The plan calls for the use of existing venues, rather than the construction of expensive stadiums that could become white elephants, as we saw with the 2004 Olympics in Athens.

It calls for common-sense reforms like promoting gender equality and placing limits on the number of total events in the Olympics. It also calls for a bunch of cost-reduction measures, like letting international federations run events rather than the IOC, allowing host cities to stage some events in other cities or countries, and having the IOC eat much of the logistical costs of bidding.

Sure, there's some brand-conscious nonsense and empty platitudes in there (one of the 40 recommendations is "comply with the basic principals of good governance"), but after the disastrous 2022 bidding process, this reform plan is a step in the right direction.

Despite that, the plan fails to answer the one question that will define the future of the Olympics: Who pays?

The bidding for the 2022 Winter Olympics was such a train wreck because democratic nations have realized that hosting the Olympics is not a sensible economic investment. For decades the IOC was able to persuade governments to foot the bill for the games, producing economic impact studies that showed how hosting the Olympics would make you rich in the long term. Academics and researchers have long maintained that this is a lie — the things a city needs for daily life are not the things you need to host the Olympics — and now cities agree.