What about Beijing 2008? If they made a loss from the games I doubt anyone could possibly calculate it. Thanks for the article, was a good read.
Ditto. Thanks. From everything I've seen over the years hosting such massive events nearly always is a loss especially if a heap of dedicated infrastructure needs to be built. I was ecstatic when we lost the bid for the world cup. Irrespective of how great soccer is, it was guaranteed to run a huge loss. A loss aggravated by the onerous FIFA fees and conditions imposed. At the end of the day there's only so much sport that people can do and watch. Any increase in one is inevitably at the expense of another.
It'd be nice if we lived in a world where people weren't forced to pay for these things. Then we would see how much value there is in them on the free market. Alas, most people seem to prefer having their money wasted because they feel we need people to make the big decisions for us.
Ditto with the art world. I hate having to pay for someone else's "art". It's not as though we don't have enough great artists who actually make a good living while their alive (i.e. stuff that people actually want). But no, we are forced to pay for there to be large groups of people in almost every state in Australia (in addition to much of the western world) to dress up in tight tights and flap about on a live stage on a regular basis doing the same performances. If live performances are so great people will willingly pay. But noooo, "meat dresses" and corpse paint aren't 'good art'! Only tight tights and blue poles are 'great'.
