Chicago Olympics 2016?

from today's Crain's Chicago Business (1/15/2008)

Chicago details Olympic costs, hopes for 2016


By Greg Hinz
Jan. 15, 2008

"Crain’s) — City Hall Tuesday began to lift some of the financial veil which has shrouded Chicago’s bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Officials described an event that would cost $2 billion to house and provide a place for athletes to compete. At the same time, the games would take in a projected $2.5 billion in domestic sponsorship and ticket sales." ...

"Mr. Ryan said the city expects to spend about $900 million in 2007 dollars to build and/or revamp 27 new or temporary venues for different sports — roughly in the range that outside sports experts had expected.

The biggest chunk, $385.9 million, would go for construction of a stadium for opening and closing ceremonies in Washington Park in the mid-South Side.

Another $107 million would be needed for a new aquatic center, $80 million for a rowing course and $137 million for other temporary facilities, many of them to be located in or near McCormick Place and Northerly Island.

The cost of building an Olympic Village on air-rights over a parking lot just south of McCormick Place still is projected at $1.1 billion, Mr. Ryan said, but all costs will be born by an as yet unselected developer, who will be able to convert the village into market-rate condominiums and rental apartments after the games.

The city at this point was not required to disclose the projected operating budget for the 2016 games and did not do so.

But outside analysts say it easily could cost $3 billion to run the games on top of the roughly $2 billion the city now says it will need for construction.

To offset those costs, Mr. Ryan said the local organizers believe that Chicago games would pull in $2.5 billion in domestic revenues — not counting the city’s cut of income from international TV rights.

The biggest share of the $2.5 billion would be sponsorships, with 10 corporate partners providing an average of $110 million each and 52 others contributing about $10 million each for a total of $1.26 billion in projected corporate sponsorships.

An additional $705 million would come from sales of tickets, with the average price at $75 and 45% priced at under $50.

Other income would include $170 million from merchandising rights, and $143 million in income from the Paralympics, which would follow the Olympics by a few days.

Under questioning, Mr. Ryan conceded that Chicago apparently is projecting more local revenue than some other cities." ...

"“Our argument is not that [Chicago’s venues] are compact. It’s where they’re compact, in the heart of our city,” said Chicago 2016 Vice-President Doug Arnot. Another Chicago advantage is ethnic diversity, he said, something that was on display during the recent world boxing championships here when groups of immigrant Chicagoans from the Ukraine, Poland and other countries showed up to cheer on the team from their native countries.

Another feature of the Chicago bid is that the amount of construction of one-time facilities will be limited.

“There’s no white elephants,” Mr. Ryan said, a blight that has afflicted prior Olympics cities but something that international officials hope to avoid this time.

Assuming Chicago makes the short list in June, it will spend about $49 million for the final campaign, Mr. Ryan said, with the winner to be announced at a meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark in November, 2009."

for the complete story see:
http://chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=27767