The Future of The Olympics

[Zkribbler]

I thought LA was somewhat unique among the Olympic venues for having turned a profit when the city hosts it.

Peter Uberoth showed the world how to do it right. It's not his fault if the rest of the world decided to built multi-zillion dollar stadiums.

 

[Commodore]

you know if the world didnt exist there would have been no suffering

This isn't wrong though...

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

This isn't wrong though...

Thank you. Not being wrong is a meaning of my life. One could say I am trying to become "an Olympian" in that...

 

[Sommerswerd]

If the Olympics didn't exist, then the South Korean government wouldn't have this opportunity to screw over small business owners.

Don't overlook that alot of people/businesses make alot of money that they absolutely would not make otherwise, precisely because the Olympics elevates sports that many of us wouldn't give a crap about otherwise.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

You mean pay for people who are grossly overpaid doing certain physical tasks really really well and showering them with attention and money? Yeah, I could do without that, plenty of other interesting things in the world. If corporations want to entirely fund that, I don't mind but I certainly don't care to sponsor that with my own money. IOC, FIFA, UEFA they are basically a merchandise selling racket under the thin veneer of sports and excellence.

Throwing away the baby with the bathwater, much?

 

[Kozmos]

For the matter, most athletes competing in the Olympics aren't overpaid to begin with. As for those being overpaid, they actually are by private business owners who find their own interests in overpaying them. That's not done with "your" money at all.

So what are you complaining about? Your post just doesn't make any sense.

If you're generating empty value with your activity you are definitively overpaid. I'm complaining about local and national governments making crooked deals with all the big sporting event committees, building crap people don't need and wrecking the local economy for it so a couple of privileged sports people and the businessmen who support them can make a pretty penny. The top 10% of athletes can make a career out of this, the other 90% hover around 15k+ a year. It's just a tremendous waste of human resources.

Throwing away the baby with the bathwater, much?

How else do you get rid of a dead baby?

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

How else do you get rid of a dead baby?

First things first. You need someone with experience to pronounce its death. Trying to kill sick baby is a crime.

 

[Kyriakos]

FYI the 'winter olympics' are not the olympics.
Furthermore, even the actual olympics are a charade.It didn't have to be that way, but it is.

 

[Snerk]

There is a summer Olympics too!?

 

[dutchfire]

I wonder if the games could be made more cost effective by relying more on corporate sponsorship to fund the games rather than having the host nation bear the cost. I would also suggest that perhaps the IOC should have to rent the venues in the host nation to help alleviate some of the financial burden. Where the IOC would get the money for that I don't know since I would not be in favor of them asking participating nations to chip in. Perhaps corporate sponsorship could help with that as well.

We have this funny thing called 'corporate tax', but I hear it's not very popular on your side of the pond.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

FYI the 'winter olympics' are not the olympics.
Furthermore, even the actual olympics are a charade.It didn't have to be that way, but it is.

I suppose you miss the good old times when you had to be a Greek citizen, no females were allowed and men competed naked.

 

[Kyriakos]

I suppose you miss the good old times when you had to be a Greek citizen, no females were allowed and men competed naked.

Of course. Doesn't everyone?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Yeah, if that's really what was going on. Just read an article today that this supposed joint North and South Korea Olympic team is still mostly South Korean athletes with the North contributing very little to this supposed joint effort.

Let's see...we have a national hockey team that has been practicing together for however long, and then a couple weeks before the Olympics they welcome a handful of players from DPRK onto their team...and you read an article about how the DPRK players aren't numerous enough or aren't getting enough ice time so it doesn't count? Seriously? What kind of rags do you read?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Why shouldn't the IOC be blamed? If the Olympics didn't exist, then the South Korean government wouldn't have this opportunity to screw over small business owners.



These are small businesses that can't afford to close down for 2 weeks. That's the whole reason they are upset. I'm really trying not to get angry at your attitude towards this right now, but it is really bothering me that you seem to think it is okay to ruin people's lives just so you can have your "feel good" moment with the Olympic games. If I were these business owners, I would be organizing full-scale riots outside every Olympic venue in order to shut the games down.

Have you not been paying attention to what else has been said in this thread? The Olympics provide no tangible benefit to the cities that host them (LA being the exception to the rule) and usually leaves those cities saddled with debt they struggle to pay back, which causes economic problems for years to come, especially in cities that were economically depressed to begin with. Just look at what happened to Rio. There's also the extreme wastefulness that occurs in the construction of most Olympic facilities. Aside from a few cities, most facilities built for the Olympics go unused and slowly fall into ruin once the games are over. That sounds like a huge waste of resources to me. Resources that could have been better used elsewhere.

