On the Future of the Olympic Games July 28, 2016

One example of the ruins of the Olympic venues in Athens from the 2004 Summer Games.  This is what happens when the hosting of the Olympics are awarded to countries that are not First World/commerce-oriented.

The train wreck in Rio de Janeiro that continues to unfold as the Summer Olympics are but days away has exposed two large, systemic problems.  The obvious one is with Brazil itself.  Its economy may have been on the rise in 2009 to the point where it gave enough people the impression that it was becoming part of the developed world.  Not long afterwards, political corruption, lack of infrastructure, and a glaring lack of sanitation exposed Brazil as still being Third World and still having a long way to go before it deserves to sit at the grownups table of world affairs (along with the United States, Great Britain, Germany, Japan, Canada, Israel, Australia, possibly France, and the like).

The other systemic issue at play is with the Olympic Games themselves.  Simply put, they are huge, and very expensive to stage.  Even 40 years ago, things almost reached a tipping point.  The city of Montreal hosted the 1976 Summer Olympics, only to be $1.5 Billion in debt afterwards. It took that city almost 30 years to pay it off.  Indeed, few cities wanted to host the Games after that.  Sure, Moscow jumped at the chance four years later, because to a Communist nation, money is no object when it comes to propaganda.

Peter Ueberroth and the Los Angeles organizing committee for 1984 revolutionized how the Games were financed when he persuaded the International Olympic Committee to allow corporate sponsorship.  It saved the Games for another 30 years.

Now, the Games have grown even bigger still, to the point where they are too expensive for new cities to host the Games.  Sure, Putin and the Russian government seemed more than willing to turn Sochi into a $51 Billion (with a ‘B’) boondoggle, because, again, at what price propaganda?

Beijing was the only viable city that wanted to host the Winter Olympics for 2022.  The IOC was certainly were not going to give the Winter Games to Kazakhstan, for goodness sake.  It is a sad commentary on the susceptibility of the IOC to a bribe that so few viable countries and cities thereof even put in bids for the 2022 Winter Games in the first place.

That aside, one thing is for certain:  the Olympics are so huge and such a big deal that only commerce-oriented (read:  First World, developed) countries are built and, indeed, fit to host the Games.

Yet, there is this politically-correct mantra out there, saying that everyone deserves a chance, but grownups will tell you that is pure poppycock.  The truth is, most nations and even whole continents are not built to handle and host the Olympics.  That includes Africa (with the possible exception of Johannesburg), South America (as we are currently seeing now), the Middle East (outside of Israel), and central and Southeast Asia.

Even some countries in otherwise developed regions are more than suspect.  Remember Athens in 2004?  The Greeks built all those state-of-the-art facilities only to let them go to ruin a decade later.  Yes, it sounded wonderful for the Olympics to be hosted in the ancient birthplace of the Games themselves, but the huge problem was that Greece is anything but commerce-oriented, which speaks to a culturally systemic problem in Greece itself.

One aspect of this systemic issue is that a city that wants to host the Games for the first time has to spend billions of dollars to build new facilities from scratch.  In this day and age, even with corporate sponsorship and in some cases, state-supported funding, that is no longer economically viable.

The solution is to start cycling the Games around to cities that meet certain criteria.  They are:

1.) Be situated in a commerce-oriented country (i.e., one of the aforementioned “grownup” countries).  Not all cultures are equal.  Some cultures are superior to others.  A hallmark of this cultural supremacy is a culture that itself is commerce-oriented, that respects the rule of law and property rights of the individual, that frowns on black markets, and puts a premium on democratic governments and transparency within.  Not to mention, superior cultures minimize corruption in government, at least compared to more corrupt Third World nations.  These sorts of countries also have free presses (to varying extents; France is suspect in this regard) that can call wayward politicians into account for any malfeasance.

Commerce-oriented countries also have the necessary infrastructure for such massive undertakings as the Games.  This includes transportation (e.g., airports and expressways), not to mention a sufficient amount of clean, comfortable, available hotel rooms to handle the crush of spectators attending said Games.

2.) Be a city big enough that it already has the aforementioned infrastructure in place.  This applies to cities that have never hosted a previous Olympics.

3.) This is the big one:  ideally, be a city that has already hosted the Games, and has proven to do so exceptionally well.

Indeed, for the Olympics to remain doable in the future, the way to go is to starting cycling them around to cities (and, by extension, their countries) that have proven capable of hosting the Olympics well.  The IOC seems to be inching towards this already, however gradually.  London just hosted its Olympic Games for the third time, most recently in 2012.  Tokyo — another excellent choice on the part of the IOC — will host the 2020 Summer Games.  Los Angeles is currently bidding to host the Summer Games for 2024.

For these cities, the venues/facilities are already built.  Maybe a little renovation or generally sprucing up might be in place, but such expenditures pale in comparison to building everything from scratch.  Los Angeles, for example, has but one additional facility to build (for rowing and kayaking) and it’s all set.

Think about it from the Winter Games perspective.  Sure, a nearby, mountainous ski resort town can handle the alpine skiing events (Salt Lake had Park City, Vancouver had Whistler), but you still need to build a sliding sports track.  That alone costs between $50-100 Million, and then there is the necessary ski jumping tower, etc., etc.  Economically, it makes sense to host the Games in cities have already hosted them, and hosted them well.

One could cycle the Winter Games from Salt Lake City to, say, Munich (they have a sliding sports track at nearby Koenigssee), then Calgary and/or Vancouver.  What’s not to love?

Similarly, a Summer Games cycle of Los Angeles, London, Sydney, Atlanta, Tokyo, and Munich/Berlin would work just fine.  Seoul would be a viable cycle candidate as well.

Either we start doing this, or we encourage cities to continue to engage in multi-billion-dollar boondoggles to build athletic venues that rarely get used again, like those in Athens (indeed, what shall become of Rio’s many facilities after these upcoming Games are concluded?).

So, which is it going to be?  Cycling the Games around to proven cities/countries, or more wasteful boondoggles?