It doesn’t. I didn’t say it did. I was clearly talking about the SLC 2002 Winter Games which you falsely suggested were profitable. They were not.
The 84 LA Games were exceptionally low cost – in fact their total cost was about the same as the net loss of SLC 2002. And they were able to bring in tons of corporate sponsorship, private wealth, and TV deals that were fantastically lucrative for the time. Host cities and nations are expected to spend hugely more today and that’s a big problem. I’m gratified and proud that Toronto told the IOC to take their overrated obscenely extravagant prom party and peddle it somewhere else. I hope Rio goes well for the sake of the athletes but I’m betting it will be a financial disaster.
Wouldn’t most major (i.e. top 10) American cities be able to host an Olympics without too much trouble? Same would go for most major European cities as well, I’d think.
I was responding to someone who said the only profitable games were the LA games. If the SLC games were profitable using the same definition as that under which the LA games were profitable, then your point is invalid.
You know who makes a profit during each Olympics, regardless of the outcome for the host city/nation?
Those loathsome IOC douchebags.
It’s really worth watching Bryant Gumbel’s documentary. They interviews the former head of the IOC about Beijing and Socchi. You too will feel the compulsion to put a bullet in his brain.
The public radio program Marketplace did an interview on today’s broadcast with the author of a book on the history of the Olympics. It’s not mentioned in the text I linked to, but in the on-air interview, he mentioned that one thing that made the 1984 LA Games profitable was that the organizers got the money from the TV rights, but that since then, the IOC and the various sports organizations get that money.
No, they wouldn’t. The requirements for Olympic venues make most existing facilities unfit so most would have to be built from scratch. And the transportation and Athlete’s village requirements impose addition construction challenges for all cities.
My link in the preceding post provides some further details. The TV rights for the LA games in fact covered nearly half – 41% – of the total cost of the Games.
Good article here about the protests in Rio over the Games. Many displaced from their homes, slums still infested with raw sewage, a gigantic new golf course was built to Olympic standards despite the fact almost no one in Brazil plays the game, and new condos that were built as part of “infrastructure” spending to house Olympic athletes during the Games will afterwards be sold to wealthy buyers instead of being used as housing for ordinary people or the needy.
I think the most telling fact is that western democracies no longer have any interest in hosting the games. That’s why we are seeing places like Russia, China, and Brazil… All the first world western nations don’t even want to bid anymore. The last vote I heard about came down to a choice between China and fucking Kazakhstan or something stupid like that.
Not for Barcelona. While some of the facilities got dismantled, and the sports facilities left don’t always get as much mileage as City Hall would like, those left in place are in use. For Barcelona, you may complain about the weather changing (although many people consider it’s better now; the Vallvidrera Tunnels mean lower humidity so the place doesn’t feel like soup 362 days/year any more), or that the construction was all done by foreign firms and foreign workers, or that the building of the Olympic Village in what was one of the poorest parts of town displaced many people who would rather not have had to move, but the stadiums and facilities that are left are in use. Some stopped being in use for several months as part of the general Colau Debacle (the populist mayor closed a lot of places, including the Fairgrounds, because “they’re expensive to use”).
There are many reasons to complain about the Barcelona games, no need to come up with additional ones.
Perhaps in response to the lack of bids for the 2022 Winter Games, the IOC introduced Agenda 2020, meant to make it easier and cheaper for countries to bid and to host the Games.
For example, during the bidding process, the host committees need to travel multiple times to meet with the IOC, and now the IOC will cover some of those costs.
And the IOC will allow the events to occur over a larger area, or even in two countries, if they want to submit a joint bid. (So, for example, Norway and Sweden could bid together.)
Reading the Agenda 2020 documents don’t make it clear, but I would hope they would be more flexible about using existing facilities instead of requiring so much to be built from scratch.
On top of it, temperatures in Qatar regularly rise to 120 degrees or more.
I think the Olympics should be discontinued; they are an idea whose time has come and long since gone. Yes, I’m said this quite a few times here; I just said it again.
I did watch the Parade of Nations, mainly because I thought it would be kind of cool to see what Portuguese alphabetical order is. The most interesting ones were Kenya (Quenia) and Kyrgyzstan (Quirguistao). I was also surprised to see how popular tae kwon do and judo are in Africa.
And joining us on message board commentary are “Anything that’s judged is not a real sport” person and “I’m going to act like 2/3 of the coverage is athlete bios and ignore the hundreds of hours of actual coverage” guy.
Later, we will also be joined by several members of the “I only watch this sport once every four years, but the refs clearly made a mistake making/not making that call” society.
I’d hope they’re reformable, at least to a degree. Even if it means “IOC Officials are now starring in the finals of the Inadvertent Ski Jump!”
And I say we give Norway the Winter games, even if they don’t want 'em.
(Look, ya reindeer herders, I gave money to St. Olaf College, watched Frozen until every note is burned into my brain, and have even eaten lutefisk. You owe me.)
I agree, in the sense that the Olympics are public-supported athletic events organized on a nation-against-nation basis.
I’d be fine with them continuing if they were reorganized as a private enterprise (whether profit or non-profit) with zero governmental contributions and the teams were recruited on a basis of something other than nationality.
And when I say no governmental support, I mean none. Zero. No contributions, no donations, no sweetheart contracts, no tax breaks, nothing.
