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The Olympics Is Not Worth The Investment

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The ability to take risks is one of the most important characteristics of a successful businessperson. Of course, there is never any guarantee that an investment will yield significant returns. An example of a very risky decision from an economic standpoint is a country deciding to host the Olympic games. Host cities of the Olympics often promise that they can gain capital from tourism, attracting new investment from foreign entities, increased trade, and returns on investment in infrastructure. Many countries have seen considerable success in gaining back the money invested into their Olympic games. Salt Lake City’s 2002 Olympics, Beijing’s 2008 Olympics, and London’s 2012 Olympics are all events that stimulated economic …show more content…

For instance, the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics were able to turn a profit. The Salt Lake Organizing Committee (SLOC), had to make last minute extensions to security measures in the wake of the September 11 attacks. The security force for the games consisted of 12,000 people. Regardless of this unexpected last-minute expense of $500 million USD, the U.S. was able to profit by $101 million USD from the games. This is in part due to the fact that only three out of the fifteen venues used for the games were not already built. This means that the SLOC was able to cut down on their overall costs. The games were broadcast to over 2.1 billion television viewers in 160 nations worldwide. The attendance averaged 70,000 people each day at the fifteen venues as 1.5 million tickets were sold. Each of the fifteen venues used in the games are still in use today. These statistics show that the SLOC was very successful in their approach. Since a lot of capital was invested in security, people were able to feel safe at the games and as a result, ticket sales met expected targets in spite of the September 11 attacks. In another example, China was able to make unprecedented revenues from their 2008 Olympic Games held in Beijing. Their Olympic games cost a never-before-seen total of 19 billion Chinese yuan, which was the equivalent to $44 billion

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