[dust-n-bones]

Olympics are back. Childhood nostalgia . Looking at them again after a while, I'm surprised India wants to host them in 2032 or 36.
None of our cities have the kind of infrastructure Paris or LA has to host them or fiscal/physical space to create one.

Maybe the tear down stadium concept that NY used to host the cricket match is an option. But where do you get a sporting culture from? Paris can repurpose Roland Garros as the olympics tennis arena. Where can any Indian city find the spectators, the ball boys, the atmosphere which turns any sport into an event? I think we are rushing this at least a decade too soon.

Moreover, there are very few from the olympic games that Indians are actually interested in. And olympics has included all sorts from Rugby to Breaking, which will get no participation or patronage and the facilities will turn dinosaurs as soon as the athletes leave.

Most cities that have created new infra to host these games have to bear steep bills that they will keep paying for decades to come

[ValarMorghulis]

Originally Posted by dust-n-bones

...I'm surprised India wants to host them in 2032 or 36.
None of our cities have the kind of infrastructure Paris or LA has to host them or fiscal/physical space to create one.

I seriously hope India doesn't host an Olympic EVER. It is purely a money drain pit with nothing much to show for it. Most of the cities go bankrupt and there ROI is abysmal. I'd rather the govt. invests all that in improving the infra.

[Vinod_nair]

Originally Posted by ValarMorghulis

I seriously hope India doesn't host an Olympic.

Why what is the harm? But please not in Delhi or Noida.

[bijims]

Originally Posted by ValarMorghulis

I seriously hope India doesn't host an Olympic EVER. It is purely a money drain pit with nothing much to show for it. Most of the cities go bankrupt and there ROI is abysmal. I'd rather the govt. invests all that in improving the infra.

You are right, but hosting the Olympics is aspirational, It involves huge fund outflow, and yes the ROI is poor, the city that will host the Olympics however is going to get huge improvements in Infrastructure and facilities, and in my opinion, if India would make a bid, the host city would be Ahmedabad and the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Sports Enclave is being built primarily for this reason only.

[V.Narayan]

Has Russia as a nation been banned from these Olympics? I read that only certain neutral sportspeople from Russia are allowed to participate without the Russian flag? Is this true.

If this is true then it is rather sad and unfair that a sports major like Russia is kept out due to geo-politics. By this criterion USA & UK should have been banned from the 2004 and 2008 Olympics for Iraq and Afghanistan. The Olympics is about coming together in sports with a sense of fraternity. But the West boycotted the Moscow Olympics in 1980 and now are banning Russia! Double standards.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/oth...d=BingNewsSerp

[bijims]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Has Russia as a nation been banned from these Olympics? I read that only certain neutral sportspeople from Russia are allowed to participate without the Russian flag? Is this true.

If this is true then it is rather sad and unfair that a sports major like Russia is kept out due to geo-politics. By this criterion USA & UK should have been banned from the 2004 and 2008 Olympics for Iraq and Afghanistan. The Olympics is about coming together in sports with a sense of fraternity. But the West boycotted the Moscow Olympics in 1980 and now are banning Russia! Double standards.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/oth...d=BingNewsSerp

I agree with you on this one. Countries have wars and disputes but I think it's double standards here . The US can start any war in any country and get away with it but when it's Russia, it gets banned from all major sporting events including the FIFA World Cup, Olympics and the lke.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/articles/c0dd7j0l93yo

[ValarMorghulis]

Originally Posted by Vinod_nair

Why what is the harm? But please not in Delhi or Nioda

Originally Posted by bijims

You are right, but hosting the Olympics is aspirational, It involves huge fund outflow, and yes the ROI is poor, the city that will host the Olympics however is going to get huge improvements in Infrastructure and facilities, and in my opinion...

