Fun and Games come at a major cost
Several previous Olympic hosts are still paying a big price for staging sport’s highest- profile event
Generally, if Donald Trump tweets about something, it’s almost certainly a bad idea.
From professing the innocence of his idiot son over alleged collusion with Russia to trumpeting the ability of his big dumb border wall to save lives, any utterance from the leader of the Free World should rarely be followed.
Which brings us to what Trump sent out into the Twittersphere on Tuesday morning: “Working hard to get the Olympics for the United States ( L. A.). Stay tuned!”
Regardless of whether Trump earns a rare success and Los Angeles does host its first Olympics since 1984, there’s no need to “stay tuned” to know hosting the Games is at best a double- edged sword. At worst, it’s a disaster.
Just ask Rio. Or, if you’re the International Olympic Committee, ask about anything other than Rio. The Associated Press reported this week that the IOC has balked at helping the organisers of the 2016 Games from paying off a debt estimated at US$ 35 million- US$ 40 million, saying sufficient support had already been supplied.
Which leaves a broke Rio on the hook to pay off creditors, news surely thrilling to the city’s public employees who, due to Brazil being mired in its deepest recession in decades, have had their wages and pensions slashed 30 per cent.
Rio, in fairness, knew exactly what it was signing up for. A study released by Oxford University’s business school before last year’s Games found that, without exception, all Olympics endured cost overruns, with Rio’s checking in at US$ 1.6 billion over the $ 3 billion budget.
And that astronomical number was less than the budget blowouts incurred at the last two Olympics, in London and Sochi.
The average Olympics, according to Oxford, goes 156 per cent over budget, leaving the Games looking about as solid an investment as Trump Steaks.
Los Angeles and Paris will, after Tokyo, be the next cities to discover as much.
The IOC this week essentially awarded the 2024 and 2028 games to that pair of hosts, who ‘ won' the race almost by default after other apparently smarter cities long ago withdrew.
The exact order of hosting duties is still to be confirmed but one thing seems certain: both Games will harm the cities' citizens while lining the pockets of bureaucrats from home and abroad.
Aware of the kind of public criticism that saw the people of Boston revolt when the United States Olympic Committee initially put forward their name for America's bid, LA has promised the city will lose no money due to the strength of its existing infrastructure and facilities.
And if that means avoiding the situation in which Rio currently finds itself — where a US$ 20 million golf course resembles a ghost town and fewer than 10 per cent of the apartments in the Athletes' Village have been filled — then great.
But LA would certainly be an outlier. The cost of the 2004 Athens Olympics has been cited as a contributor to the Greek Government- debt crisis, while Montreal needed 30 years and a special tobacco tax to pay back debt from the 1976 Games. And, anyway, according to Oxford, LA's promise is unlikely to be kept.
So while it looks like Trump may for once get his wish and the City of Angels will soon be saddled with the Olympics, any city thinking in future about bidding for the Games will be wise to remember the conclusion reached by Oxford's researchers:
“For a city and nation to decide to stage the Olympic Games is to decide to take on one of the most costly and financially most risky type of megaproject that exists, something that many cities and nations have learned to their peril.” surreptitiously tweeted out by the Carolina Panthers last week, a gag revealed on Sunday when they told their followers to “go back and read the first word of our tweets from the last three days”.
The first tweet was innocuous enough: “This is what you need to know if you plan on visiting us at training camp”. The second was even more innocent: “Is it football season yet?” But despite those seemingly unrelated messages, the pattern, in hindsight, became apparent.
Some highlights? “Flipped” came with a video of quarterback Cam Newton leaping head over heels into the end zone. For “prince”, they were fortunate enough that Newton had worn some cleats in honour of the late singer. And as for “Bel”, the bell emoji came in handy, tweeting it to announce a giveaway of Panthers gear.
Why did they do it? Who the hell knows? Probably boredom during the long NFL off- season. Still, it’s pretty impressive and will be interesting to see whether other teams now attempt similar gimmicks. Money being thrown around in sport is nothing new, but this was a bit different. World No 49 Daniil Medvedev made a memorable exit from Wimbledon last week, having grown frustrated with the chair umpire’s calls in his loss to Ruben Bemelmans. How frustrated? Well, first Medvedev demanded the umpire be replaced. Then, after his request was denied and his defeat was completed, Medvedev reached into his gear bag, pulled out his wallet and began flipping coins at the umpire’s chair. Many athletes have accused officials of bias but, by turning that accusation into piece of prop comedy, the Russian really took it to another level. So points for originality, even if Medvedev was hardly the first tennis player to register his displeasure with the person occupying the chair. . .
That’s right, Medvedev has a bit of history when it comes to lashing out at umpires. Just last year, while playing Donald Young, Medvedev accused the chair umpire of being in cahoots with his opponent, because both were black. Aggrieved at a call, Medvedev walked past the chair and said, “I know that you are friends. I am sure about it.” Slightly less amusing than the money thing.
Tarango’s exit from Wimbledon in 1995 may have even outdone Medvedev’s. Having received a code violation for claiming umpire Bruno Rebeuh was corrupt, Tarango simply stormed off the court mid- match. Then, for the coup de grace, Tarango’s wife waited in the changing area and slapped Rebeuh when the umpire left the court.
Of course, no list of tennis players losing their cool with the officials could be complete without McEnroe. The OG of umpire abuse, McEnroe is known best for his immortal line, “You cannot be serious!” But my favourite McEnroe meltdown came at the 1984 Swedish Open when, unsatisfied with the response he received when questioning the call, the American yelled, “Answer the question! The question, jerk!”