By Mike Wells 11th January 2012, edited 29th December 2011Campaigners Against Dow

A recent sponsorship deal has seen the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games accept money from Dow Chemical. Dow will provide a fabric "wrap" which will be placed around London's Olympic stadium.

According to Britain's Guardian newspaper the wrap's purpose is to reduce wind inside the stadium.  But, as the metaphor says ...

@bobmackin: Beijing wrestles with $70B (ca £40B) bill for 2008 #Olympics. Yes, $70B. Earlier invoice: £20B

from Corporate Watch

Official prestige tickets for the 2012 Olympics, which include food and drink, are going to be some of the most expensive in the history of sport, at £4,500 per person.

These tickets cannot be sold as single tickets, but only in blocks of ten. In addition, conditions of purchase will mean that an individual or company buying hospitality tickets for the opening or closing ceremonies of the Games will have to pay a minimum of £270,000, because seats for other events much also be bought at the same time. The only sports tickets to ever be more expensive were those for the 2011 Super Bowl in Texas at £5,545 each. However, once tax is added, the Olympics tickets become £5,400, so together with the ‘minimum buy’ requirements the tickets are not far off the most expensive sports tickets in history.

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.