RTP's Bid for the 2027 World University Games

The Pub
#1

If you didn’t already know, the United States is competing to host the world’s biggest amateur sports event after the Olympics, and they want us to be the host!

Over 10,000 college student-athletes and staff from 150+ countries are expected to compete in 15-18 sports over twelve days. We’ve held a similar mini-Olympics event back in the 80s, but it’ll be the first time the Triangle would host an international event of this caliber.

As of Aug. 2021, our only competition is a politically weird bid from South Korea. But more importantly, we don’t know much about our own bid except for this map that I posted in the stadium thread:

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I got inspired by @daviddonovan’s post, and wanted to see what the rest of the community thinks. How do y’all feel about this bid? What should I ask the organizing committee?

How do you feel about the Triangle possibly becoming the 2027 World University Games (WUG) host?
  • The Triangle can and should become the WUG host.
  • I want to know more about our WUG bid before I form an opinion. (ask your questions below!)
  • It’ll be cool if the Triangle wins, but I can go either way.
  • I don’t care about the Triangle hosting the WUG.
  • We shouldn’t waste our time with the WUG.

0 voters

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Commuter Rail - Garner to West Durham
Raleigh Stadium/Arena/Sports Discussions
Raleigh Stadium/Arena/Sports Discussions
#2

I want to know what large University is located in Cary!

Joking aside, I would be interested which venues they are proposing for which events.

#3

Add Cary to to the mix and we will need to make it the NC Quadrilateral.

I’m curious as to how far apart the events are normally away from each other. 25-30 miles apart may help keep the area from being overwhelmed. I’d also be curious as to how much money we’d need to spend on this. Depending on the costs, the money may be able to be spent better elsewhere. Our budgets are already doing quite well from one of the City Council meetings I’ve seen.

I don’t have a strong opinion either way. Nothing wrong with the area but I am not sure if I’ll be here in 2027.

#4

@keita and I have been doing a pretty good job of figuring these out, although we’re still a little stumped about the track and field situation. They’re clearly aiming to hold swimming in the Triangle Aquatics Center in Cary, soccer at Wake Med Soccer Park (and I’m assuming rugby sevens there, too), baseball at the USA Baseball National Training Complex, and tennis would obviously be at Cary Tennis Park. Those are all great venues! Some of those sports, like soccer and baseball, would out of necessity be held across multiple venues. I’m a little surprised that there are two proposed swimming venues, but I’m sure there’s a good reason for that.

Yeah, it is sort of ironic that Cary is the only one of those four cities without a university, but its venues would nevertheless very much be a linchpin of the whole University Games bid.

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#5

Maybe the Triangle Aquatics Center still wants to carve out time for their usual clients to swim? It would be pretty bad optics for them if they just shut down a major pool for the community in the name of representing the region/country.

One more interesting note: at first, I thought it’s because UNC’s pool has diving boards unlike Triangle Aquatics Center’s. But the map says Durham (read: Duke, probably) that’s hosting diving events.

I guess so. But past/upcoming hosts like Naples and Chengdu aren’t exactly super-well-known as capital of college athletics, so I don’t think it’s that weird. Besides, in a global context, the US is the odd one out for having such a huge following and industry built around college sports.

#6

This article doesn’t mention Raleigh specifically, but does hint that Germany will host in 2025 and the US in 2027!

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#7

The bid website and where you can volunteer to help! I just signed up.

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#8

Follow @NCWUG2027Bid on Twitter. Let’s get that follower count up!

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#9

But they aren’t supposed to decide the 2027 location until early 2023 from what the website says. This would be amazing to have in our back yard for sure!

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#10

The Triangle is in the finals for the games!

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#11

I really don’t get the hype for this either is this televised even given major attention I didn’t hear about this till this year.

#12

It’s on the same TV show where they explain punctuation and grammar. Sorry you missed it.

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#13

I think any event that puts us in an international spot light is a big deal!

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#14

Awesome! Love your food and entertainment, Korea, but you’re going down!

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#15

Go away okay this stuff doesn’t excite me. Go away Grammar Karen.

#16

It’s an international event being held in the area utilizing one of our strongest assets, college athletics. There’s nothing really not to like save perhaps traffic I suppose. It’s more exposure for us at the very least.

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#17

If we want what’s best for our local economy, this would be a huge infusion of tourism and subsequently, food/beverage/lodging tax money. We’d also likely get nice facility/infrastructure upgrades out of it as well.

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#18

I’d be surprised if some of the other NC municipalities don’t try and jump in and help host some events (and get some of that sweet tourism $$). Greensboro announced they’re going to join the bid with the Triangle-area host cities recently. I’m sure Charlotte, Winston-Salem, and other places have sporting facilities that could prob host some stuff.

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#19

And they can hop on our HSR to get from city to city!
:pray:t3:

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#20

Haha our visitors from Europe and Asia are going to be severely disappointed with our ‘high speed rail’ over here…

I’ll take a completed 540 by 2027…which prob won’t be likely either.

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