Toronto 2024 Olympic Bid (Dead)

[wopchop]

Yes I understand the part about a publicly owned CFL team - what I am questioning is the argument that somehow it represents an important civic infrastructure given the size of the population, and whether it is all that different from say Toronto paying for an athletics stadium that reflects the its' size. If this venture is all that profitable for Regina, it wouldn't have required 2/3 funding from the public and 1/3 guaranteed by the province as a loan.

AoD

Think about it differently. 33k seating in a city of 200k is a much higher proportion than a 70,000 seat athletic stadium in a city of 2.6million.

What I question about the athletics stadium is the after. If you are going to undertake such a monstrous project, and it would be much much more expensive than Regina's new stadium, you should have a solid business case for what you do with it after the fact. So far no one in the Olympic camp seems to have made such a case.

 

[Johnny Au]

The case of Regina is similar to that of Lambeau Field in Green Bay, WI, home to the Packers (also owned by fans). Green Bay is a very small city that happens to host an NFL franchise.

 

[MisterF]

Fair question. I believe that we already are funding Canadian amateur athletes to the point they can have quasi-professional lifestyles, i.e. they can train more or less 100% of the time. I also don't have a problem with funding acting troupes in the same manner. However, I don't think we should be funding David Mirvish to build a theatre nor should we be funding Cirque de Soleil to build out their new show.

But the other thing that is Olympics-specific is the egregiousness of the waste, and the way the waste is almost 100% borne by governments. I don't know how much Toronto/Ontario/Canada may have helped fund the Four Seasons Opera house, but I hope it was minimal. However, it will be used for decades to host COC and other events.

The government funds the Canadian Opera Company's operating costs every year, as well as other professional organizations. Professional athletes don't seem to get the same treatment.

What I question about the athletics stadium is the after. If you are going to undertake such a monstrous project, and it would be much much more expensive than Regina's new stadium, you should have a solid business case for what you do with it after the fact. So far no one in the Olympic camp seems to have made such a case.

In the case of Olympic stadia, even with the most desperate attempts to paint lipstick on the various pigs, we would have been be left, after wasting BILLIONS of dollars on security and logistics, with a billion-dollar track and field stadium, a second new aquatic centre with more seats, and -- I'm assuming -- a second round-and-round bike track with more seats, when no one in North America track cycles.

People seem to forget that the 2008 bid proposed an Olympic Stadium with tens of thousands of temporary seats. Just like the stadium in Atlanta. There's no reason that the same arrangement couldn't happen again. Not every Olympic Stadium is a white elephant.

 

[TOareaFan]

Think about it differently. 33k seating in a city of 200k is a much higher proportion than a 70,000 seat athletic stadium in a city of 2.6million.

That seems to suggest you would support a public contribution to a stadium if it were built to accommodate 429,000 seats

What I question about the athletics stadium is the after. If you are going to undertake such a monstrous project, and it would be much much more expensive than Regina's new stadium, you should have a solid business case for what you do with it after the fact. So far no one in the Olympic camp seems to have made such a case.

And that seems to suggest that the sports/business that uses it afterwards better be profitable.

Maybe I misunderstand the objections.

 

[wopchop]

And that seems to suggest that the sports/business that uses it afterwards better be profitable.

Heh, no. What I'm saying is that perhaps the Roughriders hold a greater place in the civic fabric of Regina than is being credited, given that a city of 200,000 (and a province of 1 million) is supporting a 33,000 seat football stadium.

And that seems to suggest that the sports/business that uses it afterwards better be profitable.

Well, yes. That is a given.

 

[TOareaFan]

Heh, no. What I'm saying is that perhaps the Roughriders hold a greater place in the civic fabric of Regina than is being credited, given that a city of 200,000 (and a province of 1 million) is supporting a 33,000 seat football stadium.

That is far more a function of city size than anything else and leads to the conclusion that public funds in small cities can/should be used for stadiums but not in the larger cities where, logic would dictate, there are more alternate uses. The Regina stadium will not be used much beyond the 10 or so CFL games a year.

Well, yes. That is a given.

Flies in the face of the common objection of building "palaces for rich owners to make money off of their rich athletes".

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

The government funds the Canadian Opera Company's operating costs every year, as well as other professional organizations. Professional athletes don't seem to get the same treatment.

Do you struggle to think why that might be?

People seem to forget that the 2008 bid proposed an Olympic Stadium with tens of thousands of temporary seats. Just like the stadium in Atlanta. There's no reason that the same arrangement couldn't happen again. Not every Olympic Stadium is a white elephant.

