World OutGames abruptly canceled this week's games in Miami over the weekend, to the surprise and shock of athletes as they arrived in town for the competition.
Most of the sports events, along with opening and closing ceremonies, were canceled at the very last minute amid a flurry of financial woes and possible impropriety. By Friday night, Miami Beach Police and the State Attorney’s Office announced they were opening a fraud investigation “due to the potential misappropriation of funds.”Only soccer, aquatics and country western dance events would go on. The City of Miami Beach, Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau, and the Miami Beach Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce scrambled to keep some of the planned events, but most athletes paid thousands of dollars for nothing.
Ah, well, I suppose there are worse places to be stuck with nothing to do than Miami Beach.
The World OutGames are not to be confused with the Gay Games, founded in 1982 and planning their tenth games in Paris next year. World OutGames split with the Gay Games over the 2006 Games, which were to have been held in Montreal, Ontario, Canada. Montreal's organizers and officials of the Federation of Gay Games (FGG) were unable to agree on budgeting for the event, and the FGG ended up awarding that year's games to Chicago. Montreal went ahead with its plans anyway, and the World OutGames were born.
The Chicago Gay Games ended in the black, while the Montreal World OutGames ended up $5.3 million Canadian in debt. The next World OutGames in Copenhagen in 2009 managed a profit, donated to Danish LGBT charities, but the after the games in Antwerp in 2013, the Gay and Lesbian International Sport Association (GLISA) failed to publish any financial or registration figures.
P.S.: Sorry if you were expecting a cartoon about a topic with which you were already familiar. If we're still debating the meaning of "covfefe" next week, I promise I'll draw a biting cartoon about it.
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