Playing Olympic judge in the final hours of the 2004 Summer Games:
Greece gets a medal for its handling of the Games. After months worth of hand-wringing over construction delays, inadequate infrastructure and uncertainties over housing, the hosts got it all done with a well-organized return of the Olympics to its ancient home.
NBC’s commitment to the Olympics paid off big time. The network met its $1 billion ad sales quota, turned a profit and promoted its fall lineup. NBC’s ratings are up — 7 percent as of midweek last week — no doubt because it’s doing such a better job of actually showing events, one after the other (whether tape-delayed or not), instead of relying too heavily on features and profiles. What a welcome change.
Michael Phelps was the athlete success story of the Games. He’s likable, he’s articulate and he mostly delivered on the promises that others made on his behalf. Even after the swimming events ended, he seemed to be everywhere, keeping himself, his sport and his sponsors in the spotlight without going overboard.
These Games were good on the ground for sponsor hospitality. Some corporations and executives stayed away, but those in Athens were almost in an “I told you so” mode, fully satisfied with the opportunity for an effective hospitality program.
Despite a surge in ticket sales as the Games went on, the disappointing truth is that one of every three tickets overall went unsold. Empty seats, particularly at non-glamour events, are an enduring image. Just because you build it, and hold it, doesn’t mean people will come. Ultimately, of course, the lack of ticket sales won’t compromise the Games’ financial strength, a further reality of business today: sponsorship and media come before tickets for revenue generation.
Some new, young, clean U.S. track athletes shined in the Games (Justin Gatlin, Jeremy Wariner, Lauryn Williams, to name three). U.S. Track and Field needs to figure out how to promote these new faces in an effort to try to salvage the sport’s image in America.
When all the bills are in, the final cost of Athens 2004 may run as high as $9 billion, by some estimates. Ticket revenue came to maybe $250 million. That’s a heavy financial imbalance for a nation of 11 million citizens, who will be carrying the debt burden for years. As state-of-the-art facilities become more expensive and producing the Olympics becomes more elaborate, there’s a legitimate fear that future Games will be rotated among only a handful of cities that can afford them.
Some sharing of the expenses may be necessary to ensure that small nations such as Greece are not excluded from consideration as host sites to this global sporting competition. These are global games, by design. The international Olympic movement, which profits from international expectations, needs to keep it that way.