Multiple independent studies, journalists and reports have analyzed what hosting a Summer Olympic Event encompasses; and the picture has never been rosy. Would it surprise you to know that Los Angeles is the only city EVER to turn a profit hosting the Olympics in 1984, finishing with a $215 million operating surplus (it cost ~$800 million) primarily because it was the sole bidder and eked out quite favourable terms from IOC (it didn't build a stadium).
Link

A 2024 University of Oxford study estimated that, since 1960, the mean cost overrun of Summer Olympics ~195% with median cost overrun estimated at 121%. Which basically means the host will literally lose money every.single.time irrespective of the planning. The attached study is really an eye opener and I'd request everyone to read it.
Link

“I think you can make an argument that it can make sense financially — not in the way that it will transform the city economically, like the claims often made of, ‘You’re putting your city on the world map,’ and ‘You’re going to get all this tourism and business and investment;’ those kinds of claims are outlandish and inaccurate,”

Link

Hosting the Olympics Is a Bad Deal

Link

...there’s a lot of evidence that:
-The impact of tourism is often overstated
-Many of those highly touted new jobs are temporary construction jobs that tend to go to people who are already employed
-Stadiums and other Olympic infrastructure can quickly become a burden that costs more to maintain than it generates in revenue.

Link

The only people who benefit from hosting Olympics are Builders and construction companies and folks who are already employed. The left over infra rots over time and is a huge drain on public money. Use that money to improve the existing infra please. Esp. because Olympics isn't going to bring in any prestige. The western media will again visit every single crook and creak with garbage or a mendicant and use that to lampoon India incessantly for the duration of the event. Because you aren't a dictatorship like China or Qatar that can fudge numbers openly or prevent others to be soft on you. Olympics will only be a drain on the tax payer.

[NomadSK]

Originally Posted by ValarMorghulis

The only people who benefit from hosting Olympics are Builders and construction companies and folks who are already employed.

Sorry, but that's such a regressive approach.

The left over infra rots over time and is a huge drain on public money. Use that money to improve the existing infra please.

You need to visit the SAI's training academies and see how poor the infrastructure is for the athletes as compared to the desired international level. I'm a product of one of their school. Having Olympics will definitely increase our medal tallies and will encourage the next budding generation to forget about engineering/being doctors and look towards sports as a career option. This will motivate/encourage them to do something they want to do. In reality, we will be a developed nation when we will be in top 5 countries for the medal tally.

Olympics will only be a drain on the tax payer

In my opinion its a stamp on the history, that India conducted Olympics. Its a sign of privilege and being a soft power. You may be right for the financial burden, but tell me a one economist who wouldn't backtrack from what they say. And the less I would say about the media, the better it would be. The results and return on such investments can be seen generations down the line, it can't be immediate.

And being a sports enthusiast, I would love to see Olympics in India some day. But definitely not the way how CWG were conducted.

[ads11]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Has Russia as a nation been banned from these Olympics? I read that only certain neutral sportspeople from Russia are allowed to participate without the Russian flag?

I'd have thought it was more to do with Russian athletes still serving a doping ban than to do with geopolitics? Though I will admit there were indeed blanket bans of Russian sports people in the immediate aftermath of the Ukraine invasion so there could be overlap.

Originally Posted by ValarMorghulis

Multiple independent studies, journalists and reports have analyzed what hosting a Summer Olympic Event encompasses; and the picture has never been rosy...
The only people who benefit from hosting Olympics are Builders and construction companies and folks who are already employed. The left over infra rots over time and is a huge drain on public money. Use that money to improve the existing infra please. Esp. because Olympics isn't going to bring in any prestige. The western media will again visit every single crook and creak with garbage or a mendicant and use that to lampoon India incessantly for the duration of the event. Because you aren't a dictatorship like China or Qatar that can fudge numbers openly or prevent others to be soft on you. Olympics will only be a drain on the tax payer.

ValarMorghulis has summed it up very well already but just in case folks are wanting digestible short form video explainers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpMgn0S3QOE

Or, for how Paris kept it so cheap:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WveQVk9rd4A

https://www.brookings.edu/books/circus-maximus-3/ for those seeking a deep dive.

