The Future of The Olympics

[Timsup2nothin]

The Paris olympics are going to be held in areas in need of investment. It looks like it will solve some of the infrastructure problems in the north of Paris.

One man's solving of infrastructure problems is another man's displacement of the underprivileged from their blighted homes.

 

[Sommerswerd]

We just need to take the politics/graft out of it.

Hahahahahahahahah lolololololololol

Wait... was that serious? Nah, no way, amirite?

 

[AdrienIer]

One man's solving of infrastructure problems is another man's displacement of the underprivileged from their blighted homes.

Not in this case. Until 4 months ago I lived about 200m from the future olympic village. The area is composed of empty spaces and buildings that were meant to be destroyed anyway. And the bridge they want to build there is going to be useful for everyone. And the games will make certain that the current metro projects in the area will be finished by 2024. Metros don't displace people, they give access to the richest places to people from poor neighborhoods. One of the projected metro lines will irrigate areas that are in dire need of help : to go from Montfermeil to Paris it currently takes between 1h and 1h30, for an 18km trip.

 

[Synobun]

Not in this case. Until 4 months ago I lived about 200m from the future olympic village. The area is composed of empty spaces and buildings that were meant to be destroyed anyway. And the bridge they want to build there is going to be useful for everyone. And the games will make certain that the current metro projects in the area will be finished by 2024. Metros don't displace people, they give access to the richest places to people from poor neighborhoods. One of the projected metro lines will irrigate areas that are in dire need of help : to go from Montfermeil to Paris it currently takes between 1h and 1h30, for an 18km trip.

Similar story with Vancouver, transit-wise. Our "Canada Line" subway system was on rocky ground since its approval but finally became a surety the moment the city was selected for the Olympics. Ridership numbers since opening just before the Olympics have been above estimates and it breathed a lot of life into our Cambie Street corridor that is today slowly being rezoned for higher density. The Olympics are in part responsible for Vancouver having one of the best transit systems in the world (especially in North America).

 

[rah]

Hahahahahahahahah lolololololololol

Wait... was that serious? Nah, no way, amirite?

No not really. There's always drugs. When there's that much money involved, they are automatically entwined.

 

[Cheetah]

Very little in sport is actually really directly profitable, and that includes most wealthy privately owned sporting clubs. That said, the sums we're talking about are, in the context of a national budget, pretty minimal and probably reasonable spending for a once in a generation spectacle event and, to be honest, a giant feelgood party.

Public funding goes into sport for the same reason it goes to other cultural things like arts and music - we as a public like those things existing and they don't exist as well when purely scrabbling for private sector resources. They're particularly bad at capital intensive things because they mostly don't have much capital to begin with (the partial exception being particularly wealthy private owners in parts of the world where clubs are owned by very wealthy people).

Sydney for instance made about a $2b accounting loss out of a $7b budget, which is about what was pitched in by public money (to cover that cost). That is comparable to the size of the Commonwealth arts and communications budget for one year. It's also comparable to the public spend on some new stadia (the new Perth football/cricket stadium cost 1.6b).

It should also be noted that the reasons Sydney probably didn't get much benefit out of it include: it was a time of low unemployment so resources were displaced rather than activated, Sydney is too well known and highly-touristed to have gotten a tourism boost, and the SARS epidemic probably hurt foreign visitor numbers.

On the other hand, we put on the best Olympics ever, and will forever brag about that, which is pretty priceless.

But are all the installations constructed for those Olympics still maintained and operational? The real tragedy is when they're only used for this one spectacle, and then left to rot. E.g. the stadia in Greece and Sotchi.

 

[Cheetah]

Similarly, the soccer World Cup is conditioned heavily by the kind of country hosting them. Qatar's World Cup is, in every particular, very different to how Australia's would have been! (yes I'm still bitter)

Bitter? I'm outraged. Qatar is a literal slave state, and holding the World Cup there is explicitly condoning and supporting slavery!

 

[Hrothbern]

But are all the installations constructed for those Olympics still maintained and operational? The real tragedy is when they're only used for this one spectacle, and then left to rot. E.g. the stadia in Greece and Sotchi.

yes
If a big urban cluster in a big developed country is organising it, building infrastructure and facilities, much of that, unless designed stupidly, can be used again, can be well integrated in a "normal" expansion.

But in too small countries, too small urban centers, it is I think almost impossible to avoid waste.
In mickey mouse countries with too much money, seeking status and recognition, it is just burning money from the start.

However... somehow it feels wrong to me, in conflict with the unifying olympic spirit to exclude countries head on from economy scale.

Perhaps the solution is to give up this national location.... which would fit very well the unifying olympic spirit.
No longer a UK in London, or a Mexico city in Mexico, but several countries together, and the opening ceremony as the cherry on the cake.
Why SK and not SK and Japan, or SK and Vietnam ?
And yes, it will be more of a hassle for the VIP's and the VIP press.... but with current E-communication, that should not be an issue anymore, except some hurted pride.

 

[Marla_Singer]

The Olympics are in part responsible for Vancouver having one of the best transit systems in the world (especially in North America).

In North America, certainly. As for the world, you have no idea how ressourceful it can be.

 

[Kyriakos]

But are all the installations constructed for those Olympics still maintained and operational? The real tragedy is when they're only used for this one spectacle, and then left to rot. E.g. the stadia in Greece and Sotchi.

