We just saw the bid for the olympics, and some of us breathed a sigh of relief when Chicago didn’t get the nod.
Now here is a tale of a country that did get an event: Laos Stumbles on Path to Sporting Glory
Pouring money into something that in the days of the original olympians would have been done with just a couple weeks of prep and no new construction. But now countries are selling their shirts for the “honor”. Something wrong there. Why can’t the events be small? Done on the scale of regular sporting events, and paid for with ticket sales?
I don’t fully understand why so many nations and cities are so concerned with hosting the Olympics. Is Bejing, Los Angeles, or Berlin held in higher regard internationally because they hosted the Olympics? Do cities and national governments somehow make a profit from the Olympics? Other than the warm fuzzies and a sense of accomplishment I don’t know what people get out of the Olympics.
However, maybe those warm fuzzies are enough. Sports are culturally significant and I suppose spending money on them is just as valid as spending for the arts.
Is there an art project that gets as many viewers in two weeks or ever for that matter? Your comparing apples to oranges.
The Olympics remain culturally significant. They come at a cost governments are still willing to pay. If the cost gets so high a majority of people reject them and governments still force them into cities that would be different.
30 years of debt for a sporting event ( as Ruminator’s link mentions ) means you are spending far, far too much on what is ultimately a luxury. Personally, I regard the Olympics as a white elephant, and America as having dodged a bullet by not getting them this time.
I did some Googling on the 2008 games. It appears that something fairly close to 302 events were contested. The total cost was at least $16 billion, and plenty of sources estimate something around $40 - 44 billion. Taking a figure of $25b as fully plausible, that’s around $83 million per event.
It would be wrong not to point out that a lot of the money went for infrastructure improvements that yield at least some long-term benefits. But the notion that a 16-day event event should cost over $1.5 billion a day (over $1 million a minute!) seems beyond absurd.
I’d say the the IOC needs to address this issue, and to implement cost limits in some form.
Why would the IOC need to do that. If the Chinese or the Brazilians want to spend their money this way, it is up to them. And don’t get started on the Chinese government not being accountable to the people. Democratic countries seem just as willing to get into the bidding war as undemocratic ones, which should be some indication that these are popular choices with the electorate.
Of course the IOC doesn’t want to tamp down the bidding war. The Olympics made a few people (maybe hundreds or even thousands, but tiny compared to the population) very rich from construction contracts, catering contracts, etc, and like any other project where billions will be spent on a one-off event, lots of money is going to be mis-allocate and even downright stolen. Because the policing mechanisms in the host country/city can never keep up with the sheer magnitude of the expenditures, the waste and abuse is probably worse than even your average public works project, but hey if the people can’t get their checkbooks out fast enough, who are you to complain?
Could a city spend millions of dollars pursuing an Olympic bid only to have the athletes compete at the local YMCA? What are the standards? I understand that local businesses make some money on the deal and it probably brings a little more money long term as the tourism bureau gets to add one more notch in the “notable history” column. But the exorbitant amounts of money being quoted in this thread seem so over the top as to be ridiculous. You could spend two weeks competing on the moon for that kind of money! :eek:
I agree that it isn’t anybody’s business how other people want to spend their money, although I would have expected somebody to try and put on a bargain basement Olympics show before now.
I think you supplied some reasonable answers to this question. It’s not in the best long-term interests of the Olympics to become a white elephant that reliably produces economic trauma for the host country.
Of course it may well serve a number of short-term interests, which argues that reform would be difficult.
If they spent the even a fraction of those billions bid on a theme park instead of a stadium, Chicago could recoup the cost, and it would spur the economy in the meantime. Lots of construction jobs. It could be an indoor park like the Great Mall in Minneapolis.
I gotta believe (hope?) that several billions of tax dollars for a theme park would be a tough sell. I’d like to think there are better things to do with public funds.
Many places have made duel use buildings. The housing units for the athletes can become housing units for citizens when it is over. The widened and cleaned up streets will stay that way. It will facilitate the traffic flow. Most cities can use a stadium or a future use. It is not all wasted.