China's Empty Nest

I love the guy at the beginning who says "It's not about the money, it's about spirit." Easy to say when it's not your money!

How can a stadium not be used for anything? Olympic Stadium in Montreal, the biggest debacle of all time, still held many events afterwards like baseball, football, concerts. Even though it went way over-budget it did recup it's losses over the years and is still in use today.

The problem in China was the built EVERYTHING new and in one central area. Again using the Montreal example they used alot of existing arenas in 1976. Remember Sugar Ray Leonard's gold medal? That was at the Maurice Richard Arena. Remember Nadia Comaneci's perfect 10? That was at the famous Montreal Forum. And they still lost a tonne of money.

China is getting no return at all. The Chinese prepared for years and spent billions of dollars for essential a 2 week orgasm. The Bird's Nest should be China's Wembley stadium. They could have Chinese national team soccer games there plus concerts. But in China every needs security (cause we all know the Chinese are a fanatical, rioting kind of people) and everything is corrupt. Six or seven million dollars a day to hold an event there? Holy shit how many people have their hands in the pie?

We'll see what London does in 2012 but I don't think they're building much from scratch. They will build a new Olympic Stadium but the tennis will be at Wimbledon, the soccer will be at Wembley, and the basketball will be at the O2 Arena. That will reduce alot of costs.