Tbh it is somewhat stupid to force as olympic events some sports which neither have history in the games nor are played by most of the global population. Eg that funny type of tennis with very light 'ball', or other hipster stuff inevitably would lead to venues that have no use after they are done.
Not that i doubt for a second that the usual party (with foreigners bribing and making a fortune) didn't happen here in the olympics.

 

[AdrienIer]

Do you mean badminton ? It's great ! Every kid in school plays it in France, because it's really simple to set up and really fun to play

 

[Marla_Singer]

Tbh it is somewhat stupid to force as olympic events some sports which neither have history in the games nor are played by most of the global population. Eg that funny type of tennis with very light 'ball', or other hipster stuff inevitably would lead to venues that have no use after they are done.
Not that i doubt for a second that the usual party (with foreigners bribing and making a fortune) didn't happen here in the olympics.

Badminton is actually very popular in Asia, especially in China, Indonesia and South Korea.

If you'd want the Olympics to stick only to sports which are well-organized in all countries in the world, well that already exists and it's called the FIFA World Cup.

 

[Marla_Singer]

However... somehow it feels wrong to me, in conflict with the unifying olympic spirit to exclude countries head on from economy scale.

As a matter of fact, that's more or less the case, it's just not written as a rule: Beijing 2008, London 2012, Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020, Paris 2024, Los Angeles 2028. All those are cities hosting more than 10 million people which are located in the top 10 of the most powerful economies. It seems that hosting the Olympics have become too risky for smaller cities than that as they don't even bid for it anymore.

 

[Hrothbern]

As a matter of fact, that's more or less the case, it's just not written as a rule: Beijing 2008, London 2012, Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020, Paris 2024, Los Angeles 2028. All those are cities hosting more than 10 million people which are located in the top 10 of the most powerful economies. It seems that hosting the Olympics have become too risky for smaller cities than that as they don't even bid for it anymore.

yes
and perhaps it should no longer be Paris or London.... but Paris AND London.

And on the back of that: why not games of India and Pakistan and Bangladesh together ?

 

[AdrienIer]

and perhaps it should no longer be Paris or London.... but Paris AND London.

Why though ? Paris and London are quite capable of doing the olympics on their own. Budapest and Vienna would perhaps make more sense if they were less nationalistic.
But the idea of the olympics is also that the athletes are (almost all) brought together in the same place, and the emulation from that is what makes the olympics so great.

 

[rah]

Yes, getting the best breading stock int the world together in one city is always an admirable goal.

 

[Hrothbern]

Why though ? Paris and London are quite capable of doing the olympics on their own. Budapest and Vienna would perhaps make more sense if they were less nationalistic.
But the idea of the olympics is also that the athletes are (almost all) brought together in the same place, and the emulation from that is what makes the olympics so great.

That being together of the athletes is great for the opening ceremony
(and closure ceremony when they are still there).

But after that ceremony, athletes are very much focussed on their own.
Up to the point that chefs d'equipes do everything to get athletes that are done are seperated from athletes still busy.
Because the relaxed mood of athletes ready is affecting the concentration of athletes that still have to perform.
(up to the point that they are send home to prevent them mixing)

 

[warpus]

Meh, the older I get the less I care about the Olympics. It used to be a celebration of sport, but now it seems to just be a celebration of money.

I watched the ski jump competition on day 1 or 2.. online mind you, because no TV stations were showing it for some reason until the last 15 jumpers. So okay, that was fun, even though my guys didn't win. But now onto more important things in my life.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

As a matter of fact, that's more or less the case, it's just not written as a rule: Beijing 2008, London 2012, Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020, Paris 2024, Los Angeles 2028. All those are cities hosting more than 10 million people which are located in the top 10 of the most powerful economies. It seems that hosting the Olympics have become too risky for smaller cities than that as they don't even bid for it anymore.

The Olympics in Atlanta averaged 500,000 spectators per day. If you assume that every day was average so the peak is 500,000 (no way, so the peak was probably a lot higher), and that the same people watched every day (agin, no way that's realistic), then your host city 'only' needs the infrastructure to deal with half a million visitors. How many cities have that? And again, that's unrealistically low by a huge margin.

Las Vegas can accommodate three million visitors per month, and they are a smallish city with only about two million in the metro area...but their entire economic engine is built on accommodation. So I think that's a fair indication of the kind of infrastructure required.

 

[Marla_Singer]

The Olympics in Atlanta averaged 500,000 spectators per day. If you assume that every day was average so the peak is 500,000 (no way, so the peak was probably a lot higher), and that the same people watched every day (agin, no way that's realistic), then your host city 'only' needs the infrastructure to deal with half a million visitors. How many cities have that? And again, that's unrealistically low by a huge margin.

Las Vegas can accommodate three million visitors per month, and they are a smallish city with only about two million in the metro area...but their entire economic engine is built on accommodation. So I think that's a fair indication of the kind of infrastructure required.

Smaller cities which don't bid to host the Olympics can of course accomodate that many visitors. That's not their problem. What they fear though is to need to build facilities which won't be profitable in the long run. The "bad" example is Athens (sorry Kyriakos) which endebted itself in order to build stuff which are only decaying since then. Bigger cities actually have the domestic markets to make all facilities profitable over time, even for niche sports such rowing or canoeing.