Olympic love.....cost 875 million

[JC]

Why again do cities want the Olympics. Vancouver has never had tourism problems, but if we get a chance to see the 2 man luge, please let's sell our souls.

http://tsn.ca/olympics/story/?id=262574&lid=sublink03&lpos=headlines_main

 

[bigpern23]

???

 

[JC]

Lost my link. Sorry.

 

[Football_Bat]

Damn, the price of rubbers is high these days.

 

[DanOregon]

So I gather the $875M is after all the money (sales taxes, TV contract, merchandising) comes in? I've already got my 2010 Olympics hat, and have spent a bit of coin north of the border.
But I hear you, Vancouver doesn't "need" the Games to prove itself to be a world class city, Surrey and Richmond though...

 

[poindexter]

Vancouver needs a bailout.

How do you "lose" a link?

 

[markvid]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Montreal still paying off debt from the 1976 Games?

 

[JC]

Vancouver needs a bailout.

How do you "lose" a link?

A lot of booze, link is now there

 

[I Digress]

I kind of expected this thread to be about sex, pregnancy and STDs.....

 

[markvid]

Holy crap, it's ONLY THE AHTLETES VILLAGE?

 

[hockeybeat]

The best interests of the taxpayers is using $875 million of their money for a two-and-a-half week extravaganza in 2010?

 

[EE94]

what a shock. Olympic host city spending more money than forecast
never seen that before

 

[Starman]

You could hold them in Hazeltucky. ::) ::)

 

[Beef03]

But don't the TV adds make you want to believe again?

 

[Beef03]

I had thought for the most part that the budget for the games was very reasonable, until this happened. The plan that VANOC brought to the table for venues was very cost effective, instead of build 32 different venues, I think they built one permanent venue in Vancouver (the speed skating oval) and the ski jump out -- I think -- by Whistler, everything else was refurbished. The other part I liked about the bid was that it made some infrastructure upgrades actually happen, like the sea to sky highway (personally never driven it myself but I have friends that drive it several times a year) - my understanding was that was long over due.

What was the original budget $1.6 billion? compare it to other recent games past and future, that's a mere drop in the bucket.

The athletes village, I didn't realize they originally planned to spend $750 million on (a cost that has increased to $850 million), even if it wasn't supposed to be on the tax payers' tab and not part of their original budget with it being privately financed. With the company backing out this close to the games, at the end of the day there's got to be some sort of legal action they can take, even if for now they have to cover the cost.

But that's a hell of a kick in the nuts to the bottom line.

 

[Double J]

All this is just more ammo for the "Bread Not Circuses" people next time Toronto thinks of applying for the Summer Olympics.

 

[Beef03]

The other thing that surprised me is I orginaly thought the Olympic Village was supposed to be turned into low income housing for Vancouver following the games. Didn't think the private financier was going to be selling to the highest bidder afterwards. Disappointed by that.

 

[DanOregon]

On the good news front, Vancouver just announced that all of their tickets for every event have been sold more than a year ahead of the Opening Ceremonies.

 

[JR]

All this is just more ammo for the "Bread Not Circuses" people next time Toronto thinks of applying for the Summer Olympics.

Will never happen. We've screwed up two bids

Hell, we can't even get the World Junior Hockey Tournament

 

[Huggy]

All this is just more ammo for the "Bread Not Circuses" people next time Toronto thinks of applying for the Summer Olympics.

Will never happen. We've screwed up two bids

Hell, we can't even get the World Junior Hockey Tournament

Junior hockey's a no-go in the GTA. Steve Simmons said so.