I don't begrudge folks for wanting the sense of pride that comes with being able to host an event like the Olympics or World Cup but we have to be realistic.

You need to have infrax in the first place.
On this count we're getting there, airports are being built, metro networks, fast commuter rail, road networks enhanced. All well and good.

But what about hotel infrax?
On this count I know India has some of the finest hotels in the world, so the top end of the market is well served, and there's a smorgasbord of cheaper options further down the rung, so potentially a major city like Delhi or Mumbai might be fine (I'm less sure about Bangalore or other such cities). What you absolutely don't want is the accommodation mess Qatar found itself in, when a tiny country found itself overwhelmed with magnitudes greater numbers of tourists than its inherent population (all the more galling considering the tourist numbers were typical for an event like the WC).

Sporting infrax?
Ah, this is where we're lacking (remember how the revised criteria of the IOC specifies the importance of the maximum number of pre-existing venues). Beyond cricket, how many world class stadia or sporting venues does India have? A smattering at best. The key worry is that all of this Olympic sporting infrax only makes sense when certain that the venues created will be utilised post event, otherwise you're left saddled with multiple white elephants. Provided the Nehru Stadium in Delhi can be upgraded you have your primary athletics facility but what about swimming, a velodrome, where would you hold rowing and other watersports? Because I think it always helps if you have an inherent sporting culture where you know locals will end up providing patronage to these expensively crafted world class facilities. I can only draw from experience with two such venues in Manchester that I used in the past. The Commonwealth Games Aquatic Centre which became a popular gym, situated in between both the University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University - that's an excellent example of a venue becoming a key part of the local community. Or there was the UK's National Cycling Centre with its velodrome (available even for complete novices like yours truly to have a stab at pretending to be Chris Hoy) and mountain biking facilities.

My point being, there's a culture here of parents encouraging children to take up sports such as these. Sadly from my experience in India, for most, sporting pursuits fall by the wayside in the pursuit of a career that enables one and their family to break through to the next social strata. I don't have answers for how we break that cycle and there's an argument to be made that perhaps an event of such scale like an Olympics might break the mould and kickstart just such an athletic revolution.

However given the sums of money that goes into the facilities alone for such an event (lets not even consider the costs of running the day to day logistics for said event), and given the more pressing needs of the exchequer, it's hard to make a balanced case for it for reasons other than prestige.

Speaking of white elephants, take India's sole F1 track. Seems a fine facility but it's barely used. Even MotoGP pulled out after a year. I just think the motorsport enthusiast market is too niche even considering the impact of percentages out of a vast population pool like ours. If India were insistent on hosting such a global event, I think there's more promise in the football WC given the existing popularity of the sport and the fact that it's an incredibly accessible game (provided the BCCI ever allowed any sport approaching its home turf advantage to even be mooted, let alone held here).

To end I'd also like to reemphasise the change in the bidding process by the IOC - it's behind closed doors now, they'll be directly soliciting and engaging with potential host venues. Now that I think about it, that might be why it suits India to do it in that manner, but it also removes the opportunity for the public to engage and scrutinise the merits of such an initiative. I personally think it was a great thing that general public pressure caused all but Paris and LA amongst the bidders to pull out from the 2024 awarding process, which in turn highlighted the need for the IOC to rethink how these events are held. It's given momentum to necessary discussions for whether there Is a need for a rotating hosting and more strength to the idea for permanent host cities.

Originally Posted by NomadSK

The results and return on such investments can be seen generations down the line, it can't be immediate.

My counterpoint to this is that for many of these events, we Do have that long term time series data to determine if there is an overall benefit. And in pretty much all those cases, on purely empirical counts, the benefits are a.. stretch. If you can call them that. If we're using esoteric metrics then fine, one could make the argument in some instances in favour of hosting these mega events. I think the only famously successful example from the past where a city benefitted was Barcelona. It put the city on the global tourist map in a way it wasn't quite before and tourism boomed but look at where we've ended up - counter tourism protests (which admittedly is part of a wider argument about over tourism sure). If anything there are more examples of failures and the only real 'successes' suspiciously/coincidentally are the events held within dictatorial countries whose MO was a power projection showcase: see Beijing. The event made a statement as to China's arrival as a global power and it ticked off that primary purpose for the CCP. Sochi was a vanity project.

