Quote:
Originally Posted by Muta
Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics debt-free, VANOC final report says
You can suggest it's a "two week party", but Vancouver, as a community and as a city, is reaping the benefits of the facilities TODAY that otherwise may have not have been possible anytime soon, thanks to hosting the Olympics.
Complain about funding all you want, my point still stands, with examples. |
And my point stands with many, many more counter examples.
I'll grant that Calgary and Vancouver are good examples of how to host a games, but those are definitely not the norm, and there are no gaurantees that the 2026 games would go as well as those other games.
If there were assurances in place that the IOC would make up the difference should the games run a deficit, then great, but until I see that, I'm not going to support a bid for what could be a very costly event.
Edit: Upon further thought, and review of the article, it actually makes my point exactly.
It's the Olympic Committee corporation that broke even.
That's great, but Governments at different levels pitched in ~$363 million bucks, and they sure as hell didn't get that money back.
That "Broke even" part, doesn't include the major infrastructure, the Highway, the rail line, and the convention center, which amounted to a few billion.
All great projects, and all needed, but the infrastructure that was left after the games was paid for, plus an extra $363 million on top of that (contributions by different levels of Government that went into running the games)
So great, they got some great infrstruture projects, and they/we got to pay an extra $363 million to get it done.
Just because the Vancouver games (the VOC Corporation) broke even, doesn't mean the Government didn't spend a bunch of money it saw nothing for.