[GenerationW]

Do people remember Toronto's reaction when we lost the bid?

I was ecstatic.

 

[GenerationW]

Though that's assuming that we really want the games here ...

Following the first two failed bids and the loud opposition that accompanied them, a logical step before a possible third bid would be a referendum. Therefore, we'll probably get a third bid with no referendum.

 

[GenerationW]

I've outlined this in the Pan-Am thread, but profitability and the economic spin-offs of an Olympic games are near impossible to measure.

Found these on Foreign Policy:

What do you know, it's not even close to being near impossible to measure!

 

[jn_12]

I'd like to see the report those are based on. What's included? What's not? What about tax revenues and economic spin-offs? If you're basing your argument on this chart alone, you're fighting a losing battle. I'm beating a dead horse here, but I'll say it again: it's impossible to determine, compare and contrast Olympic spending, revenue and benefits, etc. Also, what does an Olympics have to do with National GDP growth? I don't buy their argument that it's based on "idle infrastructure and showboating." Seems like a grandiose generalization to me.

Anyways, moving on.

 

[GenerationW]

Seems like a grandiose generalization to me.

It more than seems like your words don't stand up to what's there in black and white (and red and blue and green.....).

I'm not willing to endorse an enterprise which has only one guaranteed result: filling up the coffers of IOC crooks.

 

[jn_12]

Like I said, show me the report. If you want to use a nice little chart with some neat looking graphics to call this case closed then go ahead. I'm not buying it. If this is based on the most extensive report ever done on the Olympics I will gladly change my tune. In fact, I'd absolutely love to see a report that was so thorough. It'd be fantastic!

 

[scarberiankhatru]

It is essentially impossible to compare costs. Beijing would have built all that infrastructure with or without the Olympics. Athens' security budget included much of Greece's post-9/11 security systems. Some of the recent 'bloat' is simply due to having thousands of additional athletes and dozens of new NOCs compete in new events along with the resulting crush of additional journalists.

 

[Whoaccio]

I'd like to see the report those are based on. What's included? What's not? What about tax revenues and economic spin-offs? If you're basing your argument on this chart alone, you're fighting a losing battle. I'm beating a dead horse here, but I'll say it again: it's impossible to determine, compare and contrast Olympic spending, revenue and benefits, etc. Also, what does an Olympics have to do with National GDP growth? I don't buy their argument that it's based on "idle infrastructure and showboating." Seems like a grandiose generalization to me.

GDP is relevant because it includes all of the secondary benefits you talk of. It includes government spending, it includes spending possibly induced by an activity but not recorded on its' statements and so forth. If Olympics really had some kind of positive effects on an economy that couldn't be measured directly, they should be represented in GDP, which is the sum of all economic activity. If Olympics frequently result in a GDP decline, that is quite relevant.

Anyways, hasn't anybody considered that if it is really so impossible to measure the effects of an Olympics it may not be such a great idea to plow 20+ billion dollars into them? Wouldn't it be more prudent to spend on activities which can, with a high degree of accuracy, have their benefits/costs quantified and compared? I mean, what kind of idiot takes on billions of dollars in debt without any way to asses whether or not he will get a decent return?

 

[jn_12]

I guess I should have expanded a bit on my question of the relevancy of national GDP. I don't see how a games in Vancouver would impact the economy of Toronto. In a country as vast and diverse as Canada, what is happening in one place can be the exact opposite of what is happening elsewhere. So to me national GDP is irrelevant. They're also extremely selective in who they chose to show. Why didn't they include 80, 84 and 96 in that chart of national GDP? Sure, they were able to find a correlation between Olympics and National GDP for a few cities, but correlation and causation are incredibly different things. They're confusing the two. Where national GDP could be relevant is in countries that are heavily dominated by the host city. I would say of those countries named in the article, only Athens stands out as meeting that criteria.


Now, what I mean by being unable to measure the impact of a games is that there is no way of accurately measuring spending and revenue. Certain things are built for the Olympics that would have been built anyways, some things are funded with money that isn't specifically allocated to the Olympics, and money gets moved around for the sake of appearance. It can often be a shell game. With regards to measuring revenue and benefits, leakages and multiplier effects are never measured, nor is there a way of accurately measuring them. That doesn't mean they don't exist. I think Olympic success cannot be quantified, it can only be qualified. A place like Barcelona improved because of the Olympics while a place like Atlanta saw no real improvements. Obviously we're a country that is obsessed with price tags. Everything is too expensive and wasteful. But trying to reconcile this with something that can't really be quantified is a difficult task and all you can do is point to things that are visible improvements.

 

[Long Island Mike]

Rio De Janeiro gets the 2016 Summer Olympics...

Everyone: I wanted to chime in on this subject since I heard that Rio De Janeiro was awarded the 2016 Summer Olympics.

I remember the bid that NYC made to get the 2012 Games - Mayor Mike Bloomberg wanted to construct a billion-dollar stadium that would had been the centerpiece of the Games and allow the NFL's New York Jets to come back to NYC instead of the sharing arrangement they had to use Giants Stadium in the nearby NJ Meadowlands. There was an outcry about how many tax dollars would have been used for the Games venues - especially noting cost overruns in other cities. I wonder if anti-Americanism played part in this defeat more then Chicago's.

