Obama's Olympic Trip

Presidential Support for Chicago Olympic Bid Wasted?

Oct 2, 2009

President Obama and the First Lady's recent trip to Copenhagen in order to pitch Chicago as the site for the 2016 Olympic Games may have been wasted energy.

In an all-out publicity assault on the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the First Lady Michelle Obama traveled to Copenhagen with a crew in tow in order to try to secure Chicago as the site for the 2016 Olympics. The President himself was soon to follow, to try and seal the deal. But was the trip it worth the president’s time?

There have been numerous economic impact studies about the positive effects that hosting an Olympics, or major sporting events for that matter, have on an economy. But it is the post studies that may reveal the true gains or losses in hosting such an event. Jeffrey G. Owen with the Department of Economics at Indiana State University wrote an article on the subject titled Estimating the Cost and Benefit of Hosting Olympic Games: What Can Beijing Expect from Its 2008 Games?

In the article Owen refers to several studies. One of which is Phillip Porter’s 1999 study Mega-Sports Events as Municipal Investments: A Critique of Impact Analysis. That study concludes “no measurable impact on spending associated with the event. The projected spending and spillover benefits of regional impact models never materialize.”

Owen makes the point that the huge investment a city has to make to prepare for the games take resources away from other projects. In other words, funds that may have been dedicated to improving infrastructure, schools, public works, social programs, etc., are re-directed to hosting the games. Owen emphasizes that while the projects for the preparation of the games may boost some parts of the economy, other parts suffer.

Owen reports that the gains resulting from the Olympics are short lived. The increase in construction ends once that construction is completed. Also once the games have ended, the majority of the sports facilities fail to offset their ongoing expenses with revenue.

Besides a neutral economic impact of the Olympics at best, there were quite a few issues in the United States that demanded the president’s attention. Yahoo Finance reported on Oct. 2, 2009 that job losses were greater than expected. The national unemployment rate was reported at 9.8 percent according to the website. The story also painted a grimmer picture stating, “If laid-off workers who have settled for part-time work or have given up looking for new jobs are included, the unemployment rate rose to 17 percent, the highest on records dating from 1994.”

Other matters of concern include the president’s health care plan that seems to get more complicated with each passing minute. Sen. Thomas Carper, who is on the Senate Finance Committee, told CNSNews.com on Friday, “I don’t expect to actually read the legislative language because reading the legislative language is among the more confusing things I’ve ever read in my life.”

Of course the war in Afghanistan is always at the forefront of the news. The president did meet with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan, in Copenhagen for 25 minutes Fox News reported.

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