The Cost of hosting the Olympics

 

The News Cover: When the final games were played in the 2016 Rio Olympics, it was one of the most expensive summer games ever. In 2018, it was estimated that the total cost was over $20 billion, far beyond the Rio organizing committee's initial estimate of $2.8 billion. Rio had big stadiums, impressive athletic villages and top of the line training facilities, all of which significantly impacted the game's bottom line. 

But that big spending didn't just end with the cost of just hosting the games. The city of Rio had to pay for a new subway lines or renovated shipping port, a doping testing lab and environmental cleanup costs in the Guanabara Bay. But just seven months after the games, the once grand Olympic venues look like this. These crumbling facilities left vacant are the byproduct of a city struggling with debt and colossal maintenance costs, often billions of dollars in overrun costs. 

Most of the facilities built for the Rio Games were not supposed to last longer than the lifecycle of the games itself. But the change in local government left the venues in limbo, when to be used or dismantled. Now the question of the venues and especially those that are that are still up there in the park. We're not supposed to be there. We're supposed to be dismantled cities going over budget when hosting the Olympics isn't unique to just Rio. 

According to the Council of Foreign Relations since 1960. Every Olympics all significant overrun costs, all except one, the Summer and Winter Games have struggled to stay within their estimated costs of hosting the Olympics. Winter Games have done a better job of managing that. However, the Sochi games was an outlier. And economists argue hosting the games does very little for the betterment of a city. 

If you're looking at this as an investment, you don't want to make an investment something where you have a one chance at a 10 to have the outcome that you're looking for. That's not a good investment. That level of risk is ridiculous to undertake. Well, other experts believe that the games are vital for the city's infrastructure for its future, better roads, maybe it's Metro having a development of the metro or it could be the Hoss having housing that's put in place. 

As overhead costs become a growing concern. several cities withdrew their 2022 Winter Olympic bids. So how did the Olympics grow from its humble beginnings into a massive and expensive international event? And how can the Olympics prevent even more potential host cities from withdrawing their bids? In 1896, the Olympic Games became a truly international competition as a modernized becoming what it looks like today, a bi annual event with Summer and Winter Games. in its infancy, the gains were relatively small, how cities would use public funds for the games with ticket sales generating revenue to offset costs. Very first Olympic Games were in 1896. 

How much did the rio olympics cost

No women were able to compete in those games and certainly over time now as we look at his recent 2018 on the games look a lot different feel a lot different. This is Dr. Nicole Forrester. She's a former Olympic athlete in track and field who competed in the 2008 Beijing games. The Olympics is like the the pinnacle or the Everest of that sporting experience, both for the athlete and also for the viewers at home. The Olympic Games didn't see a rise in popularity until the evolution of telecommunications. 

The 1936 Berlin Summer Games were famously the first to be live broadcasted. At the time, only about 50,000 viewers were able to watch from a nearby Stadium by 1948. The radius grew even wider for the London Summer Games. 500,000 people watch live up to 125 miles away in the 1960s. With the Rome games, they were the first genuinely international broadcast, reaching millions worldwide. 

By 1968. About 17% of the world's population had access to the game's cost balloon. As viewership grew over the years, more prestigious white whales were being built to showcase a country's national pride, draw and tourism, create jobs and bolster local businesses. Since the 1960 games in Rome, both Summer and Winter Games saw over one cost on their estimates, things began to get dire in 1976 with the Montreal games. Andrew Zimbalist is an author and economics professor at Smith College in North Hampton. One of the things he specializes in is the economics of the Olympic Games. 

Famously, the mayor of Montreal declared that the Olympics This is before the games started, but he declared the Olympics can no more have a cost overrun than a man can have a baby. Well, it turned out that the Montreal Olympics had a cost overrun that was almost tenfold over the initial price. The Canadian government shelled out $1.5 billion in overhead costs in the Montreal games well over their estimated cost of $120 million. 

The Canadian government finally paid off that debt in 2006. At that time in Canada, we were under a cultural war of sorts. The other issue that happened is the price of steel had skyrocketed. And then the year before the games are hosted, you had workers walk off on a strike, which then cause more of a delay, and then again added to the cost itself of posting these games. By 1984, no country wanted to host the games, only the United States kept their hats in the ring for the 84 games in Los Angeles, it became the first and only Summer Olympic Games to have an operating surplus of $215 million. 

