London Summer Olympics 2012!

[AFX]

I gotta say, I feel completely apathetic about these Olympics. My flat is five minutes walk from the park which is hosting equestrian events, so I'm hoping to rent it out at an extortionate price to a rich horsey person. Then, whilst millions of people are fixated on a few men running in a straight line for nine seconds, I'll hopefully be relaxing on a beach somewhere with a beer. That's the plan anyway.

[ManRay!]

I gotta say, I feel completely apathetic about these Olympics. My flat is five minutes walk from the park which is hosting equestrian events, so I'm hoping to rent it out at an extortionate price to a rich horsey person. Then, whilst millions of people are fixated on a few men running in a straight line for nine seconds, I'll hopefully be relaxing on a beach somewhere with a beer. That's the plan anyway.

Oh Boy, can we talk about how boring Olympics are now ?

[Throbbn]

Oh Boy, can we talk about how boring Olympics are now ?

did you realize that they have ponies?

[Lirva_Engival]

Facts are sacred . You spread bs. I've had my say. But London is hosting the Olympics and for that you need an Olympic stadium. To constantly refer to the stadium that was built to host the event as a ' white elephant' is ridiculous.

Easy way to figure things out... anybody know what tickets will cost to Olympic events held in the stadium? Now multiply that by about 60,000 (to allow for operating costs and breakage) and multiply that by the number of days there will be events actually in the stadium = what's recouped by the Olympics alone... some conservative figures (in my mind) would probably be ~150 Gbp per person X 60,000 people X 10 days = ~90 million GBP just for the Olympics and that doesn't even start to cover concessions, so I think I have to agree with Gaps on this one, if the British taxpayers can recoup ~20% of the total cost of building the thing in just 10 days, I think it will pay for itself in the long haul... large public works/infrastructure projects usually do. That doesn't even take into account the HUGE number of tourist dollars it will bring in in the form of Hotel rentals, food sales and merchandise sold in the entire London area which you wouldn't have without the Olympics and the stadium. At worst Olympics tend to be revenue neutral.

"MPs have raised concerns the London 2012 Olympics may go over budget and said it was "staggering" initial estimates about security costs were so wrong"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-17302068

'White elephant' London 2012 Olympics runs £2bn over budget as security costs double due to 'poor planning' since 7/7"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ts-double.html


btw this country had a national sports stadium 10 years ago...
it was called the City of Manchester Stadium and was built specifically for athletics and used to host the Commonwealth Games
but the idiots in control ripped out the athletics facility and leased it out to a foreign business
posing as a Premiere Soccer Club ie Manchester City
we are now reaping the "rewards" of that folly

btw2 X-Spectre, your assumption of the average ticket price @the Stadium(£150) is ridiculous
may i suggest you guys do your research before posting such inaccuracies?
the majority of the tickets are in the range £20 - £65 and Sir Seb Coe, chairman of the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, regularly boasted on TV how cheap they were

here's the list of prices....

http://www.tickets.london2012.com/ol...price1.html#s2

[gaphugs]

Eh... The concert ticket revenue was used as an example. That in addition to the money that the resident club contributes etc. the exact same situation occurred in Manchester . It's not rocket science. And I did lol when you mentioned MPs who routinely express 'concern' and reservation depending on what points there are to score.

Anyways, the facts are there and obvious - for my amusement continue to contradict them with increasingly desperate argument

[gaphugs]

FTR . I only noticed that you also mentioned Manchester. The city council owns the asset ie the stadium. They get 3 million per year rent plus man city has to maintain the stadium. It's hosted sell out concerts and boxing events and was used for the European championship.

That's what the white elephant is being compared to ....

Ain't much to add from me.

To use a football analagy, I have a feeling reading posts in this thread that ' Liverpool are playing at home '

[X-Spectre]

btw2 X-Spectre, your assumption of the average ticket price @the Stadium(£150) is ridiculous
may i suggest you guys do your research before posting such inaccuracies?
the majority of the tickets are in the range £20 - £65 and Sir Seb Coe, chairman of the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, regularly boasted on TV how cheap they were

If true that's quite the bargain then.
Oh and btw, your snarkiness aside, I didn't 'do any research' because frankly I couldn't be bothered and I was estimating from what I kinow of prices for other large high-profile 'events', and that estimate was far from "ridiculous". You say that the 'majority' of tickets are in that 20-65 Gbp range, that doesn't mean that 'prime' tickets and private boxes and etc. aren't MUCH more expensive which would raise the AVERAGE price, politicians DO tend to exaggerate and spin statements to support their positions you know.
As far as I know having a research department doesn't disqualify people from posting OPINIONS on an open forum.
A little 'research' for you, from Reuters...

