Gay Games IX in Cleveland

This is a guest blog post from Marc D. a competitor in the Gay Games IX hosted in Cleveland, Ohio earlier this summer.

Gay Games IX was held in Cleveland and Akron, OH August 9-16.  The city was selected in 2009 by the Federation of Gay Games (FGG), winning out over Boston and Washington, DC. I was part of the group from Boston that worked to create our bid and when Cleveland was selected many of us were extremely disappointed, since there were numerous examples of their bid process not following the established guidelines.  However, I don’t want to go into that – it’s water under the bridge at this point – but I did want to share my experiences as a competitor at Gay Games IX.

I was fortunate to be part of the gold-medal winning flag football team – the MassMutual Blue – but that competition was an example of why I would believe Cleveland was a poor choice as a host city.  The term ‘destination city’ was heard a lot but the problem is Cleveland is not a destination city.  As a result, fewer people attended these games; flag football and softball only had 3 teams each in the A/B division; 4 in C; 10 in D; and 2 in the women’s division, etc.  By contrast, Boston hosted a softball tournament over the 4^th of July weekend that included nearly 40 teams in 2 divisions – twice as many as participated in Cleveland.

I don’t have official numbers but heard that approximately 6,000 participants were on hand; compared to approximately 10,000 from the two prior Gay Games I attended (2002 in Sydney and 2006 in Chicago).  Regardless of the actual number, I had expected to see people everywhere we went – this is supposed to be the largest LGBT sporting event in the world – yet downtown Cleveland, where I stayed, was very quiet.  So while winning a gold medal was very rewarding, especially since the team we beat hadn’t lost any of its 4 prior games, the fact remains that it was a very small flag football tournament.  The same can be said for many of the other sports; it was a poorly attended Games and that’s disappointing.  I wanted to feel that we were making an impact and that just did not happen.

Fortunately it looks like the Federation of Gay Games has learned their lesson and have picked Paris has the host city for Gay Games 10 in 2018.  I’m already making my plans already and hope to see you there.

About the author:  Marc D. is a non-profit development professional who lives in Boston and has a passion for sports.