Why The Olympics Need To Die

Over the past few months, it's been quite clear that the Winter Olympics in South Korea early in 2018 are in a lot of financial trouble.  With only a few months left before the Opening Ceremonies, the vast majority of tickets are still available.  With international and regional political tensions rising between North Korea and the United States, it's unlikely that we will see a surge of tourism to the area to increase attendance.  South Korea is going to need to give the tickets away to their own citizens to get the seats filled.

Photo: http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/08/13/article-P-c8db42c0-5621-4a68-b549-3e5aa4ae8304-1J5bY1dRgKae936c68daee847aec-498_634x356.jpg

It's not like this is a new situation, either.  The 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio didn't come close to selling out, and many venues were clearly quite empty during the competition.  Part of the problem for these poor tickets sales is location and the local economy.  In Rio, many of the locals were simply not capable of buying tickets, and outsiders were leery of going to a city that has a high degree of crime. In South Korea, the culture doesn't particularly care for winter sports. According to this article, the most popular sports Koreans like to watch are baseball, basketball, and soccer - all summer Olympic sports.  Outside of that, the most popular activity is gaming.

Because of the financial strain of hosting the Olympics, fewer and fewer countries are bidding for the "honor" of hosting.  Very few countries have the infrastructure and venues already in place to justify hosting. 

Olympic Games from 2004 -2016 cost over $8 billion to run, and that doesn't even include all the local infrastructure improvements that had to take place. The hope is that the exposure during the Olympic Games will be enough to stimulate a surge in tourism afterwards, but that's just not been the case.  Does anyone actually visit Sochi? London has probably made the best usage of its Olympic venues in recent years, but does it make the nation enough money to justify the expense? Rio's venues are going to remain barren until they are demolished.

Countries shouldn't have to go bankrupt in order to host the Games, and at some point in the next 10 years no one is going to step forward anymore to want to do it.