Posted on 02/24/2014 12:54:05 PM PST by SeekAndFind
As soon as the Winter Olympics draw to a close tonight in Sochi, another sport will begin: debate over whether the city will actually benefit from hosting the games.
“If costs are the benchmark for ‘successful’ Games,” says Janice Forsyth, Director of the International Center for Olympic Studies at the University of Western Ontario, in London, Ontario, Canada, “Sochi is the most unsuccessful games in history, bar none.”
The Sochi organizing committee spent an estimated US$51 billion on the Games, surpassing the next most expensive Olympics (Beijing Summer Games, 2008) by about $8 billion.
The problem is that “rarely, if ever” do Olympics turn a profit, says Mauro Guillen, Professor of International Management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. “It’s expensive and the venues are normally hard to use after the games.”
Moreover, Forsyth says, “The Games are always a loser for the public, who pays for the majority of the costs.” National and local governments are often left paying down the debts from the Olympic spending for years, if not decades. “The Games work best in authoritarian states, where the government can use public funds however it chooses to make the Olympic project work, without public input.”
Plus, the International Olympic Committee provides no backing. It can’t. Its charter states “The IOC shall have no financial responsibility whatsoever in respect of the organization and staging of the Olympic Games.”
“Nifty little clause isn’t it?” asks Forsyth.
“The only Games where the Olympic industry can actually say there was a profit, and the public didn’t pay, are the 1984 Games in Los Angeles,” says Forsyth. “The mayor (Tom Bradley) assured the public none of their tax dollars would be spent on hosting, and he held true to that promise.” Instead, the Los Angeles games were financed through corporate contributions.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
I haven’t been to Beijing since 2007, but someone who went there recently told me that the famous Olympic Bird’s Nest Stadium is mostly unused, dirty, and is simply a curious tourist attraction.
All of their planning goes into preparing for the games, but it seems that not enough planning goes into what happens to the facilities after the games. They need two committees, one for the games and one for after the games so that they can capitalize on the potential economic benefits after the lights go out.
Well, Atlanta was smart because they built an Olympic Stadium that could be quickly reconfigured for baseball use, and remain in use for many, many years into the future.
Wait a minute...
If they think that Sochi was unready for the Olympics, just wait for the nightmare at Rio.
In fact, I hope that the Olympics crippled the economy of the now-being-reconstructed Soviet Union.
Most US cities already have most of the facilities needed to stage the Games, but the IOC wants kickbacks from building new facilities.
Putin used the Olympics to show that Russia has a long history of arts, letters, music, and dance, and was not the enemy of the world that a falling America claimed it to be.
Russia would spend everything to accomplish that media public relations change. It doesn't hurt that Obama is reiging over a declining United States, while Russia and China are presenting a resurging replacement.
-PJ
Instead of spending so much money on the buildings, why don’t they just have the WINTER Olympics in some place that is actually cold in February. Say Innsbruck, Austria or some other location that is actually on the World Cup downhill ski circuit.
How long is LONG TERM?
-PJ
Hopefully the South Koreans can figure out how to make the venues a long-term thing when the next Winter Olympics come around for Pyongchang. They have been building things there, like the big ski jump, for years.
Having snow on the mountains isn’t going to give you an ice rink, curling rink, bobsled track and all the other various buildings.
RE: Hopefully the South Koreans can figure out how to make the venues a long-term thing when the next Winter Olympics come around for Pyongchang.
Seoul 1988 made a profit of $300 Million. This I think, is still a record that hasn’t been topped. One of a handful of Olympics that actually made money.
I think the South Koreans can learn from their predecessors.
See here:
http://www.china.org.cn/english/sports/111340.htm
Their going to end up with a real operable ski resort probably. heh
The irony is Sochi has always been advertised as a SUMMER RESORT near the Black Sea.
Yep. It’s the warmest city in Russia isn’t it? heh
My impression is similar to yours. The world, with many people too young to remember the cold war or the Jimmy Carter boycott, was introduced to Russia. Putin succeeded wonderfully. I suspect that Sochi will become a cruise ship destination. The other way Putin succeeded was with the Russian people. Their pride at the end of the Olympics was apparant.
What Putin did was incredible. Obama did everything he could to turn it into a gay pride embarrassment for Putin. The media and Obama practically dared the terrorists to do bad stuff. Yet, Putin pulled it off. And those opening and closing ceremonies? Wow. Compare that to a Superbowl halftime show.
So, yeah, I'd say Putin succeeded. One wonders if it will be the last successful Olympics, with the way the world is going.
Lake Tahoe?
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