2018 Winter Olympics?

As a sign of our troubled economic times, a record low three candidates are vying for the 2018 Winter Games, and it will be interesting to follow their bid through July 6, 2011 when a winner is announced in Durban, South Africa. It would seem that the Korean city of Pyeong Chang after losing twice its Olympic bid to Vancouver and Sochi is the most likely to win the contest. Munich, in Germany, would split the Games between the large Bavarian city and Garmisch-Partenkirchen, which logistically makes a lot sense, while Annecy, France, would be largely scattered into a variety of well established venues, but awfully close in time and location to Albertville, the 1992 host city.

Since the Olympics have essentially become a huge commercial event, the right question to ask is who benefits the most from hosting this big world party? Most of the time, it is a handful of political personalities and self-promoters who see in that event a wonderful opportunity to become highly visible, perhaps famous for a moment (a turbo-charged version of Andy Warhol's fifteen minutes of fame,) get amazing access to money and influence for a few years and use it as a stepping stone for furthering other business or political ambitions.

Its grass-root support is fairly easy to garner by mobilizing the worst in people, like the populist, chauvinistic and nationalistic feelings eagerly supplied by the masses along with some vague promises of benefits that far outweigh the grim economic reality associated with this type of undertaking. From a fiduciary standpoint, the Games are generally guaranteed to lose huge sums of money that will eventually be extracted from the organizing country's tax payers. In this day and age, the Games aren't the type of unproductive endeavor a country wants, especially if the venues involved don't desperately need the promotion some would hope for.