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End the Olympics
Discarded Olympic rings from Beijing sit among garbage and overgrown with weeds.
The 1940 and ’44 Olympic Games were cancelled due to the war. And although she was still rebuilding, London held the first Summer Games afterwards in ’48. The total cost? £761,688. Converted to today’s currency that’s around $10.8 million (US).
Contrast that with 2012 when the Games returned to the same city and it cost in excess of $10 billion. Still the organizers claim they broke even.
But is that enough? When your National Health Service is running a £2.3B deficit is it right to ask your taxpayers to pony up more than that (£3.04B) for a three-week sporting event?
In the latest rounds of bidding for future games, fewer and fewer Western cities are submitting bids. Tokyo was awarded the 2020 games almost by default.
That leaves totalitarian regimes and so-called “emerging” nations as the most likely hosts of the future. The former doesn’t care about the costs and the latter may rue the day in short order.
The outdoor pool from the Athens Games sits in disrepair today
One can not claim that the 2000 games in Athens is the reason for the Greek economic crisis, but some economists say it had a triggering effect. The billions spent on infrastructure is the wrong type to sustain growth. While Athens new airport is a net plus, the spending on building a beach volleyball stadium, outdoor pool and baseball and softball stadiums proved to be a waste.
Rio de Janeiro is shaping up to be a disaster. Despite all of the spending for the Games Brazil is experiencing one of its deepest economic slumps. Additionally, the president of the country has just been stripped of power by the Senate and the Zika crisis has athletes around the world questioning if the quest for gold is worth the risk to their long-term health. Participants in the sailing events have been complaining about floating garbage and the bacterial cesspool that is Guanabara Bay almost since the day of the announcement.
In April, a 150-foot section of an elevated bike path collapsed into the sea, killing two. While not scheduled to be used for the games, its collapse highlighted the country’s reputation for shoddy construction work. That same week, a test event in the gymnastics venue was plagued by power outages.
IOC President Thomas Bach declared, “The Olympic Games enjoy strong public support from the Brazilian people and the organizers can count on the solidarity of the sporting world.”
“Solidarity” is leftist speak for “Close ranks, boys, the ship is about to hit the sand.”
Anytime politicians wish to ignore the obvious destructive elements of one of their pet projects they refer to it as either “progressive” or “a movement.” Stopping or reversing course is then painted as “regressive.”
In the case of the “Olympic Movement” perhaps it’s best to consider “advancing in a different direction.”
Published in General
I wanted to puke when the Brits had their paean to the NHS…
An intriguing notion. What would the logistical challenges of holding such a globally dispersed event in such a constrained period be I wonder?
Of course, there is one city that could host a full-up Olympics without having to do more than build one large stadium for track and field, but it keeps getting passed over whenever they try.
Think about it: you need a city with a LOT of hotel rooms, a transportation infrastructure that is used to hauling tourists around in large numbers, a decent number of venues with plenty of room for the smaller events, and a couple of buildings that could handle larger sports.
…but the Olympics are held during the summer busy season, so Disney and Universal and Sea World wouldn’t stand for it…
They love their NHS! Last Christmas, the NHS Chorus had a chart-topping hit with a mash-up of Bridge Over Troubled Water and Coldplay’s Fix You.
Watch the video on YouTube. That will really make you toss your cookies.
Yabbut, odd events is an Olympic tradition. In 1904 they had:
Source: http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-ways-1904-olympics-were-craziest-event-ever-held/
I find myself in more sympathy with this viewpoint than I expected.
I love sports. I love seeing these more obscure sports & what athletes go through to do what they love. Vancouver’s games were really good & did real infrastructure, like the Sea-to-Sky highway that replaced the goat trail going up to Whistler (plus, Vancouver is gorgeous, period).
Seeing 84 grand pianos in the LA Coliseum, with master pianists playing “Rhapsody in Blue” was fantastic. And yes, Pete Ueberroth made money on them.
But now, the IOC is FIFA on steroids (doping reference intended) when it comes to corruption. Sochi was a joke. Rio will be worse.
I love sports. Fire the IOC, move the 2016 games to LA, and do a top to bottom housecleaning. Otherwise, change the name & let FedEx or Amazon run them.