The reason as the only bidder, Los Angeles had the leverage to negotiate its contract with the IOC. And the infrastructure was already there, together with with the fact that Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States, arguably the entertainment capital of the United States, meant that they didn't have to do hardly any building, basically, everything was in place, little building had to do but not very much. There was such a surge in revenue that was derived through the media coverage itself that actually went straight to the to the Los Angeles games. 

And so like the IOC realized, okay, now, we should, we should make sure that we make sure that we get that big cut of the media revenue that's generated. The IOC saw the ELA games as an opportunity to restructure their television revenue distribution. Before the IOC auction its TV rights to the games local hosts, were able to keep about 90% of the revenues generated. In the 1980 Moscow games, the IOC only took about 10% of the revenue. But all that changed in 1984 when the IOC took 33% of the LA games TV revenue. 

Over the years broadcast revenue for the IOC increased the 9084 Summer and Winter Games generated $287 million and $103 million, respectively. Fast forward to 2016 and 2018, Rio generated $2.9 billion, and Pyongyang generated $1.4 billion. But it wasn't just the TV revenues that skyrocketed. So did the percentage of the IOC takes broadcast rights revenues for 2016 games in 2018. 

Games were 73%. over its lifetime, the Olympics has grown as more and more nations participate and more sports are added creating the massive competition we see today we're seeing there's more sports that have been added to the program plan. So we look at the Games in 1896. And how many sports were there and versus what it's gonna look like for Tokyo it is night and day difference in vastly larger for for these games. As the games become more expensive, the price tag of hosting the games becomes more of a burden. Before host city begins constructing elaborate venues, putting in a bid to host the games itself can cost 10s of millions of dollars. 

All these cities would come together and would bid and then it would be narrowed down to say like five other cities and then you've got people within the IOC visiting during these site visits, help decide like what where we're going to go and then it narrows down to like two cities and then so on. This used to be a very costly process to do. With no Garrett with a very small guarantee that that city would be successful through the bidding process. Just take the Tokyo bid to host the 2016 Summer Games $150 million was spent by the Japanese Olympic Committee for expensive consulting firms city planning, event organizing architecture firms and much more. 

Eventually, that bid went to Rio. However, Tokyo did have a successful bid for the 2020 games, but spent an additional $75 million for an update and valuation and planning. winning an Olympic bid comes with a steep price tag, largest single facility it has to get built. This is the Olympic Village. This is for the Summer Games. This is a village that has to accommodate 11,000 athletes and about 5000 additional coaches and trainers. In addition to having the lodging. 

You need to have athletic training facilities, you need to have tracks you need to have weight rooms you need to have other facilities. You need to have restaurants, you need to have entertainment facilities for the athletes, you need to have clinics, medical clinics. So you're actually building a village. You know, this is a full full service village. So what else needs to get built? Then you have the Olympic Stadium infrastructure road infrastructure telecommunications, infrastructure, also potentially billions of dollars their security costs these days easily run one and a half to $2 billion. While both the summer and winter games are expensive to host. 

The Summer Games are typically more costly and expensive. There are more athletes More competitions and events that require more specialized facilities. Winner games usually stay within their cost estimate threshold with minimum overrun costs. However, the Sochi games was an outlier and peaked an estimated $40 billion in 2014. And it's over on costs coming in at a total of $51 billion since 1980. The average cost overruns for hosting the games is 252%. For the Rio Games, it was estimated in 2017. 

That $13.1 billion went into hosting the Olympics, well over its initial $2.8 billion budget. economist, however, put the actual numbers somewhere north of $20 billion in 2018. An estimated $2.06 billion actually went towards sports related venues, while an estimated $8.2 billion went towards legacy builds, or builds intended to live well beyond the Olympics three week lifecycle, legacy builds went towards things like an updated infrastructure highways a renovated port, and cleaning the polluted Guanabara Bay. Of that $8.2 billion. A delay riddled subway line cost an estimated $2.98 billion and the renovation of Porto malamala was an estimated $4.2 billion to meet the iocs requirement of 40,000 rooms for accommodations, where you had to lay out the construction of an additional 15 to 18,000 rooms, intended to be used after the games as luxury apartments. 