Don't get me wrong - I'd love for India to be the centre of such a global showcase event, but we can't go into it purely driven by emotional thinking. Have to employ a cold, rational thought process to this, especially when public funding is so limited. And good luck prizing private sector sports funding out of the BCCI's vice grip for anything other than cricket.

[ValarMorghulis]

Originally Posted by NomadSK

...You need to visit the SAI's training academies and see how poor the infrastructure is for the athletes as compared to the desired international level...

Exactly, use the $10 billion to improve entire sports' infra across the nation and on athletes' training, instead of spending it on hosting.

Originally Posted by NomadSK

...Having Olympics will definitely increase our medal tallies and will encourage the next budding generation to forget about engineering/being doctors and look towards sports as a career option..

You know what is a sure shot way of improving the medal tally? Investing the money in training for Olympic bound athletes.

Originally Posted by NomadSK

...In reality, we will be a developed nation when we will be in top 5 countries for the medal tally...

Why do you think the top 5 countries which get the most medals do so? It is because they are richer? Or do you think they are richer because they win medals? Have a look at the numbers below:
USA spends $288 million, UK $376million on Olympians. China spent $3.2 billion on sports overall (I'm sure Olympians will form a major chunk of this). Do you know how much India spends on Olympic bound athletes? USD 9 Million.
Now imagine what would spending even 1% of $10billion bring to India.

Originally Posted by NomadSK

...In my opinion its a stamp on the history, that India conducted Olympics. Its a sign of privilege and being a soft power..

Meh. Spend on athletes and their training and get more medals. Same increase in privilege and soft power.

Originally Posted by NomadSK

...You may be right for the financial burden, but tell me a one economist who wouldn't backtrack from what they say. And the less I would say about the media, the better it would be. The results and return on such investments can be seen generations down the line, it can't be immediate...

I've given ample economists who do not support hosting the Olympics.
Our future generations are much better served by getting excellent facilities and support structure and hence winning many more golds than wasting billions on vanity of few politicians and construction companies.

Support sports by investing in them.

Links:
1. India's spend
2. USA's spend
3. China's spend
4. UK's spend

[PreludeSH]

We should not host Olympics until we can win at least 10 gold medals. The money should be spent on sprucing up infrastructure in all states and bring it on par with how cricket is organized and conducted.

[NomadSK]

Fair points as per the businessman who wants to invest in sports. Now hear me out while I wear the sports person's glasses;

Originally Posted by ValarMorghulis

Exactly, use the $10 billion to improve entire sports' infra across the nation and on athletes' training, instead of spending it on hosting.

Easier said then done. Sports wise India is a poor country. If you ask today, no one will be ready to invest big money, but if there will be an marquee event like Olympic it will give the right impetus to invest money in the infrastructure for the development of the sports be it government or corporate sector. I won't go here in for builders/construction or the corruption involved, or the money syphoned.

You know what is a sure shot way of improving the medal tally? Investing the money in training for Olympic bound athletes.

To invest money on the Olympic bound athlete, you will have to first scout them. For that the kids have to go to the stadium and see top level athletes in reality and see how behind the scenes trainings are conducted. What we see on the TV is just the tip of the iceberg, that's just a part of an effort. Actual work of an athlete is beyond this. Only when you will have the infra, then you can expect top level international athletes to come over. It's not a one day wonder. It was around 30 odd years ago when I saw Ben Johnson and Carl Lewis training at Nehru stadium, those days our athletes were training bare footed when their counterparts had heart monitors and what not attached to their bodies. It was a reality check for SAI coaches.