* Olympics enjoying record TV, sponsorship income

* London to recoup operating costs for 2012
* Games build cash reserves, looks to emerging markets

By Keith Weir and Karolos Grohmann

LONDON/BERLIN March 8 (Reuters) - Banks have gone bust and countries teetered on the brink of default since Beijing hosted the Olympics in 2008, but the Games have defied the downturn, growing ever richer on the back of record sponsorship and TV income.

Broadcast revenue for this summer’s London Games and the Winter Olympics in Vancouver in 2010 will total $3.9 billion — up 50 percent on the previous four-year period.

On top of that, the 11 international companies who sponsor the Olympics have paid nearly $1 billion for the chance to market their products on the back of the Games.

Despite the convulsions shaking the global economy, the Olympics are sheltered in a sweet spot—ideally placed to benefit from the huge expansion of television markets and the globalisation of commerce. The Games promise compelling human drama played out before a mass audience.

“If you wanted to call it a brand, it is a brand that appeals to the higher emotions,” said Paul Deighton, the former Goldman Sachs banker who is chief executive of the London Organising Committee for the Games.

Deighton said the Olympics, at their best, conveyed an inspirational message of hard work being rewarded which moved viewers and appealed to big corporate customers.

“It makes people cry the emotion of it. These are huge emotional stories,” he said.

FASTER, HIGHER, RICHER

Critics say the commercialisation of the Games, a process that has accelerated since Los Angeles played host in 1984, has divorced the Olympics from their lofty ideals of promoting peace, unity and education.

Sponsorship invites controversy as exemplified by U.S. company Dow Chemical, which signed up as a backer of the Olympic movement two years ago and will additionally pay for a decorative wrap to hide some of the uglier tubing around London’s Olympic Stadium.

Dow’s involvement has rekindled anger over compensation for the 1984 Bhopal disaster in India at a pesticide factory owned by a subsidiary of Union Carbide. Dow bought Union Carbide in 2001.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC), the Swiss-based body that oversees the Games, has also been forced to justify building up cash reserves of almost $600 million—money it says provides a buffer against a Games being cancelled.

Britons paying an eye-watering 9.3 billion pounds ($14.8 billion) for the Games at a time of sharp state spending cuts will be curious to learn where the Olympic revenue goes.

The IOC redistributes over 90 percent of its marketing income—splitting it between the host, international sporting federations and more than 200 countries sending their athletes to the Games.

London can use its cash to pay the bill for staging the Games but has to pick up the full tab for building shiny new stadia in a formerly rundown area in the east of the capital.

“The financial model is the government is paying for the assets that are there long term and the IOC effectively pays for what is in the organising committee….which are the Games expenses,” Deighton said.

Deighton expects London to break even on the 2 billion pound cost of putting on a show which runs from July 27-August 12. On top of its slice of central IOC revenues, Deighton and his team have raised and can keep 700 million pounds ($1.10 billion) from one-off sponsors led by BT, Lloyds Banking Group, BP, BMW, EDF, British Airways and Adidas.

London also gets to keep over 600 million pounds from ticket sales. A smaller sum from the sale of 2012 merchandise—those souvenir hats and T-shirts—will help it to balance its costs.

Oh and I know you're going to pick the following out of the article so I'll do it for you...

London can use its cash to pay the bill for staging the Games but has to pick up the full tab for building shiny new stadia in a formerly rundown area in the east of the capital.

Now go ahead and read what I underlined in the article because those amounts are what London will collect ON TOP of the 'operating costs' which will be paid for by what London gets from the IOC as it's 'cut' of syndication.
700 million Gbp from 'sponsors'
600 million Gbp from ticket sales
Unknown 'mechandising' income
That's above and beyond what everything else will cost except building the stadium so... 700 million + 600 million = 1.3 billion Gbp by my math can go to retiring the cost of building the stadium.
Those figures don't even count the tax revenue from all that food, fuel, merchandise and accomodations that will be sold over the course of the games. I would be SHOCKED if this Olympics, at minimum, fails to break even. But whatever.

Edit: And btw, your link to Olympic ticket prices clearly shows tickets going as high as 1600 Gbp for the Olympic stadium for some 'events' and doesn't say anywhere how many of each type is available.

It's all academic anyway... My research beats your reasearch Nyah nyah, basically. The fact remains that the Olympics ARE being held in London this time around and it WILL be paid for so sit back and enjoy because you're going to give yourself a stroke for nothing.

[Lirva_Engival]

9

FTR . I only noticed that you also mentioned Manchester. The city council owns the asset ie the stadium. They get 3 million per year rent plus man city has to maintain the stadium. It's hosted sell out concerts and boxing events and was used for the European championship.

the Club receives a fee for these events not the tax payer
and since the Stadium is on a 250 year lease it has effectively been lost as an "asset" to the tax payer
unless the soccer club break the terms of the lease, of course

btw £3 million (previously it was a paltry £2 million) is quite a bargain, don't you think?
their top players earn that (and more) in a season!

