Talk:Cost of the Olympic Games

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 26 January 2021 and 28 April 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): NozPana. Peer reviewers: VeronicaOp.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 18:32, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Table not clear

FYI

 – Section heading added by Undead Shambles (talk) 07:44, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

This table is impossible to understand (whether there was a profit or a loss). Completely useless. --62.40.67.22 (talk) 14:22, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Cleanup-rewrite

Went with this rather than nominating for deletion as I believe there is encyclopaedic value to the information if it is presented properly. As it is, the article needs to be completed and presented in a readable format. (Natt39 (talk) 19:31, 10 August 2012 (UTC))

Further clarification required

I like this page, but it still requires some more clarification, specifically on the final costs area. Governments typically release the operating budget as the final costs, though various media outlets will tabulate some of the additional costs such as infrastructure and security which are not found in the operating costs of the Olympic committees running the game. Similarly for profits or losses those are run against the operating budgets and not the actual investment in infrastructure that is usually in deficits of billions.

For example the Beijing Olympics here the cost is reported by the media as 40+ billion dollars, though the actual operating cost was in the $20 billion range. Thus the loss was over 20 billion dollars however against the operating budget they made a small profit. So if we are going to keep this page some of the info should be provided in the lead-in.

My proposition is that instead of having final costs, there should be an operating budget column. That way the net lost/gain is clearer. Any final costs are simply a product of original research or gross estimation by media outlets. The true final costs can never truly by accurate since governments blur the details so much, but the estimated costs could either have another column or be placed in the notes area. Krazytea(talk) 20:34, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree with your proposal. I think also in the lead it should be modified to something along the lines of "negative externalities, such as environmental and social costs, and positive externalities, such as increased tourism and city image, are excluded as they are difficult to quantify." to keep it more neutral. Even further, the lead should note that the difficulty of quantifying all costs is so complex, and largely based on assumptions and opinions, that different people will come to widely different profit/lost estimates for even the same games precisely because there is no agreed parameter as what to include and what not include. Essentially, outside of the operating budget (which is only a portion of the overall cost/benefit) there are no hard numbers. Ravendrop 01:49, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

The title is misleading. The table is about if the cities profited, most olympic games are sponsored heavily from the state government as well. If this is already included, it should be specified - I doubt it is. 84.210.157.218 (talk) 00:00, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Currency denominations

Amounts are given in different currencies and of course for different years, so the figures aren't directly comparable. This could be improved by using the construct International United States dollar as a common currency, leaving the original currency in place where available. The Template:International dollars provides a simple way to do this, as in

{{International dollars|3,500,000|FRA|year=1924|round=yes}}

However, as of today there is insufficient support for the full time period of the Olympic games and the line above displays Undefined year "1924".

Liontooth (talk) 08:32, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Vancouver 2010

I have edited this entry to reflect the IOC's official profit to VANOC of $1.9 million. The previous figures were for GDP gain and for profit to the City of Vancouver. Both are misleading and neither are the standard way of expressing profit/loss for a Games. In the case of GDP growth, these figures include the public spending of $2.3 billion, making it a wash according to the PWC report. In the case of the $70 million profit to the City, this is only after the City wrote off a $170 million loss (https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/olympic-village-proves-to-be-a-costly-lesson-for-vancouver/article18317203/). The standard way of showing P&L for a Games is via the final balance sheet of the organizing committee, which is what is now shown. FinnHK (talk) 15:16, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

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Making conversions?

Counting in american dollars, then canadian dollars then in a no more used greek currency. (drachmas after searching) (I am not sure that even Greeks know how much it would be).

The article should convert all of the units to get a comparison. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:E34:EC12:36C0:94B3:87F6:EC2A:7E1B (talk) 19:36, 20 February 2021 (UTC)