Hosting the Olympics has become financially untenable, economists say
cnn.com
cnn.com
Have these people been living under a rock? Literally ever megaproject—even much smaller ones—I’ve heard of in the past 10 years has had overruns much higher than 100%
This mini documentary is a fantastic look into the topic
Two venues were built for the 1984 games; a velodrome at CSU Dominguez Hills, which operated for two decades until it was replaced by a new velodrome will also host (track) cycling and fencing for the 2028 games; the other venue was an olympic swim pool at USC, which was rebuilt 30 years later although it won't host the 2028 games; both venues had corporate sponsorship to help with construction costs.
Only one venue was built for the 1932 games, a swimming stadium that's still in use today, renovated in 2003.
Venues aren't fully confirmed for the 2028 games, but everything so far is either existing or temporary (these tend not to be very expensive). Although softball and canoe slalom are planned to happen in Oklahoma City in order to existing venues, since there apparently aren't appropriate venues in the LA area.
[1] https://www.raremaps.com/gallery/detail/63575/games-of-the-x...
Focus on having good venues for the competition (that doesn't necessarily mean you have to build new ones) that's what it's about.
Expectations are way too high and their utilization after the events is just crapshoot. Maybe we should just go all digital. Do it in VR or 3D or something...
Second thing is infra in general that must be build to support these stations, that is often also enormously costly and will not be fully utilized afterwards.
And then there was a concurrent runway show to distract from the athletes, which was more of the same featureless body positive chaff they've been bombarding us with for the last decade. It just looked like an American commercial.
When are we going to hand the keys to North Korea and let them show us how it's done?
On television perhaps. For anyone that was actually there…
* https://blog.jeffcable.com/2024/07/the-opening-ceremony-of-p...
Play at 30:30.
This headline made me think, "So you're just now discovering this?" Montreal was a disaster; LA 1984 ran a surplus. Cities that already have the sports venues can do all right; other cities have learned by now that building a whole bunch of new stuff is foolhardy.
> To ensure true long-term viability of the Olympics, Matheson, Zimbalist and Phalin said it may come down to designating a single city or rotating through a couple of cities to serve as permanent hosts for the games.
Right: LA, London / Paris, Sydney. All of these could farm out some events to other places, like surfing in French Polynesia. Done.
Los Angeles 1984 had another plus besides having nearly all the sports venues already (they just needed to build a new velodrome and a new swim stadium).
They also already had nearly everything they needed for Olympic Village and to house the athletes and teams. They used student housing at USC and UCLA. It was summer and both of those schools have a large number of undergraduates who go home for the summer which left plenty of rooms available for the Olympics.
And the costs are 5 billion less than the Tokyo Olympics, so I guess it'll be OK.
Maybe the underlying paper discusses this. Hopefully it does as it’s an important question.
Sports are cool.
Put a stadium bond or tax or whatever on the ballot where I live and I’ll vote for it every time.
Everything doesn’t have to make financial sense.
I enjoy publicly funded museums. I hang out in publicly funded parks. I check books out of publicly funded libraries. None of these are used universally by all of the taxpayers whose money is used to fund them, but I don't feel guilty for that—I pay for things that they use that I don't use. That's part of the deal.
Whether sports need public funding is a good question that's worth exploring, but the mere fact that not everyone would enjoy them is not sufficient reason to not fund them.
College sports stadiums are often (usually?) used to fund the rest of the school. I don't see any particular reason why that model couldn't be adapted by government bodies if there's demand for publicly funded sports.
Or are you just basing it on the fact that traffic is thicker to and from the stadium on days where there are sporting events?
I’m basing this on going to games at these stadiums for 20 years, and never visiting the refrigerated warehouses afterwards. Everyone hops on the public transit if they live in the city or drives home to the suburbs afterwards.
Also the tickets cost extra.
Yes, actually they should be put to vote rather than be decided by the city council or whatever. I’ll obviously vote against, but let the majority decide.
OTOH, if they are funded by public money, I would expect my ticket to be free or close to free, selection via lottery is fine.
Why?
There are plenty of things that are partially subsidized by the government where private entities benefit. Or do you think all of those should be 100% free to you (which is a fine position to hold)?
Remember that while the stadium might be paid for publicly there are still many other costs which aren’t.
> Remember that while the stadium might be paid for publicly there are still many other costs which aren’t.
This is why I also said close to free. I’ll accept if Box seats and some other close seats are paid with, say at least 50-60% being free and distributed via lottery.
Ads, concessions, TV rights etc are more than enough to pay for operational costs. If not, I’d like to see the financials and we can discuss how to cover the deficit.
You don’t have to! You’re welcome to not pay your taxes. It’s a very powerful political act.
Why should anyone pay, via their taxes, to do anything that leads to profits for other people?
Because people realize they don’t always get their way and if something is voted into action that they personally dislike, that’s one of the downsides (and upsides) of letting other people vote.
In other words: Them’s the breaks.
And here I thought we were having a rational discussion.
Interestingly the rest of your argument is talking about voting and outcome, which is what my whole original point was above that these stadiums etc need to be voted and not decided by the city/whichever council that is influenced by the lobbyists.
Then you started talking about how if it passes you need free or cheap tickets — an argument I refuted quite easily tbh.
Yes, actually they should be put to vote rather than be decided by the city council or whatever. I’ll obviously vote against, but let the majority decide.
Fund your own stadium and maybe it will last longer than 20 years.
Stadiums that can only be used by a handful of local professional athletes? Hell no.
Stadiums that are part of local public infrastructure are a different story.
Facilities that can be rented in-full or in-part for a nominal fee by any resident in the community, and/or that during unused times are a center for community fitness? Hell yes.
Every city or ward in Japan has some kind of community center, and most of them have gyms and other fitness facilities, and overall they compare well to for-profit gyms -- which, admittedly, are absolute shit in Japan across the board, public, private, or otherwise[1]
[1] The average gym in Japan consists of approximately ten million treadmills and one squat rack, the latter having a reservation system, and being about as easy to book as an appointment with Elon Musk.
To me it has long time seemed like Olympics does not have cost-benefit correct. Money spend could likely get more effective and bigger benefits in other ways. Then again getting money to waste without big ticket item is hard.
https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/boston-2024-olympic-bid...
No, I still ROTFL at this. It would have made Greece's Olympics a model of stability. I think it would have ended up being cancelled if Boston was selected.
But when a city/region/country tries to vastly increase prestige by hosting, it's often a big strain on their economy and can leave a legacy of waste.
It's one thing to use a big event to upgrade or build facilities that are in demand and will be used, but construction costs were hard to justify. But it's a waste when they're built and then not used after the games; which is unfortunately common.
You can often sneak in some infrastructure projects that will be of lasting benefit too. As I understand it, LA's network of highway information signage was built for the 1984 Olympics, and is sort of useful for other things. I read that Paris built some runoff storage/treatment facilities to augment their sewage system[1] so that they could run Olympic events in the Seine, but improving water quality will benefit residents and the environment after the games.
[1] Most old cities, including Paris, have a first to market problem with their sewage systems. When there was little concept of sewage treatment, it made sense to build combined sewers that manage rain water and sewage in the same system; you didn't want either in the streets, so pipe it all to the river. Over time, sanitary sewers required treatment plants to clean the water before discharging it into the river; but in a combined system, rain water will oftwn overwhelm the treatment plant capacity, and you get less treated or minimally treated discharges during sustained rainfall. It's difficult to build a second system in an established urban environment, but cities that grew in the 1950s or later tend to have separate storm and sanitary sewers. Of course, time has shown we should treat water from storm sewers too, when possible.