[Lirva_Engival]

My research beats your reasearch Nyah nyah, basically.

really?

unlike you and gaphugs, i am a British tax payer and have every right to express concern over rising costs and indecision by the powers-that-be (who have failed miserably to provide a blue-print for the future)

your copy & paste doesn't mention the recently increased bill for security (£2 billion)
ie the London Olympics are already over-budget from £9.3 billion to £11.3 billion
the article refers primarily to re-couping the costs of staging the Games not the building of the infrastructures
and their long-term future....

btw you conveniently cut the article short - naughty, naughty X-Spectre!

it goes on to say...

"Public funding is supposed to bring a long-term economic dividend once the Olympic flame has been extinguished. However, the results are mixed—the Barcelona Games in 1992 helped to regenerate the Catalan city, but 2004 host Athens has been left with a sorry herd of white elephants it cannot afford to maintain."

another of those white elephants is Beijing 2008 (how did you miss that in your research, X-Spectre?)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/we...w/07wines.html

oh well....

[gaphugs]

If that's the level of national pride there is, I am glad it is you that is a tax payer there and not me

[MovieHound]

On to some actual sports, the US Olympic wrestling trials are 21-22 April, in Iowa City. Cael Sanderson, Henry Cejudo (2008 Gold Medalist) and Jordan Burroughs (2011 World Champion) are all expected to compete.

Current freestyle world champions (2011 World Wrestling Championships, Istanbul):
55kg Viktor Lebedev, Russia
60kg Besik Kudukhov, Russia
66kg Mehdi Taghavi, Iran
74kg Jordan Burroughs, United States
84kg Sharif Sharifov, Azerbaijan
96kg Reza Yazdani, Iran
120kg Aleksey Shemarov, Belarus

Current Greco-Roman world champions:
55kg Rovshan Bayramov, Azerbaijan
60kg Omid Norouzi, Iran
66kg Saeid Abdevali, Iran
74kg Roman Vlasov, Russia
84kg Alim Selimau, Belarus
96kg Elis Guri, Bulgaria
120kg R?za Kayaalp, Turkey

The United States has already won 6 Freestyle spots and 1 Greco-Roman. We have some good guys in the freestyle events, but I think we're screwed in the Greco-Roman. For you UKers, sorry, but you're only there because you're the host country. Brits can't wrestle their way out of a wet paper bag.

African & Oceania Qualification Tournament is March 16–18, in Marrakech, Morocco.
Pan-American Qualification Tournament is March 23–25, in Kissimmee, Florida.
Asian Qualification Tournament is March 30 – April 1, in Astana, Kazakhstan.
European Qualification Tournament is April 20–22, in Sofia, Bulgaria.
World tournaments take place April 27–29 in Taiyuan, China and May 4–6, in Helsinki, Finland.

Egypt currently lead in qualifications, with 14.

[pissant]

. For you UKers, sorry, but you're only there because you're the host country. Brits can't wrestle their way out of a wet paper bag.

Says you! Two words mate Big Daddy,Google the fat bastard.See him in action against some equally as fat porkers on You tube and eat your words That's how to wrassle

[MovieHound]

Two words mate Big Daddy,Google the fat bastard.

Argh!

[gxnn]

I am moved to tears to see the British people can have a say, a very loud say, in the key issue of their country, I do not think they are washing their dirty linens before the world. My country's BJ Olympics met with strong opposition from the grassroots,local residents in our capital were prohibited to go out of their homes during the games in order not to cause heavy traffic jams, and were forced to learn English regardless of your age or ability, so what? The communist big bosses did not give a damn, just for the pleasure of the rest of the world.
The real Olympic Game should be the one held in Greece many, many years ago, without clothes on and the sportmen and women are allowed to do whatever they want to do, like missionary, cowgirl, 69,etc, to present the spirit of the game, which, in my opinion, should be the integration of human and nature.With many sportsmen and women now injured and damaged in their intense training for the sake of honors in the games, it is high time to scrap such stupid competitions and I strongly recommend some online games instead.

[A.tab]

I am moved to tears to see the British people can have a say, a very loud say, in the key issue of their country, I do not think they are washing their dirty linens before the world. My country's BJ Olympics met with strong opposition from the grassroots,local residents in our capital were prohibited to go out of their homes during the games in order not to cause heavy traffic jams, and were forced to learn English regardless of your age or ability, so what? The communist big bosses did not give a damn, just for the pleasure of the rest of the world.
The real Olympic Game should be the one held in Greece many, many years ago, without clothes on and the sportmen and women are allowed to do whatever they want to do, like missionary, cowgirl, 69,etc, to present the spirit of the game, which, in my opinion, should be the integration of human and nature.With many sportsmen and women now injured and damaged in their intense training for the sake of honors in the games, it is high time to scrap such stupid competitions and I strongly recommend some online games instead.