ah the Olympics the glory of our best
athletes competing for greatness in
China new stadiums for viewers around
the world
but recent games are rife with
overspending wastes and controversy and
most viewers don't even see the lasting
damage the games do to the host city
could we be watching the death of the
Olympics well right now it's hard to
tell but this honor tradition is looking
sicker every year hosting is expensive
every game in the last 50 years has gone
over budget the 2014 Sochi Winter Games
went over its ten billion dollar budget
by an additional 41 billion dollars no
one knows this better than Professor
Andrew Zimbalist these are in several
books on the Olympics including Rio 2016
Olympic myths hard realities these days
they require about 35 different athletic
venues they require an Olympic Village
that costs one and a half to three
billion dollars depending on the
circumstance they require a media and
television production facility which
could very easily go for half a billion
to a billion dollars that would require
a media village that require ceremonial
space and green space that require
transportation amongst all of these
special lanes for the IOC executives
transportation amongst all of the venues
cities used to make a profit from the
games partly because they collected a
lot of revenue and TV rights but
recently the International Olympic
Committee has been taking larger
percentages in the 90s for instance it
took four percent of revenue compare
that with the 70 percent pocketed from
the 2016 Rio games the newly built
stadia can cost up to 30 million dollars
a year to maintain and they're often on
valuable real estate most cities don't
even know what to use them for after the
games those facilities fall into decay
if they're not kept up and that hurts
property value it could also be a lot of
environmental destruction the Winter
Olympics they'll be having in
Pyeongchang they destroyed a whole
mountainside trees and animals that are
air and some of them close to extinction
so who would want to host the Olympics
in the first place not many after each
financial failure fewer cities bid to
host the following decades games
after all it takes 10 years of planning
just to be in the running to host
Chicago spent an estimated 100 million
on the campaign to host in 2016 and they
lost Boston famously pulled its bid for
the 2024 Summer Games after citizen
group no Boston Olympics convinced the
city otherwise 12 cities bid for the
2004 games 5 for 2020 and just two tried
for the 2022 Winter Games China and
Kazakhstan so is that it
r.i.p olympic games oh it won't end
thomas block the president of the IOC
for all the criticisms that I have of
him he's a smart guy and he knows when
he's up against the wall and they've
been up against the wall in 2014
IOC president Thomas Bach suggested a
list of 40 actions the IOC could take to
shape the future of the Olympic movement
among them evaluate bid cities by
assessing key opportunities and risks
reduce the cost of bidding and include
sustainability in all aspects of the
Olympic Games it sounds good on paper
but time will tell if these actions take
root we're going to become more
sustainable we're going to become more
affordable we're going to become more
flexible and by doing that by tweaking
the model a little bit making
pronouncements they reengage cities to
participate and what what generally
happened is the model has been slightly
reformed it's a little bit more sensible
now than it was before agenda 2020
Zimbalist supports a different idea to
keep the Olympics alive get rid of the
bidding system and pick a permanent host
somewhere that has the built in
facilities infrastructure and venues we
happen to have such a city for the
Summer Olympics its Los Angeles they
don't have to do any building virtual
they've got the infrastructure a
transportation infrastructure because
it's the second largest city and the
entertainment capital of the country
they've got all of the professional
teams from all the leaks a permanent
city could benefit the Winter Games as
well as the climate changes les cities
that have hosted Winter Games in the
past can reliably keep snow the IOC
isn't a fan of this idea but is bidding
hosts dwindle so do their options
the future summer games are planned out
through 2028 and the winter games
through 2022 the 2026 Olympics have
several cities exploring bids including
two previous hosts Salt Lake City and
Sapporo Japan Germany Australia and
India have all expressed interest in the
2032 Summer Games despite its flaws the
Olympic Games is still a people pleaser
the IOC polled candidate host cities for
the 2020 games and 70% of Tokyo 76
percent of Madrid and 83 percent of
Istanbul were in support
so maybe the Olympics aren't dying but
it's certainly up to the International
Olympic Committee to keep the games in
check both on the field and off
you