For Olympic Bid, Chicago Needs "Skin in the Game"

Chicago and Los Angeles are competing to be the U.S. nominee to host the 2016 Summer Olympic games.

The U.S. Olympic officials have recently completed tours of both cities, and are supposed to announce the winner in April.

Chicago was hoping to fund the Olympics entirely from private donations, just like Millenium Park.

They may still be able to do it, but the U.S. Olympic committee said that Chicagoans must have "skin in the game" and guarantee the costs.

But, it looks like they won't have to guarantee the construction costs of the temporary stadium, which is expected to be $366 million. Which is good, because the price will probably go up. London is building a temporary stadium for 2012, and they have had significant cost overruns.

Instead, tax payers will just have to guarantee the costs to operate the games, in case ticket and concession stands do't cover all of it.