When Winners Are Losers: Toronto and Sydney Bids for the Summer Olympics

This is an analysis of events surrounding the Toronto, Canada and Sydney, Australia Olympic bid processes, with a specific focus on corporate and media attempts to manufacture public consent, and individual and group accommodation and resistance to such attempts. Print materials, including the official publications of the bid committees and newspaper coverage of events in both cities, constitute the primary source of data. It is argued that the two bid campaigns illustrate winning and losing strategies for organizing consent, with the losers (Toronto) being in fact the winners when judged by the criterion of democratic decision making.