2012 Summer Olympics will feature the longest Olympics sponsor: the American fast food restaurant McDonalds. It will be the main sponsor of the event and has already opened several new restaurants for the event, including the record-breaking 1500-seated restaurant in the east of London, in Stanford. McDonalds will have four big restaurants and only two for public use: the rest will go to the Athletes Village and Media Centre. It just shows how much the American giant has invested in this year’s Olympics. What also may worry the hosts and the guests, is that McDonald’s sponsorship deal features a highly unusual request and something most of the hosts won’t agree. McDonalds has purchased exclusive rights to sell fries during the Olympics, popularly known as chips. But the British can relax, because their favorite food fish and chips are not bannedm. However, they can only be bought in a combo. If you only want chips, you have to go to the nearest McDonald’s. Funny what money can do, right?
Many are already predicting a financial catastrophe by the hosts, but there have been several optimistic predictions as well. More than £800 million were invested for the infrastructure, including the building of the new Olympic stadium in London. Research has shown, that the most expensive games so far were in Barcelona 1992 and the country ended the games in a large debt. The situation is a bit tricky, but the concerns for the London 2012 are not that big. When London first bided for the hosts, their budget was £5 billion but since 2005 it has risen to £9 billion. Nevertheless, Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron assures that UK will gain more than £16.5 billion and the London 2012 will boost UK’s economy in the next four years. Unfortunately, there will be no lasting benefit for the economy and the UK will eventually return to the recession. There have been many controversies, because it is expected that only the city of London will benefit from the games while the rest of the UK will “chip in” with the investment.
Most of the income from the Olympics will also come from the tickets, as tourists are expected to arrive from all over the world. There are predictions that only 83% of the 9 million released tickets will be sold, boosting the income for the Olympics for £400 million.
There is no doubt that the 2012 Olympics will be remembered by sporting activities and some new heroes and records. But the Olympics will end, and whether Britain will get their expected profit, is still a question to be seen.
Daniel Simkin
1. I like that you blog, keep it up. Its not easy.
ResponderEliminar2. I think your analysis could be a bit deeper. For example, who is going to keep all the revenue generated by the ticket sales and the advertising? will it be the big corporations sponsoring the event? is any of the revenue actually going to the people of London? I personally have read a lot about how one of the worst thing that can happen to a city is hosting the Olympics or the world cup or any other big sporting event. To finance the event they usually need to borrow insane amounts of money from the IMF or the World bank, which puts them in crippling debt for 20-30 years into the future. Then, the country has to change its own laws to please the international corporations. For example, FIFA was threatening to pull out of the world cup in Brazil because Brazil has a law in which drinking alcohol inside stadiums is not allowed to stop violence. Well, budweiser the American beer is one of the sponsors of FIFA so literally Brazil had to change its national law under pressure from FIFA. Then you have all the people who need to be "hired" to build all the infrastructure. Most of these people are "slaves" for all that counts, they get paid shit, like 10 cents per hour, live in terrible conditions, get shipped into the sites, build and then left there. No job security. No unions. No minimum wages. No nothing. For the Commonwealth games in Delhi for example, the organizers told the builders to leave the city and never come back as soon as they were done. In London, look up an article about how Olympic security personnel actually have to sleep in the street...anyway just some thoughts to "counter" your point.
-Teddy