Quote:
Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper
I am saying that it is absolutely ridiculous to do any sort of comparison between the 2015 games in Toronto to those in 1999 in Winnipeg in the first place.
It was a bare bones event in Toronto using mostly existing facilities by renovating them up to standards and filling in those that were missing. The stadium in Hamilton was $145 million with the city putting up $40 million; chump change to the aforementioned billion dollar Athlete's Village in the West Donlands. The torn down stadium was inadequate too. The problem with using facilities all over an area of 8 million people and a downtown athlete's village on government land they have been wanting to development for 30 years is security and operations and that is where costs got out of control.
Toronto was/is cash strapped, too damn big and, with too expensive real estate and development to have hosted these games for a fraction of what they ended up costing (excluding the Athlete's Village)
I covered the economy and real estate costs in 1999 last post. Now security. I worked in First Canadian Place in 1999. I could get into just about any space I wanted without being noticed. There were few if any maglocks and minimum cameras. Now, every unit has maglock doors and every inch of common area is covered in multiple camera angles with guards doing rounds every hour. Point is, the security budget for the Winnipeg games is probably laughable by today's standards
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Yes, I agree. Pre-911 security costs were a fraction of what we see today. I believe the first summer (and maybe winter) Olympics after 9/11 exceeded $1 billion. Now, I believe the Summer Olympics security costs exceed $2 billion.
It's strange...it appears there is overkill for security measures nowadays, but I certainly don't get the impression that happened when athletes/reps were kidnapped and eventually killed in Munich back in 1972 - something that hit much closer to home for the Olympics.