An Olympics Rah-Rah Buzz Kill

No, I'm not discussing a Canadian perspective on the ignominy of losing to an inferior team, in their national sport, during the Olympics, in Canada. Though that must still sting a little, even following their destruction of the Russians and concomitant return to their rightful place as gold medal favorite.

Back in July I marvelled at the marvellous claims made about the new Cowboys stadium as an economic stimulus package for, well, the entire planet. I took the logical leap in speculating that the 2012 Olympics to be held in London will stimulate the solar system, at bare minimum, and hopefully the entire galaxy. It had better considering how much it's going to cost.

It seems that the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver will cost $1 Billion (Canadian) for security alone (presumably shared across federal, provincial, and municipal levels) and potentially cost Vancouver and British Columbia something around $1 Billion in addition due to faults in another much-vaunted public-private partnership. Hell, even NBC will lose around $200 million in broadcasting the games (and considering what I've read of NBC's coverage, they deserve it).

This is to be expected. Every Olympics since Montreal in 1976 has been susceptible to haemorrhaging public money utilizing new and innovative techniques. Some have broken even or been profitable (I haven't found a breakdown), but Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004 both lost heaps of cash. While Montreal can bask in the delight of having settled their tab in 2006, Athens stands out as ironic given the current mess of Greek finances. Nobody has the foggiest clue how Beijing did in 2008, but the safe bet is on a huge deficit.

Yet, history is not a guide to the Olympic hopeful.

This all makes my mouth water at the prospect of England earning the right to host the 2018 World Cup, for which my current home of Plymouth was inexplicably selected as a host city. Of course, a new stadium will have to be built as Home Park currently seats only 19,500. While the local newspaper is breathless in its reporting that serving as a host city "could net Plymouth a staggering £292 million", I'll refer readers back to my post on the Cowboys: the economic empirical literature seldom if ever supports these claims. However, what is necessary is that Home Park would need substantial expansion to a capacity of 46,000, which while projected to cost around £50 million, promises to give Plymouth the "Wembley of the West".

A 46,000 seat stadium for a club that has never been in the top division, now five points from safety in the relegation zone of the second tier (this despite a recent good run of form where Plymouth have not lost in three matches), and is currently averaging under 10,000 per match.

Clearly, Plymouth should build on this success and bid for the Olympics.

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OlympPyrrhic Victories

Last week, Ban Ki-Moon made his standard plea for an Olympic Truce during the XXI Olympic Winter Games from Feb. 12 to Feb. 28 February and the X Winter Paralympic Games from March 12th to 21st.

Thing is, the concept of the Olympic Truce is based on two fallacies: 1) that nation-states (which are the units of contestation in the Olympics) are also the containers of political community and 2) that they are the wagers of war against one another whose actions must be tamed.

But actually, the fault-lines of global violence fall not between states but rather within them, evident in the fact that wars between countries have been hovering around zero for awhile. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in 2009 16 conflicts were ongoing around the world, but none of them occurred between the sovereign nations whose teams are pitted against one another in the Olympic games. Instead, all were civil wars.

Too bad then that the logic of the Olympic truce doesn't really apply to civil wars, since rebel groups or secessionist movements only in very rare cases qualify for involvement in the Olympics. What care the Tamils or Comali ICU or Taliban about whether Sri Lankan or Afghani athletes have safe passage to the games? What care, for that matter, first nations in countries like Canada in promoting an event that underscores their nominal exclusion from the club of sovereign nations?

Is the concept of the Olympic Truce therefore outdated? Or does this mis-match between the institutionalization of the Olympic games as a contest between nation-states and the actual nature of political violence globally imply the need for a different conceptualization of "teams" if we are to translate the goodwill of inter"nation"al sporting events into a movement that can pacify conflicts in a world where the nation-state is no longer the key container of political community?

[cross-posted at Duck of Minerva]

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Olympics in Brazil

Mr. Trend has an outstanding post that explains what the selection of Rio means in the wider arc of Brazilian history.

With all due respect, however, it's obvious that Trend discounts the fact that a ACORN Chicago Olympics would have at last clarified the vast scope of Bill Ayers' influence in Obamerica. When we measure the dubious value of Brazilian national pride and economic development against the undiluted joy that seven years of wingnut journamalism would have given us, I don't see how anyone could score the IOC'd decision as a net positive for humankind.

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