preface
In 2008, the Beijing Olympic Games became a grand event that attracted worldwide attention at that time.
Whether it is the "Bird's Nest" and "Water Cube" sports halls full of technology and fashion, or the opening ceremony with thousands of weather and magnificent waves, or the heroic posture of Chinese athletes on the field, they have shocked the eyes of all countries and refreshed the world's understanding of China.
To this day, many people still remember this event, and the American media called this Olympic Games the largest and most successful in history.
However, behind the brilliance is the support of a lot of money!
For this Olympic Games, the investment budget for the construction of stadiums alone is as high as 12.7 billion yuan, not to mention other investments.
Among them, the "Bird's Nest", as the main venue of the Olympic Games, spent a huge amount of 3.4 billion yuan before and after.
The high cost and investment have made the country have been ear-piercing opposition after the Beijing Olympic bid.
In the eyes of those who oppose it, hosting the Olympics is a loss-making business.
The large-scale sports buildings after the Olympic Games are even more "hot potatoes", and they also have to spend a large amount of operation and maintenance costs every year, which cannot be repaid at all, and the labor and wealth are not worth the loss.
But what is the actual situation? Now that 15 years have passed, are construction venues such as "Bird's Nest" making or losing? Is it becoming a "loss sale" that outweighs the loss?
First, the Olympics is a loss-making transaction?
Based on historical experience, the concerns and objections of these opponents are not justified.
The Olympic Games originated in ancient Greece and have been suspended for more than 1,500 years because of a fault in Greek culture.
In 1896, Pierre Coubertin, the father of the modern Olympic Games, excavated the Olympic Games from the dust of history and held the first modern Olympic Games in Athens, Greece.
So far, 32 Olympic Games have been held.
With the development of the times, the Olympic Games, once held for peace, have become not pure, but have become competitions between countries around the world in terms of racial superiority and disadvantages and comprehensive national strength.
It is no exaggeration to say that the Olympic Games have become a symbol to measure the comprehensive national strength of various countries!
For example, during the period of British power, in 1908 at the fourth Olympic Games in London, England.
1908 British Olympics
Britain won 56 gold medals, 50 silver medals, 39 bronze medals, a total of 145 medals, whether it is the number of gold medals or the number of medals, far crushing the second-place United States and third-place Sweden.
At this time, Asian countries, which had already declined, were still dealing with domestic changes and did not have the ability and opportunity to participate in this event.
After the end of the Cold War, the United States became the world's number one power, hosting the 26th Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996.
The United States won the first place in this Games, whether it is the number of gold medals 44 or the number of medals of 101, which is also much higher than the second-ranked Russia.
China, on the rise, ranks fourth.
In 1996, at the American Games, Ali lit the torch
Now, on the sports field around the world, the first and second are basically wrapped up by China and the United States, which shows a lot of problems.
In order to show its comprehensive strength to the world, all countries have actively bid for the Olympic Games.
However, due to the increasing number of countries and competitors, the Olympic Games are becoming more and more extensive, and the requirements and standards for the Olympic Games have gradually improved. As a result, the scale and cost of the Olympic Games skyrocketed.
When the 1896 Greek Olympic Games were held, including the host Greece, 13 countries participated, 45 events, only 311 athletes participated, and the audience was only more than 80,000, which naturally did not cost much.
In the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, 204 countries and regions participated in 302 sports and 11,438 athletes.
Add in athletes, coaches and officials, and the number of participants is already as high as 60,000, not to mention countless spectators.
This not only puts forward requirements for the venue facilities of the Olympic Games, but also for the corresponding supporting measures.
As a result, the cost of hosting the Olympics has reached a staggering level. In order to host the Olympic Games, some countries have even caused a serious burden on the economy.
This situation first began in 1976 at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, Canada.
Canada waited 36 years to host the Olympics, starting with its bid in 1940.
Canada attaches great importance to this Olympic Games.
At that time, Canada spent a huge amount of money and made a lot of construction in order to welcome the arrival of the Olympic Games.
As a result, the budget for the Olympics was overrun by $1.5 billion, and the loss in all respects afterwards reached a staggering $8 billion.
As a result, the citizens of Montreal have been burdened with the financial burden for nearly 30 years, and they have not paid off until after 2006.
Not to mention, Canada, as the host country of this Olympic Games, has a miserable record, winning only 5 silver medals and 6 bronze medals.
In 1976, the lighting ceremony of the Canadian Games
Canada's failure to host the Olympic Games has become a negative teaching material for all countries.
