I'd be very surprised if this true. I'd say there's a lot of creative accounting going on, then. 'Course, having the games come to Chi-town, the home of creative political and civic accounting, will be most apt.
/i know in vancouver, they've already badly overrun their budget. but that is par for the course.
Well, with regards to the creative accounting, I think it's reasonable to allow for that when we consider just how much money hits the hands of local businesses, money that is often not recorded in the official tallies of what a Games was worth. When we talk about the trickling effect of all that spending and then the spending THAT generates...well, with the municipalities and state governments getting their piece of each subsequent transaction, they're an absolute can't-miss investment.
//all these modern games violate every olympic precept they supposedly promote 
That's the key right there and the reason that I've lost pretty much any interest in the Summer Olympics (one of our friends may be competing in Vancouver, so we've gotta go support her). They're no longer about the true spirit of 'sport', but rather the true spirit of 'cash'. Performance is now secondary to the money they expect to make. Take a sum total of all the media reports about a given athlete, say, Michael Phelps. Then look at how many of them talk about what his gold medals are expected to be worth. In fact, there are countless articles on his market value alone that mention NOTHING about his performances.
I accept that the Olympics are a business, but honestly, they just aren't for me anymore. It's just another big track meet, in my eyes.
