nuckin_futz Posted June 2, 2014 Share Posted June 2, 2014 The Bidding For The 2022 Olympics Is A Disaster Because Everyone Figured Out That Hosting Is A Total Waste Researchers have known for years that hosting large sporting events like the Olympics always costs more than expected and always yields less revenue and useful long-term infrastructure than estimated. Now voters and politicians in democratically elected countries are starting to realize the same thing. Potential host cities are dropping out of the bidding process for the 2022 Winter Olympics like crazy. Deadspin's Barry Petchesky has a breakdown of the cities that have scrapped their campaigns to host the event. Krakow, Munich, and Davos/St. Moritz all withdrew their bids after the public voted against hosting. Stockholm withdrew after the city's government said that "revenues will likely be lower and costs higher" than estimated. Oslo's bid is on life support amid mounting public opposition. And Lviv, Ukraine's bid looks to be all but finished in the face of widespread unrest in the country. Bidding on the Olympics has been justified for years by one big economic lie: investing in hosting Olympic Games will lead to long-term economic growth. It doesn't. In a 2006 paper, "Mega-events: The effect of the world's biggest sporting events on local, regional, and national economics," Holy Cross economics professor Victor Matheson took this idea to task: "Public expenditures on sports infrastructure and event operations necessarily entail reductions in other government services, an expansion of government borrowing, or an increase in taxation, all of which produce a drag on the local economy. At best public expenditures on sports-related construction or operation have zero net impact on the economy as the employment benefits of the project are matched by employment losses associated with higher taxes or spending cuts elsewhere in the system." Matheson also argues that Olympic economic impact reports often ignore the significant costs for things like security and conflate "general infrastructure" with "sports infrastructure." The things you need to stage a two-week bobsleigh event are different than the things you need for daily life. The most obvious representation of this is "white elephants" — costly Olympic stadiums that now sit empty. From Sarajevo to Athens to (some fear) Sochi, former host cities are full of examples of buildings that served a specific purpose for two weeks during the Olympics and then immediately fell out of use. Countries, at least democracies, are no longer buying the economic benefit argument. As a result, we could be headed into an era where only non-democratic governments will want to host the Olympics. After dropping out of the bidding, Stockholm's ruling party issued a statement saying they had no use for Olympic infrastructure: "Arranging a Winter Olympics would mean a big investment in new sports facilities, for example for the bobsleigh and luge." "There isn't any need for that type of that kind of facility after an Olympics." The final two bidders for the 2022 Olympics are Almaty, Kazakhstan — who's first and only president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, won 95% of the vote the most recent election, which was roundly criticized by international monitors — and Beijing, China. The International Olympic Committee will vote for a 2022 host city on July 31, 2015. Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/2022-olympics-host-cities-2014-5#ixzz33Rbd9Tdr *********************************************** Sochi a veritable ghost town 1 month after the $51 billion dollar games. Photos in the following link: http://www.businessinsider.com/sochi-ghost-city-2014-3 The IOC is reportedly furious with Rio de Janiero for being way behind schedule on the 2016 summer Olympics. So what is the answer? Some have suggested having 4 or 5 designated Olympic cities that serve as rotating hosts for the games. Like the Superbowl only international. Then again isn't it kind of impractical to maintain a world class luge track for 20 years until it's your turn again? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grapefruits Posted June 2, 2014 Share Posted June 2, 2014 Well the Whistler luge track is open to the public for summer and winter sliding. http://www.whistlerslidingcentre.com/ There have been talks about Vancouver jumping in. Most of the infrastructure is already here. Wouldn't cost nearly as much this time around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hockeyville88 Posted June 2, 2014 Share Posted June 2, 2014 IMO, the Olympics need a new identity. By going so high end and spending so much money on the Games they are pricing certain countries out of the bidding process entirely. And it's hard to think about hosting an event that isn't happening for so many years to come. No one can predict what will happen to the economy or will happen to a country in that time. The last thing anyone wants to do is have a huge commitment of being a host city on their hands when all of around them things are falling apart. As for Vancouver hosting again, I personally would not be hot on that idea. What happened in 2010 was unique. It was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence and something I would not want to taint by hosting the event again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MJDDawg Posted June 2, 2014 Share Posted June 2, 2014 With the costs of staging an Olympics these days, it's getting close to the point where only countries with no real democracy's will be able to stage the games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisbanks Posted June 2, 2014 Share Posted June 2, 2014 Well the Whistler luge track is open to the public for summer and winter sliding. http://www.whistlerslidingcentre.com/ There have been talks about Vancouver jumping in. Most of the infrastructure is already here. Wouldn't cost nearly as much this time around.it didnt cost us much the first time(compared to other host cities) ... BC place already built same goes with all the hockey, figure skating and short track speed skating venues .. what was built? athletes village the track in richmond and a bobsled/luge track.... biggest expense was the sea to sky highway and that had to be done with or without olympics.... if they brought it back to vancouver they could easily just book a couple hotels for the athletes and get it going. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CanadianLoonie Posted June 2, 2014 Share Posted June 2, 2014 I'm willing to bet that'll be cancelled because a world war would be going on... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grapefruits Posted June 2, 2014 Share Posted June 2, 2014 it didnt cost us much the first time(compared to other host cities) ... BC place already built same goes with all the hockey, figure skating and short track speed skating venues .. what was built? athletes village the track in richmond and a bobsled/luge track.... biggest expense was the sea to sky highway and that had to be done with or without olympics.... if they brought it back to vancouver they could easily just book a couple hotels for the athletes and get it going. Someone I know brought up the idea of using cruise ships. No reason to fill up hotels with athletes, when they will be needed for tourists. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hsedin33 Posted June 2, 2014 Share Posted June 2, 2014 Well they can start by scrapping the insanely large opening and closing ceremonies that have gotten waaaay, waaaay out of hand. And I think it would be a great idea if they could return to places who previously hosted the games so they wouldn't have to start from scratch, plus they would have the so called 'bugs' out of the system. Vancouver did a good job I thought, I wouldn't mind doing it again here. On a side note, does anyone actually care about the Olympics anymore? Like actually? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
