[NU Sports] Re: Chicago Olympics 2016

Tue Jan 24 21:53:05 CST 2006

 This is a subject I might suggest that I know a fair amount about. My job is covering the Olympic movement, and I have written for the past seven years about all manner of Olympic bids.

 The issue of Olympic accounting is complex. One number -- $15 billion for Athens, say -- doesn't do the subject justice.

 To start, there are operating committee budgets, and then there are capital investments -- that is, two different accounting columns.

 The Athens organizing committee more or less broke even on a budget of about $2 billion. 
 The Greek government plowed billions -- the precise total is still uncertain -- into re-developing Athens. It overspent because it wasted the first three years of the seven years every host city and nation gets in the run-up to the Games. It also had to spend an enormous amount on security, for two reasons: The Greeks needed to upgrade their command and control infrastructure. And the 2004 Games were the first Summer Olympics after the 9/11 attacks, which considerably heightened security concerns.

 Putting aside the overtime pay and the security budgets, the Greek government sought to use the Games as a catalyst for a thorough renovation, to use the Games as a hard deadline to get done in Athens in just a few years -- a new metro, extensive highway construction, new light rail lines, a new airport -- what might otherwise have taken 20 or more years.

 It's this idea of the Olympics as a catalyst that drives mayors, governors and prime ministers to seek the Games. London, the 2012 host, will build the largest new park in Europe in over a century.

 It's the catalyst thing that has intrigued the likes of Mayor Daley. 
 Chuck is absolutely right to ask whether support for the Olympics would detract from support for essential government services. This is the essence of my job -- keeping watch on government expenditures.

  The US Olympic Committee, for those of you interested, gets not one penny from the federal government. It is self-sustaining. That is not the case in other countries, where it is common for the Olympic team to be supervised by a government sports ministry, and where it is common for government to play a significant, if not leading, role in a bid to play host to the Games.

  I might note as well the obvious follow-on point, the very thing that makes a U.S. Olympics different from a Games in Australia or Greece, or the United Kingdom, or anywhere else for that matter. In this country, the Games are expected to be funded privately -- in the manner of Los Angeles in 1984. This is why a comparison to Athens or Sydney (as Chuck has drawn) or London or wherever is not quite apt. Elsewhere, the local, regional or national governments typically undertake to underwrite the Games; that is not the American way.

 For what it's worth, I would expect that under the direction of Peter Ueberroth, the current chairman of the USOC, the man who headed the 1984 LA Games, any U.S. city put forward for 2016 -- if any city is put forward -- would go forward with a concrete expectation of a privately funded Games, with most -- indeed, if not all -- needed sports-facility construction privately funded as well. The roads, sewers, airports, etc., are another matter, and certainly appropriate for public debate; I might also note, however, that O'Hare would without question be able -- now -- to handle Olympic traffic. So, for that matter, would JFK. Or LAX. Or SFO. Or Houston's airport. Or Seattle's. Or wherever. 

 For those interested, the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, begin Feb. 10.

 And now back to your regularly scheduled Wildcat programming. 
 - Alan 

-----Original Message----- 
From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com 
To: spiritu at northwestern.edu; nwu-sports at tssi.com 
Sent: 1/24/2006 3:44 PM 
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] Chicago Olympics 2016 

Jonathan, 

All valid points.  The only problem is, if you put the Olympic question 
to the taxpayers of Chicago (or Illinois, since Chicago could not pay 
the whole amount themselves, and all of the venues would not be in 
Chicago), it would fail.  Estimates of the cost of Sydney 2000 are at 
about $5.9 Billion - all revenues, tickets, sponsorships, etc. were only 
believed to be $3.6 Billion.  The last estimate I saw for Athens 2004 
was $14.6 Billion.  Two good articles: 

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/mar2000/olym-m03.shtml 

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/athens/news/2004-11-18-cost_x.ht 
m 

Additionally, you would be asking taxpayers to foot the bill for venues 
for events that they likely could neither afford to attend, nor obtain 
the tickets if they could afford them.  

http://www.psychpage.com/learning/library/intell/school3.htm 

Remember that 44% of Illinois schools are NOT meeting the minimum 
requirements for No Child Left Behind;  About 1.8 million Illinois 
residents lack health insurance;  One of every three Illinois hospitals 
is losing money, according to the Illinois Hospital Association;  The 
City of Chicago and State of Illinois cannot, in good conscience, ask 
the taxpayers to foot the bill for a multi-week sports festival that 
most of them cannot attend, while so many other needs in the state go 
unmet, or poorly met.  It might happen, but I doubt if the voters would 
approve the expenditure. 

The last line of the Sydney story is instructional: 

"As NSW's Auditor-General, said, when asked how the public would benefit 
from the Games: "The taxpayer, the taxpayer has ah, has paid for the 
privilege of paying for the Olympics." 

Chuck Herron   Tech '85 

-----Original Message----- 
From: Jonathan Michael Hawkins <spiritu at northwestern.edu> 
To: nwu-sports at tssi.com 
Sent: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 14:26:43 -0600 (CST) 
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] Chicago Olympics 2016 

Chuck-- 

Thanks for your message. 

> Speaking as a Chicago suburbanite, it would be an incredible pain. 

Speaking as a Chicagoan, you could stay at home in Elmhurst or Palos 
Heights or wherever you live and never even catch a whiff of the 
Olympics. 

> Traffic is already murderous - no one wants any more congestion. 

This is true, but it wouldn't affect intelligent spectators at the 
Olympics, who would intelligently choose to avoid congestion and ride 
the el. 

> Today it was announced that the Chicago Public Schools may have to axe 
> 1000 teachers just to handle a sudden spike in teachers' pension 
costs. 

This is irrelevant and utterly misleading. They have to cut jobs because 
the teacher's union mismanaged their $10 billion pension fund and failed 
to cover their costs. The city is required by law to make up the 
difference, which is forcing Chicago to let actually-teaching teachers 
go to pay for the pensions of old teacher's union teachers who are 
either unwilling to hire a successful fund manager or are too 
incompetent/corrupt to do so. 

> Every city that has hosted an Olympiad has suffered huge losses. 

Ask Peter Ueberroth about that. And Billy Payne, to a (much) lesser 
extent. Their Olympiads and Chicago have something in common, which is 
left as an exercise to the reader. 

> Please - NO OLYMPICS EVER ! 

Now we get to the crux of the matter. It's not Chicago bidding for the 
Olympics, it's the Olympics in general. This is much like the hard-core 
socialists or, on the other side of the aisle, guys like Andrew 
Stuttaford. 

Thanks for sharing, Chuck. 

Best, 

Jonathan 

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