Didn’t know this prior to reading the Adirondack Life article:
"But ORDA officials acknowledge one other massive misstep. In the months leading up to the opening ceremony, organizers failed to complete one of the most important cornerstones of the project: construction of a new apartment complex on the outskirts of Lake Placid that was meant to house hundreds of athletes and coaches.
“Covid hit, building costs went up and the financing didn’t become available, so that’s unfortunate,” said ROOST’s McKenna, who chairs the board of the Adirondack Sports Council, a winter-sport booster organization that served as the central organizing committee for the 2023 World University Games.
As a result, many sports teams competing in the games crowded into the region’s hotel rooms, leaving limited space for the overnight tourists local businesses anticipated. By some accounts, event organizers actually scaled back marketing for the games because hotel beds were scarce.
“Would I have liked to have seen a lot more spectators?” said ORDA president Martens. “Yes. We did not market the games well enough. There were concerns about our capacity so that’s why the brakes were put on in terms of attracting spectators to the games.”...
But there’s one more troubling detail about how the World University Games played out.
After spending massive amounts of money leading up to the event and devoting months of staff time to the competition, ORDA allowed the Adirondack Sports Council to keep all revenue from ticket sales. ORDA charged nothing for use of its facilities or employee time.
In the blistering 2014 audit of ORDA’s management practices, this is exactly the kind of arrangement that drew the state comptroller’s ire. That report scolded the organization for entering into deals that weren’t financially favorable and said in the future that ORDA should “strive to maximize all revenue-generating opportunities.”
Asked why ORDA agreed to a plan where its largest sporting event in a generation would produce no revenue, Pratt couldn’t provide a clear explanation. “I think it was partly being a good neighbor. You know in hindsight there were a lot of things that could have been done differently and more efficiently,” he said."
Emphasis added.
It appears The Co-chair of ASC board of directors owns a big hotel on Mirror lake,
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