The city of Atlanta, in the U.S. state of Georgia, successfully bid to host the 1996 Summer Olympics, its first and only serious attempt at doing so. Initially seen as an underdog against the other candidate cities, particularly , Atlanta was awarded the hosting rights on September 18, 1990, by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
Background Atlanta expressed an interest in hosting the Olympic Games as early as 1919. That year, representatives of the city approached the IOC to discuss the 1920 Summer Olympics, a host for which had not yet been chosen due to the disruption of World War I. Baron Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the IOC, wrote that "Atlanta, Cleveland, and Philadelphia had all three promised the earth" in their proposals to the IOC, but none of these American cities made a formal bid and no further consideration was given. The 1920 Olympics were held in Antwerp, Belgium.Mallon, Bill. The 1920 Olympic Games: Results for All Competitors in All Events, with Commentary, McFarland & Company, 2015, page 3.
A 1974 study found that Atlanta was well-suited to hosting the Olympic Games, but the idea was shelved due to an economic recession. In November 1976, Olympic handball coach Dennis Berkholtz started a campaign for Atlanta to bid for the 1984 Summer Olympics.Lamb, Robert. "The Olympics: Is 1984 Our Year? One Man's Dream— Could It Happen Here?", Atlanta Journal and Constitution, November 27, 1976, front page and page 5-A. The campaign struggled to gain support from local political and business leaders, in part because of the negative experiences attached to recent Olympics: a massacre of protesters ahead of Mexico City 1968, the killings of athletes at Munich 1972, and the large debts incurred in the wake of Montreal 1976.Cobbs, Chris. "Ominous Memories Mar Atlanta's Olympic Hope", Atlanta Constitution, May 7, 1977, pages 1-C and 4-C. A feasibility study by a local public policy group concluded that hosting the Olympics would be financially risky, and Coca-Cola CEO J. Paul Austin (who had competed in rowing at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin) urged his fellow Atlanta elites to oppose the bid.Hopkins, Sam. "Atlanta Olympics Appear Dim", Atlanta Constitution, June 30, 1977, front page and page 22-A.Allen, Frederick. Atlanta Rising: The Invention of an International City, 1946–1996, Longstreet Press, 1996, pages 233–248. Without support from Mayor Maynard Jackson or the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, the bid was withdrawn in July 1977.Hopkins, Sam. "Olympics Out, Leaders Say", Atlanta Constitution, July 12, 1977, page 6-C. The 1984 Olympics were ultimately awarded to Los Angeles, the only city that presented a bid to the IOC.Dylla, Sarah. "How Atlanta Became A Host City", Atlanta History Center, May 4, 2020. Retrieved September 21, 2025.
The financial and organizational success of the Los Angeles Olympics revived interest in hosting the Games in the United States and around the world. In the meantime, Atlanta's infrastructure and sports facilities improved dramatically. In 1986, Bob Shepherd, an official of the Fulton County Economic Development Department, proposed SPORTSCOM, a 10-year plan to establish Atlanta as an international center for sporting which would culminate in hosting the 1996 Summer Olympics.Kindred, Dave. "A vision for Atlanta: World sports center", Atlanta Constitution, May 23, 1986, page 1-C. Nothing immediately came of the proposal, and later that year, when the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) invited 35 major cities to a seminar about potentially hosting the Olympics, the city of Atlanta did not respond.Ehlen, Tom. "Nashville pins its hopes on hosting '96 Olympics", Atlanta Constitution, February 20, 1987, page 17-A.
USOC candidate city Billy Payne and the "Atlanta Nine" Atlanta's bid campaign for the 1996 Olympics was created by William Porter "Billy" Payne, a local lawyer and former Georgia Bulldogs football player. Payne later said that his inspiration to bid for the Games came after he successfully led a fundraising effort to build a new sanctuary at his local church, St. Luke's Presbyterian Church in Dunwoody, Georgia, in February 1987. Wanting to replicate his feeling of accomplishment on a much larger scale, he decided that Atlanta should bid for the next available Olympic Games, without having ever attended such an event or knowing much about the process.Payne, William Porter. Your Friends Will Never Allow You To Fail, Gatekeeper Press, 2025.Johnson, William Oscar. "The Push Is On: Some inspired Atlantans have propelled their city to the verge of landing the 1996 Olympic Games", Sports Illustrated, August 27, 1990. Retrieved September 21, 2025. Payne quickly gathered an informal group of friends and colleagues, who later collectively became known as the "Atlanta Nine", to investigate the possibility further.Saporta, Maria. "Olympics' 'Atlanta Nine' hold 20-year reunion", Atlanta Business Chronicle, September 28, 2010. Retrieved September 21, 2025.
Days after the group began these discussions, the Atlanta Constitution ran an article about the USOC's upcoming seminar for potential host cities, which focused on a bid from nearby Nashville, Tennessee, and mentioned that Atlanta had not responded to the invitation. After reading the article, Payne called the office of Mayor Andrew Young and was told that the city was not interested in bidding for the Olympics. After a conversation with the city's coordinator of festivals and special events, Holly Mull, Payne convinced her to attend the USOC meeting with him at his expense. Atlanta was one of 13 U.S. cities represented at the seminar, which took place at USOC headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on March 12, 1987.McCollister, Tom, and L.J. Rosenberg. "Atlanta interested in hosting 1996 Olympics", Atlanta Constitution, March 10, 1987, pages 1-B and 9-B.
