I get permanent sports franchises--they become a source of common conversation in communities, and Carlino and Coulson show that people value this (although free agency and high ticket prices might screw this up). But the Olympics? I hear people talk around here about the 1988 Dodgers and Kirk Gibson's home run all the time; I almost never hear about the 1984 Olympics.
Friday, October 02, 2009
Why do cities want the Olympics?
It puzzles me, given that Vancouver is facing serious financial issues for its forthcoming Olympics, why major cities care so much about getting them. Olympic games also make life inconvenient for those living and working in the cities where they take place. It is not like Chicago, Madrid, Rio and Tokyo aren't high profile cities. Do we really think more highly about Atlanta because it had an Olympics?
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4 comments:
Olympics are a big source of generating money and business to the country and particular city as well. It helps in promoting tourism and lots of money comes to country. Hotel and local market industry makes huge money with this. Scope of promoting tourism of the country worldwide is one of the top priorities. These are few reasons for caring so much to get these games in your country.
Maybe you're talking to the wrong people. Some see it as a big payday:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/mob_sweep_nets_city_inspectors_gYYhuj9dcqoIys9IJ7fadN
Hosting the Olympics combined with business development efforts done globally, in the past has resulted in attracting dozens of global businesses to set up an operation in the city. So, they create jobs. See some research I did a few years back:
http://www.avisonyoung.com/Vancouver/Research/2010_Olympic_Impact/
For Rio, I think they'll work in this regard. Too many global businesses likely write the city off as being too isolated in South America, or too poor (while it has poverty, it also has a lot of educated, wealthy people).
For Chicago the boost would have been less, because it already is a centre of global business.
That's a lot of moolah to shell out for conversation since pro sports usually don't end up moneymakers for the community
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