Podium Conference 2011: Copyright ©2011 sytaffel

by Stuart Fuller

Here is a little secret for West Ham United and Tottenham Hotspur awaiting the decision on who will get the Olympic Stadium next week. Whisper it quietly, but football fans rarely want to watch football in an Olympic Stadium. Why do I say that? Well a simple look at similar structures around the world, built for non-football events reveals quite a bit. The prospect of an Olympic Games being awarded to a city sends them into construction meltdown, over promising and in most cases under delivering on the legacy of the games. The whole story of whether a stadium will have an athletics track or not is not a new thing. We all know that at the end of the day politics will win the day, and we have seen all sorts of stories in the past few weeks about who will do what when/if they win the bid.

The Property world is getting excited by the interest supposedly being showed in the Athletes’ Village and the Media Centre. Of course, expressions of interest are not the same as money on the table. But even if the money does materialise what does this signify? That property tycoons see an opportunity to make a profit? And that profit will be made at a loss to the public purse of at least £150million on the Village and an unknown sum on the Media Centre.

So, the security budget is being slashed by £125M. Plus the security budget is being increased by £280M. Perhaps the underlying logic is a smaller state combined with greater opportunities outsourced to private corporations? Oh, and of course there are tax concessions too!

A PDF of a photocopied record of the Host City Agreement for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics

See also:
London 2012 Olympics Host City Contract

VANCOUVER - A lot of people around the world watched the 2010 Winter Olympics, but not as many as the official Games-time estimate.

The International Olympic Committee’s Vancouver 2010 marketing report shows actual viewership was just over half the oft-repeated 3.5 billion estimate from IOC marketing director Timo Lumme's Feb. 23 news conference.

Cheap tickets for kids from the host boroughs? You betcha!
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Alternatively, in the words of Greenwich's 'Great Leader':

Greenwich Council has accused LOCOG of making “secret deals” to price out thousands of youngsters from the host boroughs from watching the sports.

We're now all quite familiar with the fact that Mega Events invariably go way over budget. insideworldfootball has the latest, revealing FIFA under-17 World Cup cost more than double the budget