etsen3 Posted June 2, 2014 Share Posted June 2, 2014 Perhaps they should consider relaxing rules on things such as corporate naming rights and sponsorships. I realize it goes against the "principles" of the games, but the Olympics is already such a big business thing anyways. Allowing venues to be named after corporate sponsors would bring in massive income. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grapefruits Posted June 2, 2014 Share Posted June 2, 2014 Well they can start by scrapping the insanely large opening and closing ceremonies that have gotten waaaay, waaaay out of hand. And I think it would be a great idea if they could return to places who previously hosted the games so they wouldn't have to start from scratch, plus they would have the so called 'bugs' out of the system. Vancouver did a good job I thought, I wouldn't mind doing it again here. On a side note, does anyone actually care about the Olympics anymore? Like actually? I do about the winter games. Never really been a fan of the summer games. Stayed up or got up early a a few times to catch the games in Sochi. It was much nicer having the games in our time zone though. Watch a great deal more of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horny Manatee Posted June 2, 2014 Share Posted June 2, 2014 Well they can start by scrapping the insanely large opening and closing ceremonies that have gotten waaaay, waaaay out of hand. And I think it would be a great idea if they could return to places who previously hosted the games so they wouldn't have to start from scratch, plus they would have the so called 'bugs' out of the system. Vancouver did a good job I thought, I wouldn't mind doing it again here. On a side note, does anyone actually care about the Olympics anymore? Like actually? NO. I don't care about the Olympics. So what if Canada won gold again in hockey. Big woop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GLASSJAW Posted June 2, 2014 Share Posted June 2, 2014 NO. I don't care about the Olympics. So what if Canada won gold again in hockey. Big woop. yeah. but what about bobsledding? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Offensive Threat Posted June 2, 2014 Share Posted June 2, 2014 I really enjoyed the Olympics here in Van. I was against it beforehand but got on board when it was obviously gonna happen either way. Went to a bunch of events where the tickets werent obscenely expensive or impossible to get and had a great time. Is there any venue not being used from those games? The expanded Sea to sky highway is a nice drive. The problem is when cities build venues for the games with no plans(or at least reasonable plans) for their use afterwards. Athens was a prime example. A senior member of their Olympic committee said absolutely no though was given to use for the venues after the games and the result is a bunch of multimillion dollar empty derelict sites around Athens slowly rotting into the ground. The Russian price tag of $50 billion dollars for their games, basically Vladamir Putins vanity project, is so absurd it has made the games a joke. Who wants to follow that? Hopefully Sochi will become what they hoped, a year round vacation destination instead of what we fear. A ghost town. In October the Formula One Russian Grand Prix will have its first year of racing on a street circuit there. It is expected to be an annual event. The IOC is a bizarre organization that thinks it rules the world or something. Their budgets are in the hundreds of millions of dollars for what? Administration? They seem to think that laws dont apply to them. Oh, a IOC guy got caught taking a bribe, oh well, move him to an out of sight job and forget about it. There is no oversight. No rules beyond their own. No country complains about anything they do or else they will never get to host again. I would be happy to see them knocked down a peg or 2 or 100 by no city bidding for the games at all. See how that fits into their plans and what it does to their budget when those millions dont roll in every 2 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ruletherink Posted June 3, 2014 Share Posted June 3, 2014 The IOC is going to have to completely drop the idea of 'host cities' and move to a 'host country' model. It may not be worthwhile for Stockholm to have a luge/bobsleigh track, but some other town in Sweden where the national teams train may use an upgrade of that specific infrastructure. If the World Cup can be spread across cities in one country (or even multiple countries), then the Olympics will need to do the same. It already is nation vs nation, why contain yourself to one city?Also someone mentioned the ceremonies.. they would for sure have to be scaled back Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tre Mac Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 White Rock should put a bid in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lychees Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 The only thing from the Olympics I watch is soccer, and hockey. And I hope Vancouver doesn't actually put in a bid for 2022, had the experience and it was great but too soon IMO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aeromotacanucks Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 maybe if the IOC doesn´t put a so high price on it´s event more cities/countries could aford it... today summer/winter olympics consume so much money investing on new buildings where they will not use after the event. but no. IOC need a top 5 star buildings. ok safety first but you can have safety on more simple buildings.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peaches5 Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 In Rio I believe they started to discover like old city ruins and roads and wanted to restore it all which takes much longer and costs much more money than just building from scratch. I saw this a few years ago and was thinking if they plan to do that they are going to be way behind and it sounds like thats just the case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
24K PureCool Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 2022 will be in Almaty. Not much of a race there. Unless Almaty's bid is horrible, it will host seeing how 2018 is in South Korea and I really doubt the IOC will give it to an east asian country two times in a row. I won't be surprised if the IOC begs some of the previous host city to host the 2022 games and that list will definitely consist of Vancouver and Salt Lake City. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aeromotacanucks Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 In Rio I believe they started to discover like old city ruins and roads and wanted to restore it all which takes much longer and costs much more money than just building from scratch. I saw this a few years ago and was thinking if they plan to do that they are going to be way behind and it sounds like thats just the case. sorry to disapoint you but no... the reason is that Rio´s Politics are just way too stupid to do something right and the worse is, Rio´s people (cariocas) are on the same way of stupidity because they keep voting and electing the same morons so things never change... it´s just the way of "Brazilian New Jersey" to be... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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