Since then, many cities have faced economic problems in order to host the Olympic Games, and the operation of the venues built has faced various difficulties.
In 1998, after the Nagano Winter Olympics, Japan, the high maintenance costs of the venue facilities directly led to the decline of Nagano's economy.
In 2000, after the Sydney Olympics, a large number of venues were idle or even abandoned, and some venues have been losing money until recent years.
For this reason, some people refer to this phenomenon as the "Montreal trap".
Abandoned sports venues
But if the events in Montreal are a negative example, the Olympics hosted by Greece simply fell into the abyss.
An Olympic Games has directly turned a developed country into a debtor country with huge burdens!
In 2004, Greece became the host country of the Olympic Games, in order to show the world its strong strength as a developed country and the birthplace of the Olympic Games.
The Greek government spent a sky-high $16 billion to build a series of supporting Olympic facilities.
Since I was busy with the construction schedule before the game, I had no time to consider the post-match use of the venue.
After the Olympics, Greece, with a population of just 10 million, could not absorb the 36 event venues left behind by the Olympics.
A large number of venues are idle, and the annual maintenance costs create a black hole of 100 million euros for the Greek treasury.
Greece, which was already in economic decline, carried a heavy burden, and since then, Greece has had frequent economic problems.
Over time, these facilities could only eventually be abandoned.
Four years after the Athens Olympics, 21 gymnasiums were completely left unused in the open air, with shacks of wanderers everywhere outside the stadiums, and the walls of the stadiums were covered with graffiti and graffiti.
The abandoned swimming pool has become a stinking gutter of garbage.
What was once an Olympic sports mecca has become dilapidated and reduced to a rotten sores in the city.
The lessons of Montreal and Greece hosting the Olympic Games have made a considerable number of "people of insight" worry that the country's bid for the Olympic Games and the construction of large buildings will also usher in the "Montreal trap", and in the end, the labor and money will not outweigh the losses.
They shouted: The Olympics are a loss-making deal, and oppose the country's bid to host the Olympic Games!
Some people even lashed out: This is a face-saving project, criticizing the country's great achievements, and beating the swollen face and fat people.
For these objections, they also think about the state, and there seems to be nothing wrong with it.
But is the bid for the Olympics really a "loss deal"? Will the state be so irrational?
Second, "bird's nest" into "hot potato"?
In fact, looking at the Olympic Games around the world, not all the countries that host the Olympics have lost money, and some have made profits.
It has to be said that the United States held the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and Spain the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.
After the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics in the United States, a large number of sports venues remained basically became the competition venues of professional sports clubs.
In the 1984 Olympic Games, China entered
These venues host and host a variety of competitions and events every year, and their operation and maintenance have not required government subsidies.
At the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain, the 15 Olympic venues were built to host sports competitions and musical performances every year.
According to statistics, from 1989 to 2003, Barcelona's Olympic venues hosted more than 4,100 events, welcoming more than 23 million spectators and 16 million visitors every year.
The Barcelona Olympic venues are not only self-sufficient, but also a key project in Spain's tourism economy, boosting the country's economy.
As early as 2001, when the mainland successfully bid for the Olympic Games and built related sports facilities, this issue was considered.
As the main venue of the Beijing Olympic Games, the "Bird's Nest" is the landmark building of the mainland Olympic Games. At the beginning of construction, the state solicited proposals for the construction of stadiums from all over the world.
At that time, 16 top materials and architects from all over the world came up with their own proposals.
In the end, the "Bird's Nest" scheme of Herzog and de Meuronway, winners of the Pritzker Prize from Switzerland, was successfully selected.
One of the important reasons for choosing this plan is to consider the subsequent operation of the Olympics.
During the construction of the Bird's Nest, the planning of the commercial area was actually done.
The underground space on the south side of the "Bird's Nest" is planned as an underground shopping mall, and on the north side of the Bird's Nest, there are more than 80 rooms of wine. These can be put into commercial operation after the Olympics.
Architects Herzog and de Meuronway also said they were not designed for a momentary event.
According to them, the nest has a lifespan of 100 years, during which time they can make a profit from the business plan prepared by the "nest".
But the plan is a plan after all, the state in order to build the "bird's nest", covering an area of 315 acres, is expected to invest 80,000 tons of steel.
Construction began in December 2003 and was completed in March 2008. In the past five years, nearly 3.5 billion yuan was spent before and after the "Bird's Nest".
