Larry Bird, David Ortiz Join Boston 2024 Board

Boston 2024 Partnership has announced its Board of Directors

Boston 2024 Partnership has announced its Board of Directors -- and there are some big names on the list, including Celtics legend Larry Bird and David Ortiz of the Boston Red Sox.

The board includes leaders in education, non-profit, business, law, labor, philanthropy, professional sports, and the Olympic and Paralympic movements.

This represents an important step in the process of competing to host the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The board will provide governance oversight on key policy issues leading up to the final bid. The board is scheduled to meet as a full board twice a year.

The full list of members can be found here.

Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker said the addition of all the starpower to the Boston 2024 board doesn't change the fact that he, and many voters, still have all kinds of unanswered questions about what a Boston Olympics would look like and how it would be financed.

"I think what the public is looking for is in some ways what I'm looking for, which is, the deailed plan,'' Baker said at a State House press conference Wednesday afternoon. "Who's going to be involved? Which colleges and universities are going to be joint partners? Where are the events going to be held? Where's the stadium going to be? Where's the Olympic Village going to be? What are the anticipated expenses associated with this, and, by the way, what is expected of the commonwealth as well? … It's very hard for people to sort of sign up for something that hasn't been that clearly defined for them and they don't know if they're going to be on the hook to pay for it or not.''

"Every ambassador needs a plan to talk about,'' Baker added, "and at this point, we still don't have the type of detailed plan to discuss that would make it possible for voters and for people to make their own decisions about how they feel about this.''

A series of monthly polls by WBUR and MassINC have found support for the Games began to collapse after January, falling from 51-33 support to 52-36 opposition in March, recovering to 50 percent support and 40 percent opposition in this month's poll. (The balance of voters said they didn't know if they supported or opposed the bid or wouldn't answer.)

The U.S. Olympic Committee chose Boston as its city to nominate for the summer games.

Paris has until September 15th to join Boston, Rome and Hamburg, Germany, which are the declared 2024 candidates so far.

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