Nearly five years after the games, most of those long term use buildings sit vacant. They're also expensive to maintain about $14 million a year it goes into maintenance costs for real venues. Real screams Moroccan a stadium built in 1950, which held the opening ceremonies of the 2016 Summer Games had its power cut off in 2017. After falling behind on payments during a tendancy dispute from the games. After two months of no power and left vacant, the stadium reopened for football matches and concerts in all cases. And in all cities, not just Rio reason why the venues didn't exist before the games. This because it didn't make sense to build them economically. 

Nobody wanted to build them. The IOC has an active changes for cities who wouldn't have much of a use case for certain sports venues. In the future. One of the simple change is you don't need to build venues anymore. Either they needed by the community in the long term, you don't build. And if you don't build you have different choices, you can have temporary structures which work extremely, extremely well in the majority of sports right now. Or go abroad. Real isn't alone with its overspending. 

Government spend billions of dollars on these extensive upscale facilities, hoping for job growth or revitalizing infrastructure to become a new tourist hub. However, this big spending on legacy builds and infrastructure for the future is outside the scope of requirements from the IOC to host the games. where there have been problems in the past is some of the venues that were designed to be especially for for the after games, and too expensive. And let's be clear, this is absolutely not something we are demanding what we are doing now, to make sure that that we don't have these problems they will not repeat is that at the time, when we are speaking about the future gains like it is the case now in Brisbane. 

We decide together about the venue the master plan, what makes sense or what doesn't make sense, so that we can not be accused of any problems in the long run. While Rio invest heavily on infrastructure that didn't pay off as expected. That doesn't always mean that big spending is the death knell to a city's future. Things like a newly established metro line can pay off in the long run. Just take the 1976 Montreal games, one of the greatest things that the Montreal has has a legacy from the games is the metro system and aisle council committees that are bidding to host the games to speak less than the sports themselves because the general public isn't gonna all have access to like the sporting venues. But it's more like the field that day in and day out. 

A resident of that city can really experience the idea of new business development, new technology, better roads, you name it, whatever is required for that city has come into place because of the games and but for the games, those things would not be in place. As of 2014 the IOC enacted the Olympic agenda 2020. It's a strategic roadmap for the future of the Olympics. It signals cost concerns, adapting the game to the host cities, it limits expenses on future bids and establishes the foundation for a more economic and sustainable Olympics. We reviewed entirely the approach of the bidding process to simplify it to make to make it more collaborative as well. 

We came with 118 measures to save on the cost of organizing the games. Let the capital costs No investments are needed. No constructions are needed. But just the operations of the games 118 measures. And the third strength was to simplify games organization by allowing the organizers to be creative, innovative, not to impose to heavy requirements. We as IOC are providing much more ready made solutions, turnkey solutions, so that you can reuse some of these over time. 

But in 2020, the Olympics were thrown another curveball how to host the games amid a pandemic crippling economies worldwide. guys want to bring you some news right now there's something that's just crossing according to the NHK wires of Japan's Prime Minister Ave is set to propose a one year delay for the Olympics. And a call with the IOC is Thomas Bach. Again, this is NHK citing this on the wires, this has been something that's been widely speculated about whether or not the Olympics would be able to go forth coming up this summer. Right now, though, it looks like the Japanese Prime Minister delete tech tacked on billions of dollars on an already expensive Olympics $2.8 billion for the initial delay, and another $1 billion in preventative measures against COVID-19. 

The Tokyo games surpassed its original estimated cost of $7.3 billion dollars. As of April 2021. It is estimated that the games will be $30 billion. The IOC faces another issue with the Olympic Games for the 2022 Winter Games, five cities withdrew their bids. So what happens if no country wants to host the games? Well, the IOC got ahead of that issue by doing something out of the ordinary for the Olympic governing body. In 2017. The IOC four went the bidding process and chose Paris for the 2024 Summer Games, and Los Angeles for the 2028 games, effectively placing a pause on bidding, with the IOC defaulting to Los Angeles in 2028, like they did in 1984. It can add a much needed boost for both the IOC and the games themselves, the Olympic Games 32 and 84. And now we building on on this very rich heritage. 