In the 2012 Olympics bidding I recall that Paris was the odds-on favorite and that perceived arrogance by them was the IOC's reason to award the 2012 Games to London. I now wonder if the IOC thought that Chicago's bid was perhaps that way also and eliminating them early on was a way to rebuff that.

I now think that Rio getting the Games could be very good for them-as MetroMan says even though there are famous tourist spots there are dangerous areas also even more than US cities like Chicago. That gang-beating of a far South Side student to death two weeks ago definitely did not help Chicago's cause where the IOC is concerned.

That chart posted by Whoaccio definitely makes people think-the Olympic Games sometimes can cause big financial problems. It is not all "fun and games" by any stretch of the imagination!

Thoughts by Long Island Mike

 

[Hipster Duck]

I didn't bother reading all 3 pages, but I just want to say that Rio deserved the bid more than any other city since Beijing, and I'm glad they got it.

If I were a betting man, I'd say that no city could have less of a chance at getting a shot at the Olympics than Toronto right now. What other country of 30 million people would be graced with the Olympics 4 times in its Post WW2 history? And what are the odds that our small country will host the Olympics twice within 10 years, and host a summer Olympics, at that?

Especially with all the emerging BRIC cities, each very eager to roll up their sleeves and sink shovels into the dirt for infrastructure projects on a scale that Toronto simply cannot comprehend, I think the odds of seeing a summer Olympics in North America - let alone Canada - is slim to none over the next 30 years. The fact that Chicago got trounced is very telling.

My guess is Istanbul 2020. They're another longtime contender, they would probably have European backing and infrastructure funding and it would bring the Summer Olympics to the Islamic world (population 1 billion and counting) for the very first time.

 

[Juan_Lennon416]

Time to showcase my Samba moves!

 

[scarberiankhatru]

I didn't bother reading all 3 pages, but I just want to say that Rio deserved the bid more than any other city since Beijing, and I'm glad they got it.

If I were a betting man, I'd say that no city could have less of a chance at getting a shot at the Olympics than Toronto right now. What other country of 30 million people would be graced with the Olympics 4 times in its Post WW2 history? And what are the odds that our small country will host the Olympics twice within 10 years, and host a summer Olympics, at that?

Especially with all the emerging BRIC cities, each very eager to roll up their sleeves and sink shovels into the dirt for infrastructure projects on a scale that Toronto simply cannot comprehend, I think the odds of seeing a summer Olympics in North America - let alone Canada - is slim to none over the next 30 years. The fact that Chicago got trounced is very telling.

My guess is Istanbul 2020. They're another longtime contender, they would probably have European backing and infrastructure funding and it would bring the Summer Olympics to the Islamic world (population 1 billion and counting) for the very first time.

Was Chicago really trounced, though, since the IOC votes tend to come and go in regional blocks? Only 3 more votes for Chicago and Tokyo would have gone down in the first round...

I'm not the slightest bit surprised that Rio won and I'm also thrilled that it did win. The 2016 Games will be irresistible if only because the Brazilian spectators themselves will be spectacular. It'll surely be the funnest Olympics ever.

The IOC is acutely concerned with their legacy and they'd like nothing more than to grow the Olympic brand in BRIC-type nations. If Iran starts getting along with the other kids in the playground, I'd say with confidence that a Tehran 20XX Games - either winter or summer - would follow very quickly. There's even too many potential winter games sites out there for Canada to be the go-to guy for winter games...it may be quite a while before Canada gets to host again.

 

[indense]

GDP is relevant because it includes all of the secondary benefits you talk of. It includes government spending, it includes spending possibly induced by an activity but not recorded on its' statements and so forth. If Olympics really had some kind of positive effects on an economy that couldn't be measured directly, they should be represented in GDP, which is the sum of all economic activity. If Olympics frequently result in a GDP decline, that is quite relevant.

The chart does not show that the "Olympics frequently result in a GDP decline". It shows that the rate of growth of the country's GDP declines after the Olympics as compared to the rate of growth in the year before the Olympics (when money was being spent building stadiums and infrastructure, etc.). This alone doesn't tell you anything about the impact of the Olympics on GDP. It doesn't tell you what the GDP would have been either before or after the Olympics if the country hadn't hosted the Olympics. That's what you need to compare against.


I still find the fact that we lost to Atlanta - who hosted an awful games - to be very painful. I think that if any country puts up a second (or third) tier city as their summer games nominee, the IOC should immediately disqualify their bid.

 

[Admiral Beez]

The IOC would take the City of God over South Side Chicago any day. Also, it becomes a feel-good story. The games are finally coming to South America.

Interestingly, the games have only twice been in a Spanish-speaking country (Barcelona & Mexico) and never in Spanish-speaking South America despite three past bids from Buenos Aires. Even with the 2016 Olympics, they chose the only non-Spanish speaking country in all of South America, though its most populous (this is Rio's second bid for the Olympics).

If I was a Spanish-speaking South American, I'd be wondering when we'll get our turn at the Olympics.