71–80 of 158 posts
I don't think the ROI was positive, but I also don't think that level of abandonment will last.
There really should be a rule that you have to maintain and operate the olympic venues as a public serivce for at least 4 years after their completion if you want to host.
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Atlanta has always felt snubbed by hostility from the IOC, who didn't like the level of private corporate sponsorship used to fund the 1996 Games (nevermind that two decades later, it would be considered modestly quaint today). However, it was overwhelmingly a successful Games. It created a lasted economic boom, and much of the construction saw continued use or was repurposed afterward. Today, Atlanta is not really r…
Damn straight. The aquatic center is still in use at GA Tech. And Tech also got a lot of new housing from the Olympic Village, and a nice new student center. The Olympic Stadium turned into Turner Field, which will now be a stadium for GA State University. I believe the velodrome is still in use, although not totally sure about that. Basically, Atlanta planned very well for the post-Olympic legacy. And I think we thr…
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So Greece, for example, becomes responsible for the maintenance and updates to the facilities, which they obviously can't afford now? Having a single host country works only if all the participating countries chip in annually according to their GNP or some other measure of their financial worth. How, then, is that enforced? You can always exclude those countries who are in arrears but that only harms the athletes. Fo…
No, whoever received the billions in TV rights money pays for that. Obviously.
Fortunately the public opinion has generally recognized this fact and there are protests against organizers. I for one, am proud that we told the fuckers to GTFO of Kraków.
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No, whoever received the billions in TV rights money pays for that. Obviously.
How long will 'TV right' be worth billions?
So far the content owner has been super aggressive about policing their intellectual property they paid for the exclusive right to distribute. Of course, geography keeps interfering with the ideal case for consumers. So we all lose as usual.
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How long will 'TV right' be worth billions?
Well, "streaming and broadcast". So far the content owner has been super aggressive about policing their intellectual property they paid for the exclusive right to distribute. Of course, geography keeps interfering with the ideal case for consumers. So we all lose as usual.
Would it negatively impact the Olympics if we stopped rotating them at this point? I mean, besides the IOC missing out on the opportunity compete with FIFA on graft? Let's just locate the Olympics in a permanent facility -- Greece, if they'll have them, for tradition. I think between "not rebuilding everything from scratch every four years" and the expectation of recurring events, the single host country could both r…
Let's say that I have some direct experience, both with working within the Olympics games and with Greece. I don't honestly want that cesspool anywhere near Greece, the level of corruption and incompetence I witnessed by the olympic organisations and committees is staggering. The best thing you could do at this point is to stop the games and distribute the funds to healthier or new organisations.
It seems to me that the countries that maintained their Olympic facilities (England, Australia, US, Norway, Germany, China) all tilt to the wealthier end of the spectrum. Conversely, the poorer ones, Brazil and Greece, really couldn't afford hosting the games in the first place, let alone maintaining the venues afterwards. These days, its the wealthier countries that turn down the offer to host because of the costs w…
Even in the US, cities are catching on that hosting an Olympics is likely a money-losing event, and they'll be saddled with poorly-built large facilities afterwards (why build well when you can build fast?). Permanent facilities, perhaps two or four per continent (for winter & summer games, and two have two host countries), would likely be a good answer.
Rio is a bad place to look at. The place is broken for the same reason its last 3 governors are on jail (and older ones have been there), not because it hosted the Olympics last year. I don't think the ROI was positive, but I also don't think that level of abandonment will last.