Whether the games of Los Angeles will be transformational the way the 84 were, I don't know yet for sure. What I know is that the spirit of innovation has never changed. And what was worth in 1984 in this respect, is still absolutely the case now. While the gains are a financial burden for most cities, it continues to serve its original purpose as a symbolic event, making the world smaller as athletes from nations all over the world come together to compete

What is Dogecoin? | Bitcoin vs Dogecoin | Explained by The News Cover

 

The News Cover: Hello, friends! You already know about the rupee coin and Bitcoin But there's a new coin that's globally famous now. It's called the Dogecoin. The value of our rupee is based on our currency. And Bitcoin is based on Blockchain that promises to revolutionize the monetary systems around the world. But this Dogecoin is based on a meme.

 Literally! This coin was made in jest. Someone took the Doge meme, this meme of the dog was quite famous at some point and made a coin out of it. It's like someone taking the "Pawri ho rahi hai" meme and turning it into a "Pawri coin". Or this meme of Akshay Kumar being made into "Akki coin". It's quite possible. 

Someone may very well make these Pawri coin and Akki coin. Because cryptocurrency is so decentralised that any person can develop their own coin. They'd need basic coding knowledge to do that. But the thing is that this Dogecoin became so famous that people like Elon Musk started buying it and promoting it. Why did it happen? Come let's find out in today's video on Dogecoin. After the popularity of Bitcoin, several people brought up its disadvantages. Like, the long transaction time of Bitcoin. 

Or that the whole process of Bitcoin consumes a lot of energy. And that's not good for the environment. That's why some people considered making their own coins. These coins are known as Alt-Coins. i.e. Alternative Coins. Because they're the alternative to Bitcoin. And they try to counter the disadvantages of Bitcoin. 

By some method or the other. Like Ethereum, Litecoin, I talked about them in the Alt-Coins video. You can watch them as well. The link will be in the description below. But after Alt-Coins had been developed, people realized that anyone can create their own coins. So some people started creating their own coins for fun. There were no advantages in their coins as compared to Bitcoins. 

They simply changed the name and created a new coin. Some scammers made their own coins as well. And fooled people to invest in their coins to drive the value of the coin After which the scammer would take back his investment and the people will suffer heavy losses while the scammer would walk away with a significant profit. This is known as a Pump and Dump scheme. So many people created their coins for fun. Some for scamming people others for absolutely no reason. 

It was only meant as a joke. These coins which were created for no reason they are often known as Shitcoins. Because they do not add any value to the world. They aren't bringing about any improvement in the process. So they're Shitcoins. Some people believe that Dogecoin is also a Shitcoin. The only difference is that the purpose of creating Dogecoin wasn't to scam people it was only to prank people. 

It was only a joke. This Doge meme was at the peak of its popularity in 2013. Jackson Palmer, an Australian marketer and Billy Markus, a software developer at IBM developed this Dogecoin then. Palmer says that he thought up this idea as a joke. to combine the two most popular trending topics on the internet. Cryptocurrency and the Doge meme. The code of Dogecoin is based on Litecoin. 

Litecoin is an Alt-Coin that does have a few advantages over Bitcoin. Like lesser processing time and lower transaction fees. But it is truly surprising that the market valuation of Dogecoin has already surpassed that of Litecoin. If you look at the largest cryptocurrencies of the world Dogecoin coin has become the fourth-largest cryptocurrency. After Bitcoin, Ethereum and Binance. The biggest question here is how is it possible? How did a coin made as a joke gain such popularity? 

Why are people buying it? The first reason is the Reddit website. People on Reddit started using it as a joke initially. Whenever someone liked a post or comment on Reddit, people would award some Dogecoins to the OP as a tip. It was known as the DogeBot tip. Usually, this was a tip of 5 Dogecoins. And at the time the value of Dogecoin was 0.0002¢. It was a very small amount. But using Dogecoin as a tip started gaining popularity on Reddit. And this expanded over the years. 

Dogecoins were used so much and exchanged so many times that their value started increasing rapidly. In September 2018, the CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk noticed it. Elon Musk met Jackson Palmer on the issue of Twitter scambots. The fake Twitter accounts that scam people using the guise of cryptocurrency. Elon Musk wanted to take them down because his name was being used to run these scams. 