And I never said I want the Olympics gone, I just said I wouldn't mind it if they did go away because they don't provide any tangible benefit. I also wouldn't have any problems with the Olympics if the IOC covered 100% of the cost themselves instead of forcing the host nations to shell out billions in tax dollars so some people can run around and play games for two weeks. Especially since the Olympics gives no tangible benefit back to the host in return. I also find it more than a little selfish of the IOC to demand host governments pay anything at all. The host nation is providing you with the land to build your facilities and hold your games, and then you want them to help pay for it too? That would be like staying at a hotel and then when it comes time to pay your bill demanding the hotel cover half of it.

And if you are wondering why I'm so invested in this, it's because I've seen what wasting public funds on sports can do first hand. Here in Cincinnati, the city government used taxpayer funds to build a new stadium for the Cincinnati Bengals on the promise from Mike Brown (the owner of the Bengals) that the new stadium would help revitalize Cincinnati's economy by bringing in tourism and helping spur new business growth in the downtown area near the stadium. Not only did taxpayers have tofund the building of the stadium, but the deal Brown got with the city was that the city would have to pay all of the maintenance costs for the stadium as well. Years later, taxpayers are still trying to payoff the stadium and the city hasn't seen any of the promised benefits. Our economy didn't get revitalized until Ohio legalized gambling and they built a big casino in downtown Cincinnati. So it was a casino that brought in the benefits that our sports teams were supposed to. And the casino didn't ask for any public funds either. It was 100% privately financed.

My point in all that being, sports are nothing but a cancer on a city. They cause more harm than good to a local economy, and the fact that we keep wasting public funds on them is simply outrageous. The Olympics is no different. And again, I wouldn't have so much of a problem with the Olympics if they either A) didn't suck up public funds, or B) actually provided some tangible, lasting benefit to cities that host them.

LOL so St Louis wasn't the only city that the NFL completely screwed over. The city had a similar deal with the Rams that failed to return on the investment while at the same time they were underfunding the schools to the point where the district collapsed and had to be taken over by the state. Then the Rams owner decided to take his crappy team to LA because that city offered an even more lucrative taxpayer funded deal. (Well I assume the LA was similarly structured to St Louis; I have never looked into it)

The Rams are crap and have been crap for a long time and its disgraceful the way their own has been allowed to leach off the taxpayers for years for his own non-taxable profit.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

LOL so St Louis wasn't the only city that the NFL completely screwed over. The city had a similar deal with the Rams that failed to return on the investment while at the same time they were underfunding the schools to the point where the district collapsed and had to be taken over by the state. Then the Rams owner decided to take his crappy team to LA because that city offered an even more lucrative taxpayer funded deal. (Well I assume the LA was similarly structured to St Louis; I have never looked into it)

The Rams are crap and have been crap for a long time and its disgraceful the way their own has been allowed to leach off the taxpayers for years for his own non-taxable profit.

Well, no, the deal isn't structured the same way. Ownership of an NFL style stadium in Los Angeles is profitable enough in itself that sharing that ownership with the city and being open to their mismanagement of the venue is undesirable. The deal that St Louis had to make to lure the Rams there in the first place was bad for everyone; city, team, fans. But the NFL couldn't function without having teams in small markets, so unless you want to limit professional sports to a handful of cities where it is actually viable and can find a way to make a five team 'league' work that kind of thing is going to happen.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

For those in doubts here is a couple more reasons to embrace the ideal of winter Olympics:

Mastering the icy element on sub-Olympian levels:

 

[Synobun]

The IOC is an atrocious organization but that is another discussion I think.

Vancouver received a sizable boost to its growth and infrastructure as a result of hosting the Olympics. That hosting isn't beneficial for some countries isn't an Olympics problem, it's a country problem. I understand the general reasoning behind letting countries bid to host but I think this is too rife for abuse (as we've seen with Qatar and the World Cup). It would help if it were more focused on actual viability.

Ideally the Olympics would be hosted and maintained in neutral territory and paid for with an international fund. That's wishful thinking, though.

On the joint Korean hockey teams: It was incredibly short notice and North Korea doesn't have what would be considered a burgeoning hockey industry. That they were capable of sending anyone was great news.

 

[Cheetah]

So if the Olympics continue to have a negative economic impact (or are at least perceived to have a negative economic impact) on the host nation, how long will it be before nations stop wanting to host the games and the Olympics just die out altogether?

The Olympics and the World Cups does not have to cost a lot. It is simply because IOC and FIFA make it so, by creating lots of stupid and unreasonable demands.

Frankly, the whole IOC committee and the FIFA kleptocrats should all be in jail, and tyrannies should be banned from hosting, and then the Olympics and World Cups would be far better!

 

[Sommerswerd]

The Rams are crap and have been crap for a long time and its disgraceful the way their own has been allowed to leach off the taxpayers for years for his own non-taxable profit.

Point of order... The Rams did in-fact, go 11-5, winning their division. So they are not crap. They are the opposite of crap.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Point of order... The Rams did in-fact, go 11-5, winning their division. So they are not crap. They are the opposite of crap.

I haven't payed attention to them since they went to LA but in St Louis they absolutely sucked.