Olympic$

[Canada EH]

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/hosting-the-olympics-is-a-terrible-investment/

 

Rio

the Brazilian government estimated that costs directly related to hosting the games would run just shy of $3 billion. But by the time Vanderlei de Lima lit the Olympic torch at last week’s opening ceremonies, the country had already spent some $4.6 billion on venues, administration, transportation and the like, putting the games roughly 50 percent over budget.

 

2014 Winter Games in Sochi blew their budget by 289 percent. The 1980 Winter Games in Lake Placid overtopped projections by 324 percent. And the 1976 Games in Montreal ran a staggering 720 percent over projections; the city spent three decades paying down the bill. While outliers such as these distort the average cost overruns somewhat (176 percent for Summer Games, 142 percent for Winter Games), the median cost overrun for all games for which we have data is 90 percent, making Rio’s cost overrun somewhat lower than the historical norm, at least so far.

 

a new study

The Oxford Olympics Study 2016:
Cost and Cost Overrun at the Games

The numbers above come from a new study led by Bent Flyvbjerg at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School, who looked at six decades of Olympic budgets. It wasn’t easy — detailed cost overrun data is only available for 19 of the 30 games taking place since 1960

 

that for more than a third of the games between 1960 and 2016 no one seems to know what the cost overrun was

 

Flyvbjerg and his colleagues compared the Olympics to other megaprojects such as bridges, dams, highways, railway lines and major IT projects. The Olympic Games average 156 percent cost overruns, outdistancing all other types of megaprojects. For comparison, road projects average overruns of 20 percent; bridges and tunnels 34 percent; energy projects 36 percent; rail projects 45 percent; dams 90 percent and IT projects 107 percent. Even road, bridge and rail projects come in under budget 10 percent of the time. Of all the types of projects compared, only the Olympics has a flawless record for going over budget, making the games a particularly risky undertaking for governments unprepared to absorb those additional costs.

 

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I think that the status of the Calgary mayor Nenshi as "The Worlds Best Mayor" got to his head, and figured he get more newcomers to Calgary to vote "Yes" in the plebicite. However they have no stake in the game, that is why homeowners went out in droves to vote no.

 

There is no reason to host the Olympics anymore. The IOC is a farce!

 

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https://www.outsideonline.com/2031911/why-us-should-never-host-another-olympics

Why the U.S. Should Never Host Another Olympics

"It's expensive"

 

The first line, I love it, gets right to the point.

 

The IOC begged Norway to host the 2022 games, but the Norwegians—people who invented ways to have fun on snow—rebuffed IOC entreaties, citing both the cost and outrageous IOC-member demands for rock-star treatment. 

 

The IOC reacted like a petulant schoolboy. Christophe Dubi, executive director of the Olympic Games, scolded the entire nation, saying, “This is a missed opportunity for the city of Oslo and for all the people of Norway.

 

The Winter Games have always been a harder sell than the summer edition.

 

n the run-up to 1984, no cities submitted bids, and the Olympics seemed close to death. Then Los Angeles offered to host. The IOC was so grateful, it allowed L.A. organizers to excise a clause in the host contract that called for the city to be responsible for any debt resulting from the Games. No other city has gotten such a break from the IOC, and the IOC says L.A. won’t get that same break again. That’s one reason why San Jose, California; Rochester, New York; Minneapolis; Nashville; San Diego; and even Chicago, the USOC’s choice to bid for a 2016 games in the U.S., declined to even consider one for 2024.

 

“The Games overrun with 100 percent consistency.

 

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There is no net benefit to hosting the games, non. Debts just pile up and the tax base pays for it, while the businesses profit from it and do not pay squat. If the IOC wants to keep things going, they need to have a set # of hosts, and just use them, or mix it up having the skiing in one country and the indoor sports like curling in another country. Its all just a waste, and the IOC is a scam to begin with. I heard that their was a chairman on the IOC whose family member was a wrestler so they added wrestling to the olympics, what a scam.

 

What do you guys think of the Olympics, should it be left to the tax base to pay for the over runs and still have all the rules the IOC puts in place?

 

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_the_Olympic_Games

 

The cost of the 2004 Athens Summer Games has been cited as a contributor to the Greek government-debt crisis. Many of the venues lie vacant and rotting; the Independent newspaper reports as many as 21 out of 22 are unused.^[30]

 

The Italian government created a lottery game to cover its financial losses

 

The full cost of the Nagano Olympics is unknown, due to Nagano Olympic Bid Committee vice-secretary general Sumikazu Yamaguchi ordering accounting documents burned^[

[Froody129]

It seems to me more likely that people running these projects don't know how to budget... I mean surely if you know they're all over budget you know it's going to cost more.

 

That said I understand why you wouldn't want to host the Games. You build a lot of infrastructure you don't actually need at great expense, and then everyone forgets the city after the Games

[Speed Weed]

U.S. is going to lose because we ate too many McDanold. Now we can't even run a mile at all. 

[Andreas Lilja]

Didn't Atlanta make money?

[Andreas Lilja]

1 hour ago, Speed Weed said:

U.S. is going to lose because we ate too many McDanold. Now we can't even run a mile at all. 

Olympics are a population game. The more you send, the more you win.

[Canada EH]

Now with legalized medicinal weed, there will be more expulsions.

 

Remember Ross Rebagliati ?