So he asked for Jackson Palmer's help on this. That was when Elon Musk came to know about Dogecoin. After 7 months he tweeted "Dogecoin might be my fav(ourite) cryptocurrency." In March 2020 he tweeted "Dogs rock. They are the best coins." So in the coming months and years he tweeted about Dogecoin several times which were indirectly or directly promoting Dogecoin. 

And because Elon Musk is so famous, perhaps the most renowned and liked billionaire in the world, every time he tweeted, it sent up the value of Dogecoin by 25% - 50%. Eventually, 2021 followed 2020. And now the value of Dogecoin has exceeded 50¢. At its peak, Dogecoin had almost touched the valuation of $80 billion. Though its price has fallen a bit in the last couple of days, but the supporters of Dogecoin aim to drive its value up to $1. It means that the value of 1 Dogecoin would be equal to $1. 

Currently, it is around 50-60¢. And what is the process to buy Dogecoin? It's the same as buying any other cryptocurrency. You'd need to use a Cryptocurrency Exchange Platform. Talking about the real-life use of Dogecoin, the community of Dogecoin have donated to several charitable causes. Their first donation was to a Jamaican Bobsleigh team of $30,000 in Dogecoins so that the team could participate in the 2014 Russian Winter Olympics. 

After this, for some water conversation projects in Kenya and for helping some special needs children, the community of Dogecoin donated money. And who are the community of Dogecoin? What do I mean by this? Basically, there is a subreddit on Dogecoin where the users who buy and promote Dogecoins come together and make such donations. But overall, friends, I'd say that Dogecoin has become a cultural trend now. It does not have a value of its own. It isn't bringing in any significant technological advancement neither is it unique. 

Only because of its circumstances Dogecoin has become so popular now. And this is needed to be understood by those people that think that if they invest in Dogecoin now and they would get 10x, 100x, 1000x returns. That Dogecoin is a good investment. You need to understand the cultural trends grow exponentially. And die down after their peak. There is a very high possibility that this may happen. I'm not giving you any investment advice here. You can buy Dogecoin if you want to. I'm just saying that be cautious of the huge risk. But higher the risk in investment, there are more chances of high returns as well. It is possible that after a few years, Dogecoin may be valued at $100 instead of a paltry $1. 

But it is equally possible that its value may become 0 instead of the 0.50¢ now. All your investment may vanish. Because predicting cultural trends on the internet is next to impossible. You'd basically be trying to predict how the world would think collectively. I believe that the same thing applies to Bitcoin as well. You should invest only that much in Bitcoin that you can afford to lose. If Bitcoin crashes to 0 tomorrow, you would not suffer much even after all your investment vanishes. 

And Dogecoin is even riskier than Bitcoin. So this is even more valid for Dogecoin than it is for Bitcoin. At least Bitcoin has some value of its own. Because it presents a revolutionary technology. It presents an alternative monetary system. But it is not so with Dogecoin. But at the same time, also remember this, friends, that only those things have any value in the society, in which people believe. If people think that a thing should have value, it does. You can see this with so many things. If people think that branded clothes have value, then their value exists and people buy them at exorbitant prices. The same thing applies to Dogecoin as well. 

If every one of us starts believing that Dogecoin does indeed have a value even if there really isn't any, people would want to buy it which would drive up its value. And what can be the reason behind it? Absolutely any reason. If someone claims that Elon Musk's brand is attached to Dogecoin and it has a high value the same reason as with clothes. If a cloth is marked by a brand it has a high value. For the same reason, someone may say that Dogecoin's value should be higher. If society starts believing this its value will grow. And if society doesn't, its value will fall. I hope that you liked this explanation. If you liked this artcle then do share it. Thank you.

What If Each Planet Replaced Our Moon?

 

The News Cover: Imagine if one day you looked up into the night sky, and saw Mars or Saturn where the Moon was supposed to be. That would sure turn our Earth into an alien world. And not just because of the new view. 

We can thank the Moon for predictable weather, ocean currents, and the circulation of important nutrients. The Moon also helps stabilize the Earth's tilt. Take away the Moon, and the Earth would go wobbling all over the place. And it would cause what I can only describe as climate change on steroids. 