Upon returning from the seminar, Payne was convinced that Atlanta was a suitable Olympic host. He founded the Georgia Amateur Athletic Foundation (GAAF) as a non-profit organization to pursue the Olympic bid.Robinson, Bill. "Foundation formed with long-term goal of bringing Olympics to Atlanta", Atlanta Constitution, March 20, 1987, page 13-B. Mayor Young was persuaded to support the effort after Payne told him that the city government would not be responsible for any costs, and the two subsequently became close friends.
Bidding process Atlanta was one of five cities to inform the USOC of its intent to bid by August 1, 1987, and (after Cleveland withdrew)"Cleveland not in race for '96 Olympics", Associated Press, via the Chillicothe Gazette, September 16, 1987, page 3A. one of four to submit a formal bid to the committee ahead of the September 15 deadline. The other candidate cities were Minneapolis–St. Paul, Nashville, and San Francisco. Atlanta's initial bid mostly made use of existing venues and the already planned Georgia Dome, but proposed the construction of a new stadium in downtown Atlanta and a new natatorium at the University of Georgia.Shaw, Bud. "City enters marathon for 1996 Olympics as a long shot", Atlanta Constitution, September 14, 1987, front page and page 10-A. Atlanta was the only city to deliver its bid book to USOC headquarters in person rather than by mail.
The GAAF gained an advantage over the other interested cities when the USOC agreed to hold its next executive board meeting at Atlanta's Omni Complex in January 1988, weeks before the USOC's site selection committee was set to tour the city. While the choice of 1996 host nominee was not one of the issues officially discussed at the Atlanta meeting, it allowed GAAF representatives to entertain USOC members in their home city, including a cocktail party at the home of organizer Sammy Kellett. Payne told reporters at the time that "we're not going to use [the meeting] as a lobbying effort" and promised that the event would be "low key",Shaw, Bud. "USOC's board to hear Schiller at Omni meeting", Atlanta Constitution, January 15, 1988, page 8-E. but later wrote in his autobiography that the meeting "convinced these folks that we were capable and serious" and "had begun the process of making friends" with USOC members. The visit also allowed USOC members to meet and reconcile with executives of the Turner Broadcasting System, the Atlanta-based media conglomerate which had created the Goodwill Games to compete with the Olympics.Shaw, Bud. "Olympic Committee and TBS trying to mend fences", Atlanta Journal and Constitution, January 17, 1988, page 2-D.
The USOC site selection committee spent two days touring Atlanta in February 1988, traveling by helicopter to Athens, Georgia (where plans initially called for badminton, tennis, and aquatics events to be held) and Callaway Gardens (which would have hosted canoeing, kayaking, rowing, and equestrian events). At the end of the visit, the committee praised the strong support for the bid from Atlanta's political and business leaders, but criticized the city's lack of experience in hosting amateur sports competitions compared to other candidates.Shaw, Bud. "USOC lauds 'support' from city", Atlanta Constitution, February 8, 1988, page 3-D. Later that month, representatives of Atlanta and the other candidate cities attended the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, to study the logistics of the Olympic Games up close.
Trying to quickly boost its credentials in hosting major sporting events, the GAAF volunteered to host an international friendly match between the U.S. and Japan in women's volleyball. The match fell on March 17, the same day as the start of the "March Madness" NCAA men's basketball tournament at Atlanta's Omni Coliseum, allowing Atlanta organizers to demonstrate their capacity to coordinate multiple events at the same time.Shaw, Bud. "Atlanta to host U.S. vs. Japan", Atlanta Journal and Constitution, March 13, 1988, page 23-D.
Finalist The USOC announced at its Colorado Springs headquarters on March 28, one month before it planned to choose the U.S. nominee city, that it had narrowed the four candidates down to two finalists. San Francisco was rejected in part because of LGBT-related conditions the city's Board of Supervisors placed on its support for the bid, one of which was that the Gay Games would be allowed to call itself the "Gay Olympics", the name it had used before a lawsuit from the USOC forced it to change. Nashville was considered too small to host the Olympics."Atlanta is No. 2 on USOC list", Atlanta Constitution, March 24, 1988, pages 1E and 9E.Shaw, Bud. "Atlanta one of 2 U.S. finalists for Olympics", Atlanta Journal, March 28, 1988, front page.
This left Atlanta and Minneapolis–St. Paul for further consideration. Minneapolis was considered the front-runner over Atlanta; the director of the Minnesota Amateur Sports Commission had told reporters that the nomination was "ours to lose" while attending the Calgary Olympics, and some USOC members believed that Atlanta should have also been eliminated. Minneapolis had significantly greater experience with hosting amateur sports competitions, and was already preparing to host the 1990 U.S. Olympic Festival. Atlanta's bidders sought to compensate for this disadvantage with expressions of "Southern hospitality", fostering close personal connections with USOC members. The GAAF offered to fly voting members out to Atlanta for tours of the area, something that Minneapolis organizers admitted they "did not anticipate" doing.Shaw, Bud. "USOC gives Atlanta 'A' for effort", Atlanta Journal, April 15, 1988, pages 1C and 6C.