The IOC is a private organisation. The only power it has comes from politicians who think they will look better if they secure hosting rights (i.e. responsibilities) and NBC. If you want to kill The Games (R) (and, really, who cares? The FIFA World Cup is infinitely more exciting) change the politicians and the shareholders of Comcast.
Well, I’d be inclined to agree with the post, and was totally embarrassed by the scenes from the opening shown above.
But.
But we *loved* the games. We did them right – and showed that you didn’t have to be a dictatorship to do it without being a shambles (as Atlanta had done before). And the costs overran, of course, but all the assets are still in use. And the change in tone in London, that’s a legacy. And because we’d done it right, Prince Harry was able to spin up the Invictus Games in 10 months after he’d seen the Warrior Games in the US (we’re playing you in the wheelchair basketball final tomorrow). And that has a large audience, because the Paralympics, held immediately after the Olympics were also an enormous success – and now everyone knows about Ludwig Guttmann founding them to run in parallel with the 1948 games.
So no, please don’t end them. But for heaven’s sake make them re-use infrastructure, and stop this endless venue one-upmanship.
Now that the Cold War is over, it’s hard to get excited when Team USA crushes East Timor in basketball.
London did do a fantastic job. After Beijing’s hyper-spectacle of 2008, I have to admit I was concerned that it would be very difficult for Britain to match it with imagination rather than ’08’s regimentation. I need not have worried.
You can’t really argue for “end it” seeing as the IOC is an independent organisation. But I would certainly argue for ending the government-funded national Olympic commitees and sports academies. Aside from that, the Olympics is already dying a slow death anyway.
Though it has managed to reform itself from previous bleak troughs: the world wars, the depression, the nazi games, the soviet games, Montreal…
Atlanta is not about to abandon that Stadium, they abandoned supporting the Braves ages ago. Had the city done something, anything with the surrounding area, it would be different.
Cut all the stupid pageantry. The limeys pathetically told the world that their national pride was now down to a fictional character and being more statist than the ChiComs.
Since the various governments are involved of course it gets screwed up. So we can’t have olympics because governments screw things up? Guess what I’d recommend.
The L.A. games got great press because they were widely popular; the Atlanta games, held in the same country 12 years later, are widely scorned. Can’t say it’s political correctness: Reagan was vastly less popular with the chic, sophisto press than Clinton was. It’s hard to say it was because of the quality of play that year; with so many events, very few people remember more than a few dramatic moments in any year.
So what was the difference? Yeah, Atlanta screwed up the rail transit access and it caused famously embarrassing jams that looked bad on world TV. But at least they had transit, which L.A. totally lacked in 1984. I think the difference was the way the cities decided to present themselves. Los Angeles basically stuck to Hollywood, and the world’s sentimental images of stardom. Atlanta obviously was most proud of their journey from slavery to civil rights leadership, a worthy cause that doesn’t mean much to non-Americans (a persistent issue for US films overseas when they deal with the subject).
I went to some of those games. Truth is, Atlanta was still learning how to be a big city and learned a lot the hard way in 1996. IIRC, Atlanta was the first modern Olympics that the IOC chairman didn’t declare “the best ever”, but merely described them with a lukewarm “most excellent”.
Thank you for noticing. This was one more way the rest of the Nation feels it is OK to continue to look down on the South. It is constant.
It was deliberate slight. They were unhappy that we made money. Granted there was a bombing, but there was not a PLA attack on athletes.
I’d rather live in the Atlanta area than any place else in the world. I am proud of how the 1996 Olympics went. It was an exciting time. The damn yankees of the world can go jump in a lake.
Georgia is a better run state that most. Did you know that Georgia started making modifications to its pension system in 1982! That’s right, 1982. It was getting ready for the reality of today back then. When it was “backwards”.
If the South is so bad, why oh why, is there a great migration into it?
Per Bryan’s point–too much of Atlanta’s pitch was “See? We don’t hate anymore!” That’s great, but London didn’t have to present itself as “See? We don’t ship slaves anymore!” Beijing didn’t advertise “100 million dead, but why dwell on it?”
ctlaw, fact is the world liked the London games–a lot. Statist? Sure, the Brits have been statist for a very long time. More than China? C’mon. I could have lived without the NHS tribute but the ceremony reminded the world what they love about the British–and that’s what opening ceremonies aim for.