But we wouldn't just let the Moon take a day off. We would find it a replacement from another part of our Solar System. What would happen if we swapped our Moon with a planet that is 41 times its size? Before we get to that dramatic part, let's talk about Pluto. Pluto wouldn't look much different than our current Moon. It would be smaller though, and this wouldn't be good for Earth. That's because Pluto's gravitational pull would be weaker than that of the Moon. 

Earth would begin wobbling all over the place. And it would result in dramatic climate change. All sorts of natural disasters ruining your day. The Moon's gravitational pull is responsible for our daily ocean tides. Because Pluto is smaller than our Moon, our ocean tides would become weaker. This would devastate important ecosystems. I know, all this sounds stressful. But you know what could help ease the stress? Our friends, and the sponsors of this episode, Caliper CBD. They've got a better way to consume CBD. Did you know that Caliper's powder was found to deliver CBD 30 times faster than CBD oil in the first 30 minutes? That means, you don't have to wait for two hours for your CBD oil to fully absorb. 

With Caliper CBD, you can feel calm and less sore in just 10 minutes. And Caliper CBD is completely tasteless. You can mix it with your morning coffee. It's THC-free, so it's totally safe to take it before work. Add some to your protein shake when you work out to make you less sore. We know What If can be a little stressful to watch sometimes, so you might like to try some. Right now, you can try Caliper CBD risk-free for 30 days. And get 20% off your first order. 

Just go to TRYCALIPER.COM/WHATIF and use the promo code WHATIF. If you don't love it, they'll give you a full refund. That’s TRYCALIPER.COM/WHATIF. Don't forget promo code WHATIF for 20% off your first order. OK, where were we? Ah, Pluto covering for the Moon. Well, how about a planet that is slightly larger than our Moon? Mercury would look exactly like our Moon with its dark gray surface and asteroid craters. And it's only 1.5 times the size, so its impact on our tidal systems and climate wouldn't be as disastrous. 

Out of all the planets in our Solar System, Mercury would be the safest one to replace our Moon. But I can't say that about Mars. Having the red planet in our night sky would be quite a sight. All the iron oxide on its surface would glow red. No more white moonlight shining through your window at night. Instead, everything would be bathed in an eerie red. Mars' stronger gravitational pull would make tsunamis smaller. But it would make normal waves massive. And because Mars would create stronger tidal forces, Earth's rotation would slow down. 

The days on Earth would become longer. I hope we'd still keep a 40-hour work week. Because a 16-hour workday doesn't sound that great. Moving on. With Venus in our night sky, we might never experience darkness. Venus is the brightest planet in our Solar System. It would reflect 60% more light than the Moon. And because it's 3.5 times the size of the Moon, it would force the Earth into a binary system. Earth and Venus would rotate each other. It would be beautiful. 

And disastrous. Simulations of a binary system usually end with planets colliding or merging. Neptune and Uranus are both ice giants, and are similar in size. A huge portion of our sky would be taken up with a blue-green planet. Only Uranus would also stink horribly. No wonder this fart-smelling planet got such a name. Since both Uranus and Neptune are 14 to 15 times the size of the Moon, their impact on Earth's rotation and tidal systems would be drastic. Beach houses would have to be built up on cliffs, far enough away from the reach of enormous waves. 

Now, seeing Saturn up in the night sky has to be my favorite. Its pale yellow color and ring system would be stunning. But there would be some complications. Because Saturn is so large, the Earth would quickly become its moon. And if Earth orbited around Saturn, it simply wouldn't be the Earth as we know today. Finally, moving on to the big guy. At 41 times the size of the Moon, you wouldn't even be able to see the North and South poles of the gas giant. 

Similar to the deal with Saturn, Earth would become Jupiter's moon. Only it would get worse. Because Jupiter is so massive, the side of Earth that's closest to Jupiter would experience a stronger gravitational pull than the opposite side. This would distort the shape of the Earth. All this pulling apart would create frequent volcanic eruptions and violent earthquakes. Jupiter's gravitational pull would tear the Earth apart. So enjoy the view while it lasts. This is not how I pictured my day. Remind me of that time we made Earth collide with Uranus. Oh, that was a stinky story.