Why do you think the top 5 countries which get the most medals do so? It is because they are richer? Or do you think they are richer because they win medals?

Not because they are richer, they know the value of sports and invest money in their infra and do scout hunting for talents. It never works other way round. You can invest billions but if its not invested in the right place all would be lost.

Meh. Spend on athletes and their training and get more medals. Same increase in privilege and soft power.

Again for that, infrastructure is the first requisite. Else we will keep producing mediocre sportsperson in mediocre environment.

I've given ample economists who do not support hosting the Olympics.
Our future generations are much better served by getting excellent facilities and support structure and hence winning many more golds than wasting billions on vanity of few politicians and construction companies.

Just an example, In 80's cricket wasn't carrying that much clout, but 1986 world cup when reliance brought it to India, BCCI (Salve) had to arm twist ECB to get the Cricket world cup to India and after 30 odd years we are reaping the benefits of money in cricket. For politicians and construction companies, I would leave it at that, because that's an administration issue.

Now how that infra can be used for later generations is a point that needs to be brewed upon while finalizing and how best ROI can be achieved. I'm sure there will be consultants who are supposed to this job.

And lastly we cannot have an agreement between an Economist and any sportsperson. Just like On a car enthusiast forum, how many times the money takes the back stage when we decide our cars.

[SideSwipe]

Manu Bhaker and Sarabjot Singh win bronze in men's 10m air pistol mixed team event. Manu has become the first Indian female athlete to win 2 medals in a single year at the Games.



Proud moment for India

[PreludeSH]

Maintaining the infrastructure costs millions USD every year. We can already see the state of athletic tracks and stadiums. They are used for everything else other than athletics. Cricket has regular TV viewership which helps in ad revenue etc.

Even majority of our schools do not have playgrounds In US we could find many grounds available for us to play cricket. Every school had football, indoor gym, swimming facilities and suburbs had recreation centres which had all indoor facilities for nominal fee.

There might still be some highly committed people who can excel. But for a widespread sporting culture, we need to develop a lot.

[ABHI_1512]

India will never become a sporting super power until the sporting federations are freed of the people from politics and their cronies. While it's true that we have improved over the years but it is no where close to what we should be and that's the sad part. We can rejoice at the medal winners but let's not forget that most of the individual medal winners have come through their own sheer dedication and despite the system. While programs like TOP from the government and private sector through programs like OGQ have been promising, we certainly need more. It's a tragedy that a country of 130 billion can't produce more Olympics medal winners.

But I agree that hosting a marquee event like Olympics can give a major thrust to the track and field sporting culture of a country. For whatever it's worth, the Commonwealth games hosted by us back in 2010 did encourage new talents and the results can be seen now. Neeraj Chopra, the 4x400 Men's and women's relay team, the success of boxers, the weightlifters, the wrestlers, the shooters and all have been brilliant for us. A Neeraj Chopra came up to the fore because of his own talent and not because of the system and that says something.

We can achieve much more but for the politicians. They use the sporting federations for their gain and not really for the development for the sport. We all saw and know what happened with our wrestlers and medal winners some time back. I can just give two pictures to show how the money for sports development looks like in our country and how lop sided it is. It's a wonder that we still win medals in the international arena !!

The first picture was shared by the great hockey star Pargat Singh- a player I immensely loved and followed during my growing up years. And the other are from the India Today Group.




The funny part about the pictures shared by India Today group is about the disproportionate amount of money given to three states mainly Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh. I can understand that infra needs to be developed but then Uttarakhand which will host the next National Games features no where near. We all know Haryana and Punjab as major sporting states and yet they feature so low. Now decide for yourselves if we can become a sporting nation ever if this is how we are going to spend money on development of sports.





I am still hopeful of improving the previous medal tally though. I have high hopes from the 4X 400 Men’s relay team and of course Neeraj Chopra. Lakshya Sen and PV Sindhu, both are medal prospects and Manu Bhaker has already collected two. Let’s see who comes up with the next.