Every Olympic Stadium and other venue is a white elephant. It's just different sizes of elephant.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Every Olympic Stadium and other venue is a white elephant. It's just different sizes of elephant.

That's nonsense - The London Olympic stadium was originally supposed to be downsized to 20K - they are keeping most of the seating now as a repurposed soccor stadium. I don't call that a "white elephant". Ditto their downsized aquatic centre.

Seriously, what you get out of it depends on whether you plan for post games use right off the bat. The only cases where it became white elephants is when the country in question didn't care about that (for whatever reason).

AoD

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

That's nonsense - The London Olympic stadium was originally supposed to be downsized to 20K - they are keeping most of the seating now as a repurposed soccor stadium. I don't call that a "white elephant". Ditto their downsized aquatic centre.

Seriously, what you get out of it depends on whether you plan for post games use right off the bat. The only cases where it became white elephants is when the country in question didn't care about that (for whatever reason).

AoD

That's not at all nonsense. The London Olympic stadium, planned to cost <snicker> GBP280M, will have cost the various taxpayers GBP701M by the time West Ham moves in. West Ham has paid GBP15M of that cost, and will rent the place for GBP2M/year (or so.)

The other clubs and supporters' trusts are completely in a lather over the 'subsidization' of West Ham:

Cost of transforming the stadium
Of the £272m total transformation costs, £15m is being provided by West Ham, with £1m coming from UK Athletics

Work includes installing a new 45,000 square metre cantilever roof, twice the size of the original, covering all the seats - it will be the largest of its kind in the world

The local borough of Newham is contributing £40m, and the Government £25m, with the remainder coming from a variety of sources, including Olympic Park land sales

Retractable seating for 21,000 spectators is being fitted to allow the athletics track to be used in the summer

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/34272622

Finally, note that, because it's a billion dollar track and field stadium, once again the highest paying customers will be on retractable aluminum benches as the field is in the middle of a 400M track.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

That's only because they belatedly decided to change the plans and keep the full structure in order to accommodate the needs of West Ham - if they hadn't and went for the 20K seating per original, they wouldn't have had to re-engineer for what they didn't plan for in the first place, which is my point re: venue reuse.

And say what you may about the efficiency of the current London scheme, it isn't a "white elephant" if it's utilized sufficiently (unlike say the Montreal Olympic Stadium or the Beijing Bird's Nest). That's why it's critical to decide before you build what you want the stadium to do after the games. In the case of Toronto, I'd say either have a predetermined tenant (like CFL or whatnot) or replace an existing facility like Lamport.

AoD

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

That's only because they belatedly decided to change the plans and keep the full structure in order to accommodate the needs of West Ham - if they hadn't and went for the 20K seating, they wouldn't have had to re-engineer for what they didn't plan for in the first place, which is my point.

AoD

Your point was that it was 'nonsense' that the London Olympic stadium was a white elephant. Regardless of why, when, or how they planned on building and using the London Olympic stadium, the fact is they have built a billion dollar track and field stadium that will be retrofitted to a crappy soccer stadium.

If you don't think that a Toronto Olympic stadium would have been (a) overbuilt, (b) planned to convert into a smaller stadium, (c) leapt upon immediately by local NFL boosters and/or TFC boosters and/or Argonaut boosters as a great way to 'leverage' taxpayers dollars to pay their costs while 100% of their revenue went into the owners' pockets, you're letting your Olympic dreams cloud your vision.

Every. Olympic. Stadium.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Your point was that it was 'nonsense' that the London Olympic stadium was a white elephant. Regardless of why, when, or how they planned on building and using the London Olympic stadium, the fact is they have built a billion dollar track and field stadium that will be retrofitted to a crappy soccer stadium.

If you don't think that a Toronto Olympic stadium would have been (a) overbuilt, (b) planned to convert into a smaller stadium, (c) leapt upon immediately by local NFL boosters and/or TFC boosters and/or Argonaut boosters as a great way to 'leverage' taxpayers dollars to pay their costs while 100% of their revenue went into the owners' pockets, you're letting your Olympic dreams cloud your vision.

Every. Olympic. Stadium.

The fact is they chose a path that wasn't decided on prior to the games, and chose to spend additional funds to accommodate what wasn't planned for post-hoc instead of downsizing it per the original plans. That's their problem and it should not be laid on the games itself.

As to Toronto - the logical arrangement is start the bat right off and decide that the ultimate build will be to house TFC/CFL or whatever post games, come to an agreement with said orgs and seek a certain percentage of requisite cost from said organizations and pay for the rest through public funds (partly derived from divesting the city of obsolete facilities), with the expectation that the public will have access to the facility for a certain percentage of time, sign the dotted line. I'd have no problem with that - considering we paid for SkyDome without even getting the benefit of public use of the facility.

