Posted on 08/08/2014 9:22:32 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Ten years later, the 2004 Athens Olympics is a cautionary tale. Greece spent an estimated $11 billion on the Games, Reuters reports. They built all the expensive, highly specific buildings you need to host the Olympics — a village, a media center, an Olympic stadium, a canoe/kayak slalom center, etc. — and went 97% over budget in the process.
When the athletes went home at the end of August 2004, organizers learned a cruel lesson — Athens has absolutely no use for a canoe/kayak slalom center.
Many of these stadiums have become white elephants. The Olympic Village is empty, and the venues for softball, beach volleyball, and kayaking are all overrun with weeds.
With the IOC now struggling to find countries with enough money to waste on the Olympics, 2004 might be viewed as the last Olympics of an era when democratic nations saw the games as a worthwhile investment.
CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE PICTURES...
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
awful comparison....
difference is the venues in Chicago or Los Angeles or Salt Lake City, Vancouver, Calgary, Melbourne, Atlanta are put to good use after the Olympics...
Greece was given the olympics for sentimental reasons- not common sense. Its a country that would be a crap hole were it not for tourism...
Sarajevo venues were destroyed in the war...they were fighting from the ice rink...
Cant the Olympics fund itself?
Ah the glory of fascist and socialist subsidized ventures.
btw- you notice all the cities you mentioned turned profits after LA in ‘84?? Know why? One man- Peter Ubberoff who had the common sense to bring sponsorship into the Olympics....when its run like a business, as it should be, they lessen the potential for economic damage...
South Korea has a winter Olympics coming up, hopefully they don’t mess it up as bad as Sochi Russia with its fake hotels and stuff
Will people visit these sites in 2,000 years? They are our Colosseum and Parthenon.
LMAO
Maybe they can sell tickets to tourists, like they do for the Parthenon. Only for this exibit, you can touch things if you dare and can take a chunk of it home with you.
I can’t open these photos at work, cana someone post them?
Why LA?
Why not in the US?
they became a travesty when they started allowing professional players in.
before that they were merely revenue generators for the IOC, which is the only one to profit from perpetuating this farce which has lived past it’s sell-by date.
Bump
Greece’s GDP in 2004 was $228 billion. Government expenditure in that year was 45.52% of the GDP (holy smokes!).
Thus 5% of the entire country’s GDP that year was spent on the Olympics.
And they can’t understand why they are in the toilet?
If the US spent 5% of its GDP (about $800 billion this year) on the Olympics would that cause an uproar?
Interesting idea. Could work.
Seriously, London made money? That is surprising, and somewhat encouraging.
Yes, Greece would be an appropriate choice, assuming they could run it (or have its management shared). And its status as an economic basket case shows the need for the revenue.
Same is true of Beijing. And it will be the same for Rio.
The World Cup in Russia is going to be a disaster.
Nobody is going to want to go to the games outside of perhaps Moscow and St Petersburg.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.