and those it influences particularly in Africa.  The United Nations estimates that there will be 350 million portuguese speakers in the world by 2050. Will the IOC feel the passion?  Todays twelve year olds lacing up their track shoes in Compton, California or Zephyrhills, Florida and dreaming of going for the gold after watching too many "just do it" ads might find themselves in Rio in six years.  Watch this space.