http://www.alternet.org/story/56128/?page=entire
Monday, October 24, 2011
World Series vs. the Olympics
There has been much talk about how the World Series is boosting the economy in both St. Louis and Arlington. Thousands of people are buying merchandise and tickets to the games that are selling at over $1,200. With the 2012 Summer Olympics taking place in London; many people are speculating the same kind of economic boost in Europe. However it is actually proven that the Olympics do quite the opposite. While people do spend a lot of money to attend the events and buy merchandise, the host city is forced to use the taxpayer's money to pay for things like the venues and getting everything prettied up for the visitors when the money could be used for things that would actually help the economy. The reason why the World Series helps cities make money and the Olympics doe the opposite is because MLB teams are privately owned. Arlington and St. Louis only gain money because they don't have to spend any money or at least very little money in hosting these kind of events.
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5 comments:
I heard this morning that the State Fair generated $35 million in revenue this year.
I find this very interesting that an invent that is much larger to a number of people can do the opposite to generate money. Obviously the World Series is very important to many of us in the US, including myself. But with an invent that attracts people from all over the world like the olympics and does not help the economy, it does bring to question why you would want to host the Olympics?(other than obvious reasons)
I never hear of the Olympics bringing in the revenue that other sporting events do and this is a real problem since it is one of the greatest sporing events of the year. Maybe if the venue for the Olympics was split up for events, then maybe it could bring in the revenue it should and the host city won't have spend a lot of the tax payers money.
The difference in revenue for an MLB team and the Olympics is that the MLB team spends the money the organization has made and that the owner gives, while the Olympics is not owned by any group or organization so the Olympics spends government money. The local governments basically lose nothing during the World Series, but all the businesses around town gain money. The Olympics causes the local governments to lose a lot of money, even more than all the local businesses can bring in. This is why the World Series helps the local economy of a ciry more so than the Olympics.
I wonder if the economic impact differs between the summer and winter olympics. I would believe the winter olympics cost less to hold because you only have events at a few ice rinks and mountains. The summer olympics requires a place to swim, a place to dive, a couple stadiums, not to mention the marathon. I would believe they draw the same number of tourists to benefit businesses but who knows. It would be interesting to discover just how much each costs a country.
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