Current World

Could this be the end of Olympics?



The Olympics have been around for millenniums. The first recorded Olympic Games were held at Olympia in the Greek city of Elis in 779 B.C, but it is generally accepted that the Olympics were at least 500 years old at that time. The first modern Olympics were held at Athens in 1896. The Olympics are held every two years alternating between the Winter and Summer Olympics. The Olympics are considered as a matter of pride by both the athletes and the hosting countries. But in the past decades it has been a financial drain for the hosting country and because of this many less countries want to host these ancient games.

Most people don’t see the lasting damage the games do to the hosting city. Hosting these games is very expensive because of this there are increasing protest in countries bidding to host the Olympics. Firstly, a lot of buildings and stadiums are constructed on the land which can be used to make houses and other commercial activities. The stadiums are most likely to be abandoned after the games end because of high maintenance cost, which can be up to $35 million a year (per stadium), and at least 35 of them are to be made. They also require Olympic Village that can cost $1.5-3 billion. Then they require media and television production facilities which can could easily go for $0.5-1 billion. They require a media village. They require ceremonial space, and green space. They require transportation amongst all of them, and special lanes for the IOC (International Olympics’ Committee) executive’s transportation amongst all of the venues. Every game in the past 50 years has gone over budget. The Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014 went $41 billion over budget. The initial budget was $10 billion but a total of $51 billion was spent. This was the most expensive games in the history. This money was equivalent of feeding the world’s entire population for a whole day! A total of $182.96 was spent on these games in the last 20 years and more than 80% of the buildings lay vacant. 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. Cities used to make a profit from the games. Partly because they collected a lot of revenue in TV rights. But recently the International Olympic Committee has been taking a larger percentages. In 1992 it took 4% of the revenue but in the 2016 Rio games, it took more than 70% of the revenue, leaving the hosting cities with huge losses.

Cities also spend a lot of money campaigning to host the Olympics, Chicago spent $100 million to host the 2016 games but lost the biding. This results in less cities biding to host the Olympics. 12 cities bid for the 2004 games, 5 in 2020 and only 2 in the 2022 Olympics. This is the major reason why the Olympics are dying. The hosting countries pay for everything and the IOC gets the most profit. Many people think that it is not worth it anymore.



Amongst Madrid, Istanbul, and Tokyo, Tokyo was bid for the summer Olympics in 2020 but Madrid and Istanbul dodged a massive bullet. The Tokyo Olympics were initially to be held in 2020, but due to the global pandemic, Covid 19, the games were postponed to 2021. This was a huge loss to Japan as they had spent billions of dollars on the preparations. They are the most expensive summer games ever and that is even before the games have taken place. The Japanese public is highly against them and there is no guarantee that they will even happen in 2021.

When Tokyo was bid in 2013, their initial budget was $7.3 billion but today experts estimate the cost has more than tripled at $26 billion dollars. A total of 43 venues had to be built including the national stadium, which was to be used for the opening and closing ceremonies. The Japanese hired Star architect Zaha Hadid for the national stadium but the cost quickly went over budget. $2 billion was required to build it. This plan was quickly scraped off. Then Japanese architect Kengo Kuma was hired, but the cost was still well over budget. It cost $1.4 billion dollars to build the 68,000 seat stadium even though it was made using a mixture of steel and wood. With eight new venues and 10 temporary ones. There's a plaza for badminton and pentathlon, an aquatic centre for swimming and diving, the volleyball arena, and of course, the canoe and kayak centre. The cost added up quickly. The gymnastics stadium had a budget of $81 million dollars but by the time it was completed the cost more than doubled, at almost $200 million. The construction of the 21 buildings in the Olympic Village had a cost of almost $2 billion. That cost was to be turned into a profit by selling them to the public once the games were over but today they are sitting empty because more money was to be spent to commercialize them. The opening and closing ceremonies were to cost $120 million alone.

The yearlong postpone of the games added another $2 billion dollars to the total cost. This includes maintenance, security. Tokyo also had to rent the Olympic village for a whole year instead of just a month. Lots of stadiums and sports players' housing, those are just left empty without being utilized. There was a huge loss in it. This included cancelling many of the warm-up events that would have brought in revenue. The public feels probably that its better that the games are cancelled, or at least postponed. However, the companies have a different view. The corporate sector, they definitely want to hold a games this year. If the games are held in 2021, that would add another $1 billion to the cost. This would include hiring 300 doctors and 400 nurses every day for Covid 19 precautions. Insurance cost, if the games are cancelled are estimated between $2-3 billion. That’s almost half the budget Tokyo made to host the games in 2013. Whether the games will happen or not, the bill is due coming.

The problem is not building the stadiums, it is how they are deserted afterwards, meaning billions of dollars are wasted which could have been spent on the people but also land is also lost which could have been used for other projects which could have bought in revenue.