On Saturday, the International Olympic Committee will change the destiny of one city forever. Yes, tomorrow's the big day when committee members will decide whether Istanbul, Madrid, or Tokyo will host the 2020 Summer Olympic Games. For the chosen city, it's a decision that could catalyze transformative infrastructure projects and long-term investment.
Of course, more likely, it will shackle the host city with cost overruns, underused venues and displaced and disaffected citizens.
John Rennie Short, a public policy professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County* thinks he has a solution. It's on an island.
Instead of investing billions of dollars in new Olympic host cities every four years, Short suggests it would be cheaper and easier to create a sort of Olympics island that can play host to the more expensive Summer Games, at a minimum, year after year. The IOC could essentially take over an island – maybe a Greek island, Short suggests – and turn it into a permanent venue. It would function more or less like an international city-state, overseen by the United Nations, dedicated to hosting the Olympics and its training in perpetuity.
"There would be maybe big infrastructure costs, but there's huge infrastructure costs being borne every year. How much did the Chinese pay? We'll never know. How much did London pay?" says Short, who's written extensively on the Olympics, globalization and urban affairs. "We know the real costs are always underestimated. It's billions upon billions."
Short argues Olympics Island could be an ongoing experiment in sustainability and architecture, with facilities upgraded and new ideas tested, and with far fewer of the social or environmental costs than in existing cities. It could also standardize the sporting element, providing a stable setting and climate against which to benchmark athletic performances over time.
Most importantly, Short argues, it would eliminate the often massive costs to citizens in the host cities.
"The poor get screwed to host the Olympic games, because they often get displaced," Short says. "Up to half a million people were displaced for the Beijing Olympics. Why do we keep doing that when we could find a place that doesn’t require any displacement?"
Julian Cheyne empathizes with that sentiment. He was one of hundreds* of East London residents displaced ahead of the 2012 Summer Olympics. He's now a vocal critic of the Olympics as a contributor to the website Games Monitor.
"In a sense, what the Olympics and other events like this have to offer is that they give this opportunity for property development," Cheyne says. "So the idea that these externalities for things like cost, security, evictions, people being moved are necessarily bad things from the point of view of a city is not true. The city may very well regard these things as being advantageous."
A permanent Olympic site "would certainly eliminate one of the most important motives for organizing Olympics, which, unfortunately, is profit," says Stavros Stavrides, an associate professor at the School of Architecture at the National Technical University of Athens in Greece, who's also written extensively about the impact of mega-events like the Olympics. "Who would actually support this idea? Perhaps some idealist, with whom I deeply sympathize, but not the actual mechanisms that are behind the whole Olympic venture."
Indeed, when considering the Olympics Island concept, it's crucial to keep in mind that the way it works now is that the host cities themselves, often backed by their national governments, cover most of the costs of building and preparing for each Olympics. The IOC, which collects billions in revenue from sales of increasingly lucrative broadcasting and branding rights, contributes a comparatively modest amount. Business Insider has estimated that, between 2009 and 2012, the IOC contributed $5.56 billion to the Summer (London, 2012) and Winter (Vancouver, 2010) Olympic Organizing Committees, combined. Those two events cost upwards of $20 billion, and maybe even more than $30 billion, combined.
The IOC did not respond to an interview request for this article.
But even some cities see the advantage of an Olympic island. "The idea of a permanent home is not a new idea at all," says Barry Sanders, chairman of the Southern California Committee for the Olympic Games. "For about 800 years the Olympics were always held on Olympia and no one seemed to mind." He says that in more recent years the Greeks have proposed the idea of returning the Olympics to a permanent home in Greece, but that idea hasn't garnered support.
But maybe it's time for another look. The Olympic Games have only ever generated a profit twice — both times when they were hosted in Los Angeles. The city was able to re-use existing infrastructure and venues to host the Olympics in 1932 and 1984. All the venues already had a built-in demand to keep them viable over the long term, and perhaps even for another Olympics: L.A. has already announced its bid to host the 2024 games.
