Prices for spectators wishing to attend events at next year's London Olympics have been confirmed today, along with the detailed schedule for the Games. £2000 for the best seats at the opening ceremony! (For goodness sake, that's not even a sporting event). £750 for the men's 100 metres -- try figuring that out as a price per hour; makes the supposedly money-grubbing Premier League look pretty cheesy.
One way or another, showing up in person to watch the Olympics and the subsequent Paralympics is going to put a sizeable dent in even the fattest wallet. But, as the late, great Captain Beefheart once asked "What about after that? What about after that?".*
Well, UK Athletics certainly won't be filling the stadium once the Games are over. Here's an extract from an article in today's Guardian:
UK Athletics has admitted it will be almost impossible to fill the Olympic Stadium when it stages meetings following the Olympics. The main event, the two-day London Diamond League Grand Prix, attracts a 17,000 capacity crowd to Crystal Palace where it is currently held and some of the lesser meetings are likely to struggle to attract spectators.
The next most prestigious events are the UK Championships, currently held at Birmingham's Alexander Stadium which has a capacity of approximately 8,000. Ed Warner, chairman of UK Athletics, a partner in West Ham United's bid, said those national championships attract a crowd "in the high single thousands".
He acknowledged that the other athletics event on the list, which includes the English Schools championships, south of England senior and junior championships, and Newham and Essex Beagles' British Athletics League meets, will be watched in a mostly empty stadium.
Do you like the "almost" in the opening sentence? If UK Athletics wanted to be even more honest (but hey, why start now?), it would maybe admit that it will also be "almost" impossible to fill the Stadium even during the Games, apart from the opening ceremony and the men's 100.
It's frankly scandalous. Having used false cost estimates to bamboozle the government of the day and the taxpayer into paying for this extravaganza, UK Athletics still feels entitled to demand that the athletics track remain in place at the stadium after the Games are over. Amazingly, and despite the fact that this will require the local council (impoverished Newham) to guarantee a further £40 million loan to assist with the conversion work, this seems likely to happen. These games are firmly on track to be the biggest financial boondoggle since the Montreal Olympiad back in 1976.
* Dropout Boogie
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