Don't expect repeat Chicago effort after 1st-round IOC dissing

Quite the stunner from Copenhagen, where Chicago was eliminated in first-round balloting by the International Olympic Committee for the 2016 Summer Games. It's the first time a U.S. city has ever been eliminated in the first round of voting.

Rio de Janeiro was pronounced the winner, besting Madrid in final-round voting.

The immediate question: Will the U.S. try again in the near future?

In spite of much admirable, let's-go-again sentiment in Chicago this morning, don't expect another bid soon for a U.S. summer Games. Look at the big picture. In consecutive Olympic cycles, America's two mightiest cities, New York and now Chicago, have now been essentially blown off by the 100 voting members of the IOC. The latest bid, backed personally in a passionate, eloquent pitch by President Obama and the first lady, was considered the most solid ever offered up by the U.S.

Can anyone really expect Chicago, or any other city, to muster the effort -- and substantial millions -- to go through that humiliation again? Political observers in Chicago say chances are slim that the city's stars will align again in the same fashion they have over the past few years. Chicago's bid also has been closely identified with Mayor Richard Daley, who hoped to have the Games as his legacy. At 67, Daley might not be around long enough to make that happen.

A U.S. Winter Games bid, which comes at a fraction of the cost, would seem more likely. Speculation has swirled that a defeat for Chicago might reignite interest in a bid for the 2018 Games by the U.S. Olympic Committee. Likely candidate: Denver.

UPDATE: The USOC indicated later today no Denver bid -- or any other U.S. city bid -- will be approved for the 2018 Winter Games, because the deadline is less than two weeks away. But Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter was quoted as saying the city might be ready to bid for the 2022 Games.

The big picture for the IOC now becomes very interesting. The organization is European centered, but the vast majority of the sponsor dollars that allow it to exist come from American corporations. With no Games on U.S. soil for what now appears likely to be two decades or more, will those billions continue to flow into the Olympic movement?

Time will tell, but sponsorships from other parts of the globe have never approached the same levels, and U.S. companies -- including television networks -- might not be so quick to write big checks during lean times to associate with Games in far-flung places such as Rio.

Chicago's losing isn't a stunner. It was clear the IOC wanted to take the Games for the first time to South America. And let's not forget the lingering bad political blood between the IOC and the U.S. Olympic Committee, which recently booted much of its own senior leadership, leaving the good ol' boys of the IOC with a bunch of fresh faces they neither know, nor trust. That's a big deal when it comes to handing the Games off to a new host country.

But the first-round exit was a surprise. It's a dicey process, and you just don't know what buttons need to be pushed on 100 voting members, each with his or her own agenda. It takes an absolute majority to win; the trailing city is dropped from each round until that happens.

Meanwhile, from Washington D.C., NBC political analyst Chuck Todd says Obama's instinct was to steer clear of appearing in Copenhagen, and describes the outcome as "a stomach punch" to the White House.

"It's a setback to the political aura of the president," Todd says. "He'll probably get a little more blame than he deserves, just like he'd have gotten a little more credit than he deserved if they won."