Is rowing the Olympics worth it? Look who will carry such a big pot. By sorting out the public information on the external network, the reporter took stock of some Olympic Games with huge losses in history to see who paid the bill.
April Athens Olympic Games 1896: The financial crisis started the first Olympic Games.
1896 is the first modern Olympic Games. The country was on the verge of financial collapse when the competition was held. However, the newly appointed Athens royal family believes that the sports meeting can promote economic development. However, they underestimated the budget for hosting the competition. The original budget of 585,000 drachmas (ancient Greek silver coin units) eventually surged to 3.74 million drachmas, equivalent to 448,000 US dollars. Among them, most of the expenses are used for the renovation of the ancient stadium in Athens.
Fortunately, a wealthy businessman donated 6.5438 million drachmas to help bear the initial cost. Later, after the Olympic Games began, commemorative stamps and medals brought extra income and helped tide over the crisis.
1924 Paris Olympic Games, France: Insured by insurance company10 million francs.
There are 44 countries participating in the Olympic Games, and an average of 6,000 people come to watch the games every day. Despite the enthusiastic feedback from the Olympic Games, BOCOG Paris still faces financial warning signals. The preparation cost of the competition is so high that the local insurance company underwrites the Olympic Games, and the total income of the insurance policy is estimated to be as high as 6,543,800,000 francs. Finally, the Scottish athlete Eric Riddle won the 400-meter race and won honor for the host country France. But it turns out that the final financial results are really bad. At the end of the competition, the revenue of the BOCOG was 54966 10/0 francs, which was only half of the expected revenue.
1976 Montreal Olympic Games: The Olympic host who lost the most money won the gold medal.
The mayor of Montreal once vowed: "The Olympic Games can't cause a fiscal deficit, which is less likely than men having children." But he was wrong. Montreal Olympic Games has become a notorious money-losing Olympic Games in Olympic history, scaring away many candidate cities that are preparing to bid in the future.
At the beginning of this Olympic Games, the budget was moderate, which was 65.438+0.2 billion Canadian dollars (about 65.438+0.65438+0 billion US dollars). However, the cost of Olympic construction exceeded, resulting in the final expenditure of 922 million Canadian dollars. The huge fiscal deficit has overwhelmed the tobacco tax originally used to pay off debts. Among them, the new facilities include a stadium, an Olympic village with apartment buildings, outdoor and indoor entertainment facilities, and a large number of bicycles. Since then, the main stadium has been used to host sports events such as baseball, and millions of dollars have been used to upgrade the stadium, such as building a retractable roof that has never worked.
This huge debt has been paid for 30 years in total, and it was not paid off until June 2006165438+1October. Including principal and interest, it cost Montreal about $3 billion. What saddens Montreal even more is that this is the only Olympic Games in which the host country has not won any gold medals.
1980 Lake Placid Winter Olympics: Brother cities help pay off debts.
At the end of the Olympic Games, Lake Placid owed 6 million dollars in debt, which is incredible for a small village with only about 3,000 residents. Because the federal government has spent about $90 million on the Olympic Games, it refused to provide further assistance to plessy's De Wu Cun. As a result, New York State, which has been watching coldly, stepped in and agreed to pay its debts on its behalf, but in exchange, New York State will get some Olympic assets, including speed skating rink, Olympic arena and a series of skiing facilities.
However, as only three cities in the world that have hosted the Winter Olympics many times, plessy's de Wu Cun still enjoys a high reputation. The other two are Saint Morizet in Switzerland and Innsbruck in Austria.
1992 albertville winter Olympics: making wedding dresses for neighbors.
The French city of Albertville hoped to take this opportunity to boost its backward tourism industry when bidding for the 1992 Winter Olympics. The nearby 13 small city also saw business opportunities, hoping to squeeze into the grand event and share a piece of the action.
The French government has invested about $654.38 billion to improve the infrastructure in this area, especially the connection between a dozen small towns, so that athletes and spectators can easily cross 620 square kilometers (240 square miles) of land and 57 Olympic events held in it (only the opening and closing ceremonies and some skating events were held in Albertville).
The government also spent $654.38+89 billion to build and improve stadiums. Although some towns did attract more tourists because of the improvement of traffic at that time. But Albertville is not so lucky. No matter during the Olympic Games or in the following years, Albertville did not have a long-term prosperity. On the other hand, it left the French government with a loss of $67 million and decades of debts.
1998 Nagano Winter Olympics: burning financial records to cover up expenses.
Because of the opening of the Shinkansen, it takes only 90 minutes from Tokyo to Nagano, which is only half the time of ordinary trains. In this way, more tourists choose to book hotel accommodation in Tokyo instead of Nagano and shuttle back and forth to watch the game. Therefore, the 1998 Winter Olympics is also nicknamed "Commuting Olympics".
Because of low demand, Nagano Olympic Organizing Committee had to cancel 4,000 reserved rooms, accounting for a quarter of all reserved rooms. Under normal demand, a ski village with 80% occupancy rate will only have 60% occupancy rate. The reason is that ordinary tourists directly avoid these places in order to avoid the possible wave of Olympic tourists when booking hotels. In the end, the Olympic Games not only did not bring crowded tourists, but also did not greatly promote the development of tourism.