AoD

 

[Tewder]

Do you struggle to think why that might be?

Ok i'll bite... yes I struggle. Please explain why an equity opera singer deserves funding but an amateur diver, swimmer or track athlete doesn't.

Your point was that it was 'nonsense' that the London Olympic stadium was a white elephant.

... and so it is nonsense! How is it a 'white elephant' if it has been repurposed? Call it overpriced, call it fugly, call it what you want but by definition it cannot be a white elephant if it isn't mothballed and gathering dust.

You're in a pretty flimsy situation if the tent pole of your objection to all the benefits of an olympics is your personal hatred of athletics and stadiums. Suck it up. Yeah we built a velodrome - boo hoo - but achieved so much more overall in Toronto due to the PanAms. To focus all your outrage and incredulity at the Velodrome sort of misses the entire point.... as it does with the olympics and a stadium.

Looks like a combination of back room backers (Richardson, Peterson, Pritchard et all) acting in their own best interests and not Tory's, plus an office team that didn't bother to read the bid docs and who it turns out - contrary to any reasonable expectation - didn't bother getting council on board. Haven't heard anything conclusive but it sounds like he went against his team by saying no.

You must be fun at parties.

 

[TOareaFan]

That's only because they belatedly decided to change the plans and keep the full structure in order to accommodate the needs of West Ham - if they hadn't and went for the 20K seating per original, they wouldn't have had to re-engineer for what they didn't plan for in the first place, which is my point re: venue reuse.

And say what you may about the efficiency of the current London scheme, it isn't a "white elephant" if it's utilized sufficiently (unlike say the Montreal Olympic Stadium or the Beijing Bird's Nest). That's why it's critical to decide before you build what you want the stadium to do after the games. In the case of Toronto, I'd say either have a predetermined tenant (like CFL or whatnot) or replace an existing facility like Lamport.

AoD

Aside from its initial cost and all the architectural issues....operationally, Montreal's stadium does not qualify (IMO) as a white elephant. It has been well used in the 40 years since the Olympics. For 27 years it hosted baseball, has hosted many soccer games and was a full and vibrant CFL stadium for a while too (could argue it being too large for CFL any longer says more about the CFL than the stadium).

When pointing to unused Olympic venues around the world, I would think twice about aiming the finger at the Big O

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

Ok i'll bite... yes I struggle. Please explain why an equity opera singer deserves funding but an amateur diver, swimmer or track athlete doesn't.

What do you mean by the term 'equity' you keep putting in front of opera singer? You'll note that I was responding to the post about 'professional athletes', who can make millions, and I don't believe their playpens nor the teams' owners should be subsidized by the non-ticket buying public.

I believe amateur carded athletes should be funded. I don't believe we should publicly fund Olympics' construction and all the things that attach to it like barnacles. I've said that time and again.

... and so it is nonsense! How is it a 'white elephant' if it has been repurposed? Call it overpriced, call it fugly, call it what you want but by definition it cannot be a white elephant if it isn't mothballed and gathering dust.

Because it is being 'repurposed' to subsidize a professional sports team, and the government will continue to subsidize said professional sports team in perpetuity, it seems.

I'm not sure what your definition of 'white elephant' is, but here's Dictionary.com: "An unwanted or financially burdensome possession, or a project that turns out to be of limited value: “The new office building turned out to be awhite elephant once the company decided to move its headquarters.”"

Doesn't that sound like West Ham's new government-funded stadium?

You're in a pretty flimsy situation if the tent pole of your objection to all the benefits of an olympics is your personal hatred of athletics and stadiums. Suck it up. Yeah we built a velodrome - boo hoo - but achieved so much more overall in Toronto due to the PanAms. To focus all your outrage and incredulity at the Velodrome sort of misses the entire point.... as it does with the olympics and a stadium.

I focus my outrage on the billion dollar track and field stadium and soon-to-be BioDome because they're easy targets, and you -- and all the other Olympic boosters -- will not engage on the $2,000,000,000 in security or the $2,000,000,000 in logistics that will also be spent on an Olympics (does it make your eyes glaze over more or less when I write the costs out with all the zeros, rather than using the short-form billion?)

And -- again, for the umpteenth time -- I'm happy to pay for a reasonable professional sports ticket and even fund amateur sports through government revenue. I object to spending billions of public money on a corrupt two-week event.