Short concedes that there are powerful economic forces that would likely oppose his idea for Olympics Island. But given the massive costs and sometimes jarring human tolls, he still thinks it would solve far more problems than it might cause.
"I don't see any disadvantages to it, to be honest," Short says. "It just seems like such an obvious idea."
*Corrections: An earlier version of this story misidentified the university where John Rennie Short teaches: it is the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, not the University of Maryland. Also, estimates for the number of Londoners evicted prior to the 2012 Summer Olympics is closer to 500, not "thousands" as we originally reported.
Nate Berg is a freelance reporter and a former staff writer for The Atlantic Cities. He lives in Los Angeles. All posts »
Permanent Olympic City Idea Raises Interesting Sponsorship Possibilities
BY ADAM LENTZOCT 3, 2013
There has been a lot of attention paid to the Olympics the last few weeks – and with good reason. Members of the IOC selected Tokyo as the host of the 2020 games and picked wrestling to fill the final spot on the Olympic program for that year. Wrestling was chosen after spending a reported $8 million on its campaign. An entire blog could be written about the sport of wrestling and the governing bodies that came together to make sure it was on the program, as well as the proposed rule changes to make the sport more fun to watch and easier to understand. We also saw the election of a new president, Thomas Bach, the first ever Olympic champion to become IOC leader.
The fact remains that it is difficult for any city to invest the billions of dollars needed to build new venues, support infrastructure changes and see any kind of profit from hosting the games. So instead of cities bankrupting themselves and displacing local citizens, public policy professor John Rennie Short suggests the IOC should step in and help build a permanent “Olympics Island” that would host competitions, house athletes, etc.
Here’s my idea.
Let’s say the IOC was to create an Olympics Island somewhere in the world. Let’s not focus on the politics, who would “own” the island or how the event would run, but instead focus on how this would affect sponsorship of the Olympic Games and what role sponsors should or would need to play to better develop this idea. Coca-Cola, for example, maintains the longest continuous relationship with the Olympic movement and is a partner of all 204 National Olympic Committees and their teams. If the IOC were to tell Coca-Cola they want to create a permanent Olympics Island and they needed its help – do you think Coca-Cola would say no? It’s doubtful.
How it could work: As part of the TOP program, Coca-Cola would receive certain marketing rights and benefits, including pouring rights for non-alcoholic beverages at the Games. In addition, Coca-Cola would secure naming rights to the Olympic Stadium as part of its partnership. This could be done through new dollars that the IOC asks for or by allocating current dollars differently. The IOC could leverage its current relationships to establish a permanent infrastructure and venues for the Olympic s Island. Sponsors would have the unique opportunity to not only name venues and areas at the Olympic Games, but to help create the actual attractions where the competition would take place.
Is it reasonable to think a sponsor at this top level would want this type of access to the end consumer? Of course. Will it happen? Probably not, but it does make for an interesting conversation about the future of the Olympic Games.
Saturday, the International Olympic Committee will announce where the 2020 Summer Games will be held: Istanbul, Madrid, and Tokyo are the contenders. Whichever city wins the games will face enormous costs for a couple weeks of showcasing their country to the world. Hosting the Olympics can almost bankrupt a nation, while corporate sponsors and the IOC reap the profits.
University of Maryland public policy professor John Rennie Short thinks he has a solution. It's on an island.
Instead of investing billions of dollars in new Olympic host cities every four years, Short suggests it would be cheaper and easier to create a sort of Olympics island that can play host to the more expensive Summer Games, at a minimum, year after year. The IOC could essentially take over an island – maybe a Greek island, Short suggests – and turn it into a permanent venue. It would function more or less like an international city-state, overseen by the United Nations, dedicated to hosting the Olympics and its training in perpetuity.
"There would be maybe big infrastructure costs, but there's huge infrastructure costs being borne every year. How much did the Chinese pay? We'll never know. How much did London pay?" says Short, who's written extensively on the Olympics, globalization and urban affairs. "We know the real costs are always underestimated. It's billions upon billions."
