Posted on 08/17/2015 1:39:44 PM PDT by MichCapCon
In July, Boston withdrew its application to host the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, becoming the latest city to respond to citizen concerns and cold hard facts about sports entertainment and public investments.
The Olympics seem to live in perpetual jeopardy, plagued by financial mismanagement and corruption. Bloomberg estimates that the 2004 games in Athens contributed €7 billion to Greece’s now-crippling debt. Russia spent billions failing to turn Sochi into an acceptable Olympic venue. China has struggled for years to get its money’s worth out of the 2008 Beijing infrastructure.
The Olympics have long been heralded as a great opportunity for the host city to showcase its unique culture and attract tourists. But research suggests the benefits do not offset the costs, and with the bulk of the price tag falling on taxpayers, citizens of prospective cities have begun to revolt.
Tokyo recently agreed to go back to the drawing board with the main stadium for the 2020 games after Japanese taxpayers expressed anger over its rapidly rising construction costs. Beijing will host the 2022 winter games, winning the bid over Almaty, Kazakhstan after Oslo, Stockholm, Munich, Krakow and St. Moritz, Switzerland all withdrew their applications — mostly after referendums revealed a public firmly opposed to the expense. People love to watch the Olympics, but they don’t love paying for it.
While the Olympics take bad government investment to a new level with every cycle, the same thing happens on a smaller scale every year. Heavily subsidized athletic venues don’t come with the same multiple-billion-dollar-price tag, but corporate welfare can do damage with far less. It’s time publicly subsidized stadiums get an Olympic-sized bad reputation.
NPR estimates that taxpayers have spent over $20 billion subsidizing stadiums for the NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL since 1990. Michigan taxpayers have certainly contributed a share to that total, specifically in Detroit, where parks for the Tigers and Lions have benefitted from government handouts. The Red Wings joined the list recently, with a new arena in the making that uses at least $284.5 million in public funds in a city that exited bankruptcy less than a year ago.
Public disapproval has ended the Olympic dreams of many cities across the world, and it could end the publicly funded stadiums of local sports teams, as well. It is too late to avoid subsidizing the new Red Wings facility, but with the Pistons floating a move into Detroit city limits from their current location in Auburn Hills, there will be ample opportunity to push for private funding in the future.
As for the Olympics? If the International Olympic Committee wants a future filled with democratic host countries as well as autocratic ones, it must make some reforms: relaxing its unreasonably high standards for public expenditure and allowing cities to use structures and housing that already exist rather than forcing them to build dozens of unnecessary venues and an Olympic Village.
But in the end, sporting spectacles generating billions of dollars should pay their own way — not rely on the taxpayer.
Hey, how else can we expect non professional drug taking athletes to gain fame and fortune?
Gee, they could have the Olympics in the same place every four years. Pick a Summer location that is predictably 75 and dry. Pick a Winter location that predictably has ample snow and highs in the 20s.
I’ve never understood why, with Olympics, and with professional sports, the cities are expected to build facilities for the sports.
Consider the NFL. Every team in the NFL makes an operating profit every year. This is mostly due to the lucrative TV deals and the hard salary cap in the NFL.
Against this backdrop, cities are intimidated by the NFL, and other sports as well, to build new stadiums for teams, otherwise, the teams will move to other cities. They will take their ball and go home.
While many of us enjoy pro sports and like having teams in our home communities, is it really necessary for them to be publicly subsidized????
And why is it that NFL stadiums nowadays cost well over a billion dollars????
And why is the prestige of hosting Super Bowls and having an NFL franchise worth it on some intangible level, when it’s not worth it in dollars and cents?
I heard that Glendale, Arizona, actually lost money hosting the Super Bowl, due to the many costly demands placed by the NFL on its host city. The mayor of Glendale couldn’t even get a ticket to the game in his city.
The NFL implies, but never quite says, that cities should build stadiums because of the prestige of having NFL football. But the threat of moving teams is very real. The NFL plants the seed that it would be unthinkable, just unthinkable for a team to move away. And that such an event must be prevented at all costs.
Beijing will make history, as the first city to host both summer and winter olympics.
NOTHING warms the heart of a local politician like the computer simulated view of the playing field from his comp seats in the suites of the proposed new stadium.
It is time for the major sporting countries to give the IOC an ultimatum: downsize the games and use existing facilities, or the major players will from their own, new federation and run rational world championships.
Our taxes and cable bills are paying way too much for baseball, football players.
Because they’re willing to. Lots of large businesses make cities bid against each other for expansions, bids generally involve free land and deferred taxes. Every new Toyota factory goes through months of that process. As long as city governments are willing to whore themselves out for high profile businesses it’s just plain smart for the businesses to let them.
The funny part with the Glendale thing is they started complaining about how much they lost on the previous SB during the run up to this year’s SB. Well guess what guys, nobody forced you to bid for another one. They maybe had an excuse for the first one, maybe they didn’t realize that the NFL would spend the whole time saying the SB was in Phoenix, but all the teams in hotels in Phoenix, and expect Glendale to foot all the costs for police protection. But the second time around... that’s entirely on Glendale.
People love to watch the Olympics, but they don’t love paying for it.
It's not just the cost of hosting these events that has turned people off. I suspect another big factor is that advanced technology has made televised events superior to live events for most sports. If the IOC has any trouble finding a host for the Winter Olympics in the future, they should just hold the events at the South Pole and broadcast them all over the planet -- complete with computer-generated crowds, too.
Another big problem is that for most modern cities, hosting an event like the Olympics -- or even a Super Bowl -- is an enormous hassle and is highly disruptive to the 99.9% of the local population who doesn't attend the event.
What is this about not using existing facilities?
When did that rule come in?
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