In addition, at the time of bidding, Nagano provided members of the International Olympic Committee with free first-class air tickets, luxurious holiday trips and expensive entertainment facilities. Subsequently, members of the tender committee burned all financial records. Later, the official representative of Nagano insisted that the bid only cost $654.38+08 million. Critics say the real figure should be close to $66 million.
Sydney Olympic Games in 2000: The Olympic Games did not bring a surge in the number of tourists.
Sydney invested $3.8 billion in preparing for the 2000 Olympic Games, one third of which was borne by taxpayers. However, during the competition, the lower-than-expected number of tourists hinted at a bleak future.
Although to a large extent, the Sydney Olympic Games is considered to be very successful. Before the competition, it is estimated that 132000 tourists will come to Sydney during 17 days. But only 97,000 tourists actually visited. Ordinary tourists who are not interested in the Olympic Games directly cancel or postpone their travel plans for fear of crowds, resulting in a decline in the number of tourists instead of rising.
Before the competition, it was predicted that the Sydney Olympic Games would attract 8-10 million tourists every year, but this figure did not appear. At least not as urgent as predicted. At present, Sydney regularly receives 2.5 million tourists every year, far below the level that the country had hoped for.
2004 Athens Olympic Games: The Olympic Games became a catalyst for the Greek economic crisis.
Almost 1 century later, Athens hosted the Olympic Games for the second time. But this has brought almost catastrophic financial consequences. Although the official financial expenditure is $4.6 billion, the actual figure is likely to be as high as 654.38+0.5 billion, including the construction of professional sports facilities such as Olympic beach volleyball center and Olympic tennis center.
With the last spectator leaving, many Olympic venues have never been used again. 20 12 A reporter witnessed some people jogging near the Olympia Sports Center in Athens. After the storm, the road was covered with rubble and a series of rusty locked iron gates. After the game, many professional sports facilities, including tennis courts, were closed. A restaurant originally built for contestants and VIPs only opened for one hour to receive the Prime Minister of the host country Greece. Eight years later, these brand-new kitchen equipment and original packaged tables, chairs and benches lie alone in the abandoned building.
Athens' Olympic construction budget is supported by public investment from Greek socialist countries. Taxpayers are still paying for it. Others believe that the Athens Olympic Games was the catalyst for the Greek economic crisis in 2009.
2006 Winter Olympics in Turin: In order to make ends meet, even the right to host the Games has to be sold.
During the months of preparation, the organizing committee of the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy has been making difficult choices. Faced with a deficit of $95 million (the deficit once climbed to $65.438+57 billion) and the threat of bank bankruptcy, the Turin Olympic Organizing Committee will begin to slim down for the Winter Olympics and cut the promotion budget. They even innovatively sold the right to host the Paralympic Games to a private listed company for $40 million. But still can't make ends meet, then the Olympic team will launch a lottery game to raise an extra fund quickly. This effort narrowed the gap, but when the Olympics ended, Turin's debt was still $49 million. In order to make ends meet, the Turin Olympic Organizing Committee has begun to try to sell stadiums specially built for the Olympic Games.
20 10 Vancouver winter Olympics: the Olympic village becomes real estate
Although the Vancouver Winter Olympics also encountered financial problems, it temporarily eased this heartache because of the record good results. In the 20 10 Winter Olympics, Canadian athletes won 14 gold medals, including the gold medal of ice hockey that Canada is keen on.
After the Olympic Games, Vancouver will have to repay about $654.38 billion in debt, including $730 million in the Olympic Village. In order to recover some costs, Vancouver began to sell Olympic Village apartments in the name of environmentally friendly residential areas. They hope to persuade buyers to enter many vacant apartments, but the feedback is tepid.
Sales of Olympic Village 16 luxury apartment were slow, and the project was on the verge of abortion for many times. Finally, the project was handed over to Ernst & Young, who was responsible for recovering as much urban debt as possible. Even so, there is little hope that the city and its creditors will recover the Olympic costs.
Through the lessons of more than a dozen cases of losing money for the Olympics, we can find that the huge venues built for the Olympics have always been a big expense before the games, and how to deal with the Olympic facilities after the games has no obvious boost to the tourism industry, which is also a big worry for Olympic organizing committees in various countries. However, there is also a "money-making Olympics" in Olympic history, that is 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games. It was the first folk sports meeting. Without government subsidies, it will not increase the burden on taxpayers. American law also prohibits the issuance of lottery tickets. In other words, the organizer will bear all the responsibilities. In this bad situation, the president of the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee, Yubo Ross, fought a beautiful battle. Through fund raising, corporate sponsorship, media broadcasting, ticket sales and around the Olympic Games, he made the Olympic Games a business with a cost of less than 500 million and a great profit. Although the strong business atmosphere has been criticized, it provides a solution to the two major problems of the Olympic Games. Since then, the sale of broadcasting rights, corporate sponsorship and ticket sales have formed the three core business profit models of the Olympic Games. The US Olympic Organizing Committee has also left the government and become an independent commercial company, undertaking related operations before and after the Olympic Games to ensure long-term profitability.
Oxford University's research on the host cities from 1962 to 20 12 found that, on average, the actual cost of hosting the Olympic Games exceeded the cost budget of 179%. Perhaps underestimating expenditure is also a tradition of the Olympic Games. Therefore, if a reasonable budget is made before the competition, the financial situation of the city is comprehensively considered, and the commercial value of the Olympic Games is developed in many ways, the fate of losing money for the Olympic Games can be saved.