It's an intriguing idea, but at the same time, part of the draw of the Olympics is to focus on a different part of the world every few years. Then again, the day may come when no city wants the hassle and expense of hosting the games. What do you think? Link -via Digg
(Image credit: Mark Byrnes)
Op-Ed: Permanent venue for the Olympics? Benefits and setbacks
With the venue for the Olympic Games 2020 finally decided, Nate Berg of The Atlantic Cities analyzes the disadvantages of hosting the Olympics and how having a fixed venue can benefit participating countries.
It is official now that Tokyo will be hosting the Olympic Games in 2020, as the city won the vote of the International Olympic Committee which decided on the venue last Saturday in Buenos Aires, choosing among Tokyo, Madrid and Istanbul.
But what if there will be a single venue for the Olympics after 2020? Would it be beneficial for every country involved?
Berg cites how Montreal and Greece both suffered from cost overruns due to high expense associated with hosting the Olympics. “The evidence is far from murky. Montreal famously took 30 years to pay off its swollen $1.6 billion Olympic price tag,” wrote Berg. “And in 2004, cost overruns helped lead to Greece’s economic collapse.” Moreover, thousands of people are being displaced in Brazil in preparation for the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
In his article, Berg has featured the point of view of John Rennie Short, a University of Maryland public policy professor. Short’s idea is to build a permanent venue for the Olympics (an Olympics island), which will function more or less like an international city-state. The island will be overseen by the United Nations.
For Short, this will be more economical than building huge infrastructures in host cities every Olympics event. “It’s billions upon billions,” Short estimates. More importantly, people who are often affected whenever their city is hosting the Olympics will be spared from the misfortunes that come with the event. “The poor get screwed to host the Olympic Games, because they often get displaced,” Short says. “Up to half a million people were displaced for the Beijing Olympics. Why do we keep doing that when we could find a place that doesn’t require any displacement?”
Coming up with a permanent venue for one of the greatest sporting events in the world really promises huge benefits not only for the residents of a particular city but also to the country’s budget. Imagine if a permanent venue is agreed upon by the Olympics committee? That island will be filled with astounding structures that will surely put more excitement to the event. Huge money can be allotted for the construction, and it will not be a waste of resource because it will be used again years after. With a permanent venue for the Olympics, there will be less people badly affected and less budget used. Thus, coming up with an Olympics island is definitely not a bad idea.
Nonetheless, I believe there are some setbacks with this plan. First of all, the Olympics is an event that gives the host city a chance to showcase its country’s culture and heritage, which I consider one of the main goals of the event. Each host city in the past has given a good sense of personalization to every Olympics event. Thus, the audience has been able to learn several facts about a certain city/country and has been given the chance to witness different customs and traditions.
Whether or not a permanent venue can be set for the Olympics, I hope that the essence of showcasing a country’s uniqueness will not be gone. Instead, it should be emphasized more in every Olympics event. If this will not be overlooked, it wouldn’t matter for me whether there will be one island dedicated to hosting the Olympics or different cities will serve as host for every Olympics event.
This opinion article was written by an independent writer. The opinions and views expressed herein are those of the author and are not necessarily intended to reflect those of DigitalJournal.com
Tokyo won the right to host the 2020 Summer Olympics. It got me to revisit an idea I had some time ago for a permanent Olympic site. To host the Games every four years at the one site would avoid all the disruptive urban destruction and social dislocation that befalls each host city. It would provide a place for training for younger athletes especially from the less wealthy parts of the world and a site for international gatherings of young people around arts and culture as well as sports. On the other hand it would mean no renewal of the Barcelona waterfront, the remediation of Homebush Bay in Sydney or the lower Lea Valley in London. But for every Barcelona and Sydney there is also an Atlanta and Beijing where the poor were displaced and further marginalized.
I spoke with the the young journalist Nate Berg about the idea and he produced a finely crafted piece in The Atlantic.
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