In order to meet the needs of construction, the state has also specially developed a Q460 environmentally friendly alloy steel.
The "Bird's Nest", which spent 3.5 billion yuan and invested a lot of time and painstaking efforts, is it a profit or a loss?
After the Olympics, according to financial information released by the National Audit Office.
In this Olympic Games, the opening and closing ceremonies spent 831 million yuan, and the bird's nest cost about 456 million yuan, with a total expenditure of 19.343 billion yuan, but the income reached 20.5 billion yuan, and finally the result was that the income of this Olympic Games exceeded 1 billion yuan.
It can be said that the Olympic Games held by the country did not overspend and lose money, and the construction investment of venues such as "Bird's Nest" has returned to the cost, and it has earned 1 billion.
But we have to calculate another account, 15 years have passed since the Olympics, has it been earned in these 15 years?
According to relevant information, the daily maintenance cost of the "Bird's Nest" is as high as 130,000 yuan, plus various miscellaneous expenses, the annual maintenance fee is about 80 million.
The ticket revenue of 50 yuan per day, adding up to only 1 million yuan a day, is simply unable to meet the operation and maintenance of the "Bird's Nest".
This has made some people call the "bird's nest" a "hot potato", thinking that the "bird's nest" has become a burden on the national economy, and China will inevitably follow the old road of Montreal, Canada, and Athens, Greece.
This statement is naturally just an unrealistic conjecture.
As a landmark building in Beijing and even China, the "Bird's Nest" itself has great commercial value.
At the end of the Beijing Olympics, six large multinational companies competed for the naming rights of the "Bird's Nest".
Sterner, CEO of Leverage Agency in New York, one of the six largest multinational companies, once commented that "Bird's Nest" is currently the most valuable real estate in the world.
In the eyes of these multinational companies, in addition to the great value of the "Bird's Nest" as the landmark building of the main stadium of the Beijing Olympics.
More importantly, China's development prospects.
The performance of the 2008 Chinese Olympic Games has proved to the world its strong comprehensive national strength and announced the rise of China.
Chinese are getting richer and spending more on culture and sports in their free time, and China's sports industry is bound to flourish.
It is bound to be profitable to seize the naming rights of the "Bird's Nest" and enter the Chinese sports market in advance.
Among them, Adidas even proposed 70 million a year to buy the naming rights of "Bird's Nest".
But these multinational companies have been rejected, after all, as Chinese, it is difficult to accept that the naming rights of the "Bird's Nest" are controlled by foreigners.
Later, it was rumored that the naming right of "Bird's Nest" had been obtained by Beijing Guoan Football Club and was scheduled to play the home stadium, the specific result is unknown, but it is undeniable that the naming right of "Bird's Nest" alone has been able to meet the operation and expenditure of Bird's Nest.
Not only that, the state carries out a variety of commercial activities in the "Bird's Nest", one is to undertake various sports events and non-sports activities in the venue. For example, major competitions and holding concerts, theatrical performances and other activities.
The second is to turn venues into conference facilities, retail stores, museums, sports centers, cinemas, etc. on days when there are no competitions and activities, and carry out various activities and exhibitions, such as Olympic themed exhibitions, bird's nest wax museums, top sightseeing corridors and so on.
Under a series of operational measures, by the beginning of 2016, the annual income of "Bird's Nest" was basically maintained at about 200 million yuan.
It not only guarantees the cost of operation and maintenance of the venue, but also meets the public's demand for cultural activities.
Although the income of "Bird's Nest" was greatly reduced due to the impact of the epidemic, it was inevitable in the general environment.
With the end of the epidemic, many large-scale cultural and entertainment activities are still the first choice for "Bird's Nest" venues.
It can be seen that the "Bird's Nest" has earned itself, which can be said to be a win-win.
epilogue
The next big chess game for the country, the account is naturally not like a businessman, and profits and losses can be measured by simple economic income and expenditure. The Olympics are not a one-shot sale, but must be considered from many aspects.
As mentioned earlier, the holding of the Olympic Games is a window for a country to show to the outside world and a stage for displaying a country's comprehensive strength.
Through the Olympic Games, it has shown the world the face of China, which is realizing great rejuvenation, and China, the dragon of the East, is about to take off in the world.
The power of China is displayed, the international status is enhanced, the voice is increased, or the more jobs brought by the Olympics, the discovery of opportunities, and so on. Are these things that can be generalized simply with money?