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Nashville 2024 Summer Olympics


FromParkAveToTN

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All I know is that Montreal's Olympics were considered a success, but it financially strapped the city and region for a generation. Part of the reason Montreal and Quebec haven't been able to invest into rebuilding some of the decrepit interchanges in Montreal until the past 5 years is because they just now got finished debt servicing the Olympics from 1976. Canada has a far less strong central government, most of the debt servicing was handled by the province of Quebec.

 

Atlanta did the Olympics on the super cheap, so it ended up balancing the books early, but the Olympics were scarred and marred by very poor quality and then the unfortunate bombing that occurred when one nutbag decided to ruin it for everyone. Some people consider the Atlanta Olympics a success because they did it so cheaply and paid off the books quickly, but that is just the financial books.

 

I think the most recent example of Olympic failure is what the debt servicing has done to Greece. The nation only has 10.8 million people, just to scale Tennessee has about 7 million. Part of the reason Greece is in such disarray today financially is because it spent so heavily toward the Olympics. They spent  €10 billion, which is well over USD$10 billion. There is no federal goverment to give Greece money, there is only the European Central Bank that may or may not lend them money based on what other member states allow, and then there are the handouts that Germany or France or the UK or others may or may not give them. Now, did the Olympics cause its problems? No, but its a huge symptom of the problem. Greece wasn't in a position to hold the Olympics, but they did it anyway.

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The cost is the big catch.

Fortunately, I don't think we'd have to spend billions on sports venues like they do in some places (where they build everything from scratch)...but there's no doubt the infrastructure upgrades would be astronomical. Brandon's right in that we don't want to be in a situation where we cripple our finances.

But one thought could be that the Olympics could be an opportune time to upgrade our sports facilities. The Titans lease ends in 2028...which seems like a long ways away (and it is)...but at that point, the stadium will be 30 years old, and depending on ownership situation (Bud will be dead by then), we all know NFL teams seem to leverage the prospect of leaving with getting a new stadium. The arena is in the same situation. The location for both is ideal, so it would be best if we could avoid building new stadiums and instead update/overhaul/renovate the ones we have.

While the Olympics is insanely costly, there are some side benefits (increased infrastructure, worldwide recognition, etc) whereas simply renovating or building new stadiums will be incredibly costly, but will really only benefit the people who use those venues.

Just food for thought. 2024 may be too soon, but we shouldn't immediately discount 2028 or 2032.

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