Olympics 2012

Should England pull out of hosting the 2012 Olympics? Cost have tripled to date and one of the leading advocates and Olympic executives in England recently indicated that if they would have seen the economic collapse coming, they would not have bid to host the Olympics. Maybe we should put some limits on how much countries can spend on the Olympics. It is really nice to have a great and expensive party. However, if people are not receiving the health care and food they need, maybe we should spend less on the Olympics and more on ordinary people.Gil-

Death Sentence

A Beijing Olympic official was found guilty of corruption and paid the ultimate price. Beijing's Vice Mayor Liu Zhihua was fired from his job overseeing Olympic construction projects for allegedly accepting bribes. Liu was originally sentenced to death, but if he has good behaviour in prison over the next two years his sentence can be commuted to life in prison. This story was published in last week's Sports Illustrated.

Post Olympics Glow

Have the Olympics hurt or helped China? My feeling after seeing all the changes and developments in China is that they have taken several steps forward. They are still developing and implementing new ideas so the end benefit might be several years away. However, the process is starting and I look forward to significant growth in the China sport market.

Chinese Clean-up

The efforts to make Beijing cleaner are underway and they seem to be making only a minimal impact on the "fog" that hangs over the city and the games. The Minister of Environmental Protection announced yesterday new regulations to close down additional factories, steel plants, and coal-fired power plants if the air quality does not improve. Further measures include taking more cars off the road and possibly stopping additional construction. While these efforts are needed, long-term solutions are the more important goal and as someone who has witnessed first hand the conditions in Beijing, I applaud any long-term strategies that can make the air and living conditions better for all the city residents.
Gil-

Beijing to allow protests

The director of security for the Beijing Olympic organizing committee has confirmed that demonstrations will be allowed at three parks around Beijing. Even though the protest areas will be several miles from most Olympic venues, this is nothing new. I am not talking about China, I am talking about pushing protests away from sport venues in the United States. Several years ago a women's group wanted to protest a major golf tournament and the city and police pushed them away to an area a mile from the club and in an area where no one could see them. A court later held that the rules adopted by the city purportedly to insure safety, were designed to limit free speech.
Gil-

Olympic Security

In order to help provide a safe Olympic games, the Chinese government has mobilized an anti-terrorism force of 100,000 to protect the games. This is in addition to 500,000 citizen volunteers who will be street corners monitoring activity and suspicious activity. The Chinese government has also offered a significant cash reward to anyone who tips the police about potential terrorist threats. Lets hope it will be a safe games.
Gil-

Freedom of Press?

While NBC was hoping for greater access, only time will tell how much freedom the press will have. With the Olympic just around the corner, we should get ready for significant changes to how the American viewing population has become accustomed to watching the games. In a recent article the Wall Street Journal highlighted that satellite application for western broadcasters have been denied for those wishing to broadcast live from non-Olympic venues. This move can minimize the potential for political opposition being broadcast, but could also lead to fewer feel good stories that the American viewing audience has grown to love. Such vignettes have been a great source of information for Americans to learn about other cultures/people.
Gil-
p.s. with Miller and Coors joining forces and having one shared office in Chicago they will spend less on sponsorship and GM just announced significant cuts in sponsorship spending, including Cutting spending on NASCAR. On July 17, AB executives told the Associated Press that sport spending will stay the same...and maybe even increase under the new ownership group.

Urban planning for the Olympics

Sasaki Associates is a larger urban-design firms recently completed a student recreation center on our campus. That was not as great news as their efforts to revitalize and change the campus flow and look. What does this have to do with international sport management? Sasaki won an international competition (from among 90 firms) to create the master plan for Forest Park and the Olympic district in Beijing. The project was not just a project to build stadiums. In fact, the emphasis was on designing a sustainable community hub to last for years after the games. Sasaki designers created such an environment linking stadiums, housing, museums, hotels, conference center, retail stores, and Forest park-the largest park in Beijing. The designers have been able to create an open and welcoming environment and the citizen’s of Beijing will be able to enjoy the foresight for years to come.

Ambush Marketing in Chian

In anticipation of potential ambush marketing during the Olympics, The Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG) and the China Advertising Association jointly issued an anti ambush marketing proposals including:

• Giving priority to all prominent advertising sites between July 11th-Sept. 17th to official Olympic sponsors,
• Companies will be monitored for illegal advertising or unauthorized use of Olympic symbols and all violators will be harshly punished,
• Individual spectators will be barred from engaging in ambush marketing and tickets have a warning indicating that patrons can be removed if, for example, a group is seen wearing the same unofficial logos and sitting all together,
• Patrons will also not be able to bring in any drinks into Olympic venues and once inside the venues they only will be able to purchase Coke products, and
• From Aug 1-27 there can be no advertisements featuring participants in the Olympics and television stations are barred from showing advertisements from unofficial sponsors during any of the Olympic related programs they broadcast.

These are the first significant anti-ambush marketing laws/regulations I have seen that can be enforced. It will be interested to see if there are any attempts at ambush marketing, or if companies might shy away from the practice to avoid angering the Chinese government and possibly hurting their potential to tap the Chinese market in the future.
Gil-

Marion Jones

Is six months too little? That should be the question when you look at the sentencing of Marion Jones. While that is what the prosecutors suggested, the judge, Kenneth Karas, was thinking that more time would have sent a better message to other potential cheaters. Marion cheated more than just herself. She cheated fans and teammates. The judge felt that even after admitting to cheating and returning her Olympic medals, Jones was still not being truthful. Once someone cheats, they can make a thousand excuses or additional lies to make themselves believe that they did not do anything wrong. Here she did something wrong and the punishment still does not fit the crime.
Gil-