2016 Summer Olympics in Rio not looking so good

JG Pasterjak wrote:

alfadriver wrote:

JohnRW1621 wrote: The debt of holding the recent Olympics in Greece almost toppled the entire country. No thank you if they want to hold them in The US. The level of "out-do the other" has risen to ridiculous levels.

Seems to me, it depends on how they are held. The most expensive thing about the Olympics is making the stadiums. Just like the World Cup, for the most part. And seeing how Brazil is using the brand new stadiums that they build for parking, the fact that there's waste is pretty obvious. On the other hand, in the US, there are facilities for most of the events in many of the larger cities. Granted, they are not the newest, and prettiest, but they will work just fine. The next big hurdle is the participant village. That would be a challenge. But thinking about it, and the number of athletes, close a college campus for a few months, and use the dorms. BTW, I'm not pointing this out so that we bid on some new Olympics, but we could pretty easily (relatively speaking, of course) host one or even a WC if so asked, and paid off some. Instead of giving Million$ to get a bid, take Million$ to be an emergency host.

This. I think, anyway. I've always felt that a few small format changes could turn what is usually a money-losing dumpster fire into a real benefit to a region. Forget about a "host city" and instead switch to a "host region" mentality. Maybe do your opening ceremonies in Atlanta, then send the soccer games to Charlotte, the swimmers to Jacksonville, the track and field to Orlando, the gymnastics to Tampa, etc. Smaller athlete concentration would all ow you to use existing infrastructure (hotels) to house them. Three weeks instead of two. Would give the networks more time to cover more events and increase their ad revenue. Of course, each host city would really only have about 4-5 days of events. And, really, if you want to be picky, there's almost no reason to even limit it to a region, except for opening and closing ceremonies, which are kind of bullcrap, anyway. There's no reason you can't have events in San Diego, St. Louis, Philadelphia and Miami during the same time period and under the Olympic sanction.

just quoting because I love the term dumpster fire. Its the auto-win button

Duke wrote:

Tom_Spangler wrote: But if you aren't building new facilities, how are the kickbacks and bribes supposed to be done?

And there it is.

yes, the truth reared it's ugly head again

ESPN is doing an Outside the Lines about the Olympics in Brazil.

I think I will do my part to lower the ratings for NBC.

And I have no plans on travelling to Brazil any time. Kinda disgusting.

alfadriver wrote: The most expensive thing about the Olympics is making the stadiums. Just like the World Cup, for the most part. And seeing how Brazil is using the brand new stadiums that they build for parking, the fact that there's waste is pretty obvious.

I can't really find a citation for that right now, but I'm pretty sure that I was reading on a news site that the IOC has pretty strict "guidelines" about the stadiums that often, if not always, require the building of new facilities. They basically impose so many requirements on the host nation without sharing much of the revenue that it's almost impossible these days to run the event net-positive.

maybe one day, no city will offer up the ransom to host the olympics and it will just go away..

but that won't happen, they would just hold them in Dubai every 4 years if no one else wanted it..