Not the nation, the world.
A man after my own heart.
That’s the question then, isn’t? People like the SPLC go on and on about what a hellhole it is down here, and yet going on 30 years there’s been this huge black migration South. Forget all the northerners coming to the Atlantic South and all the Californians coming to Texas; you’d think all these black families wouldn’t be coming to South Carolina and Georgia and Alabama and Florida at these rates with our weekly truck-draggings of random innocent black men down here. Why, at our quarterly cross burning last week, they didn’t even know we were there. What’s the world comin’ to?
Wait I have read only the Canadians have broken even or made money on Olympic in the last 30 or 40 years. ( I think L.A. was the last one) This was from a sports economist I think from a Econtalk podcast. I will have to look it up. Where is your information coming from, I just don’t believe it unless who you heard it from are using Keynesian economics which is crap anyways. The whole velocity (or how ever you spell it) of money in a local economy is just a stupid idea made up to to justify government spending ( I hear it a lot on NPR and think the people are full of themselves). It pretty much has no proof that it means anything after 80 years.
Please no I don’t want to pay for it, the Citrus bowl is a money loser and it only seats 64k. We don’t have the existing sports facilities to host it. Now if the whole state of Florida hosted them we have the capacity with not a lot a new buildings needed. I mean during the Atlanta games the small sail boat and windsailing competitions were held in Merritt Island which is right next to Cape Canaveral so like a 8 hour drive from Atlanta.
Really why due most of the event have to be held in the same city. What you can’t fly for two hour? The idea only one city should have all the events is nice for event goers and all the Athletes get to hang out with each other but is economically stupid. I mean the U.S. is hosting Copa America this year. Guess what games are talking place from Orlando and L.A (I am talking the same group). The whole nation is hosting the games.
That is what needs to happen with the world cup. Take it away from U.A.E and give it to the EU. Play games from London to Berlin.
I am against crony Capitalism and sports is the poster child for tax payer subsidies to Millionaires and Billionaires, the Olympics is the grand
pimpdaddy of them all. The IOC is like almost all old NGO’s. It is run by a bunch of money grubbing liberals who are all about looking out for their self interest not promoting what the NGO’s original goals are.Georgia is well run but Atlanta I really don’t think so? I heard Neal Bortz rant and rave for years so I know more about Atlanta Politics than any other city other than those in Central Florida, were I live. Sorry but the fact that Atlanta can’t even make money off the busiest airport in the world, really shows they are not competent. Also I know they did not make money but lost a lot on the games.
It depends on how you define making money. Centinnial Olympic Park is a wonderful centerpiece for downtown.
Atlanta is more than the city, it is a metro area. My corner of it is one of less than 40 counties nation wide with a AAA bond rating from all three agencies. That’s right, Cobb County has better credit than Uncle Sam.
Now, I think the city is poorly run, but the city is not everything. Nor, is it any worse run than any city up north, and based on crime, better than several.
Remember that the LA games came after the 1980 boycott, were when the Cold War was peaking, and US patriotism was at an all time high. They were quintessentially AMERICAN. By Atlanta, we were divided over Clinton and his scandals, and dealing with Ross Perot’s round 2 echo against the Clinton Dole election. Not a happy time, unlike 84.
The Olympics may be a private event but they very much a tax exempt racket. Here in the US, shamefully so.
Howard Gleckman, a resident fellow at The Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, writes in The Christian Science Monitor:
In 2007, a year in which there were no games, USOC had revenue of $147 million. More than half—over $78 million—came from corporate royalties . The story was roughly the same in 2008, although, because summer games were played that year, the numbers were far bigger (including $123 million in broadcast rights).
In 2007, the USOC spent about two-thirds of its revenue on administrative expenses, including almost $35 million on salaries, benefits, and other compensation. In 2008, at least 20 of its top executives earned $200,000 or more.
The USOC provides $1.3 M per year to USA Hockey and then fields an NHL all-star team.