Tokyo has been chosen as the host city of the 2020 Olympics. The Japanese capital, which is the world’s largest metropolitan area in the world and counts more than 13 million inhabitants, has already hosted the Summer Olympics once before in 1964.
Tokyo chosen to host 2020 Olympic Games | euronews,
Oh well.
I don't know if Japan should have made the bid for the olympics. The country is over 200% of its GDP in debt. if it loses it's AAA credit rating, the country will most likely default, and no, i'm not joking. And the downside is that the last 3 olympics haven't been profitable. Too much expenditure, too little profit.
Since the LA '84 Olympics, only Athens has made a loss. All the others have either broke even or made a profit. As the Japanese are likely to be more efficient than the Greeks, I think it's likely that they will make a profit. At the very least break even.
Happy for Tokyo but very sad for Istanbul.
It seems they were punished for recent civil unrest. I'm not totally convinced it would have impacted, they have seven years to sort it out.
Paul
Well, I took a quick peek at wikipedia before I posted that and here's what i found.
Cost of the Olympic Games - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Last 2 broke even, the one before that was barely at a profit because it was in Beijing and it's cheap there, if it had been in a country whose currency is worth more, it would have been at a loss... 2 before that were at a loss and overall, the latest have been either at even or at a loss.
My statement, thus, was mostly correct: And the downside is that the last 3 olympics haven't been profitable. Too much expenditure, too little profit.
Oh well.
I don't know if Japan should have made the bid for the olympics. The country is over 200% of its GDP in debt. if it loses it's AAA credit rating, the country will most likely default, and no, i'm not joking. And the downside is that the last 3 olympics haven't been profitable. Too much expenditure, too little profit.
Almost all of Japan's debt is held domestically. And because rates are so pathetic, there's not much of a better option than simply buying more debt. So it's not like foreign debtors are simply going to fire sale and devalue the Yen. Japan will have a problem as its population further ages, but it's hardly comparable to how Western governments are indebted. A majority of US debt is held domestically, but huge portions are held internationally and much of it chases better deals. That's not Japan.
I do agree that Japan was a bad choice purely out of costs. Japan is going to have to build more hotels, more venues and more transportation to handle this. That's going to cost billions. For the same reason Istanbul was right to be removed.
Madrid however, should have been given the games because the actual amount of new construction needed was very, very low. Not LA low, but way less than either of the other two. I still think the Games needs to move to a rotating permanent city system, preferably some cities that can handle both the winter and the summer games. If only 6 cities total were handling the Olympics, the costs could be easily spread out among multiple games making it far less of a money pit and putting some sense of order. 2 cities handle summer only, 2 winter only and 2 do both. Then it just rotates between them and because you know exactly when you're coming up again, it's easy to plan.
While I do agree that Madrid would have been overall better, I don't think that the idea of having a fixed city system is a good thing for the sole reason that you cut out competition.
But you seriously cut costs down. And if a city wants to no longer host, they could probably do a transfer for 10 games or something. This whole new city thing is horribly expensive.
The costs aren't defined by the olympic commission. It's the countries who keep playing a dick-measuring contest to see who can make the most expensive stadium and stuff.
A country shouldn't apply if it doesnt' think it's ready or that it can bear the cost. The prestige boost isn't all that great really and the economic benefit brought by tourists and commercials and advertisement, as we have seen, barely makes it worthwhile when it does make a profit.
Congratulations Tokyo. Rugby world cup in 2019 and now 2020 Olympics.
Good stuff!
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