The Olympics have jumped the shark
 

IOC officials, worried by the television images being flashed around the world of athletes competing in near empty stadiums, have told the Athens Games organisers to give tickets away for free if necessary.

At the 1988 Seoul Olympics, the then IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch told the Korean organisers to fix the situation and within 24 hours the main stadium was packed every day as school children and soldiers out of uniform were shipped in.

Four years ago in Sydney, free tickets were given away at the start of the Games after IOC complaints that there were not enough people in the stands.

"It is very important for the IOC that when people throughout the world watch the Games on television, they see filled stands. It reinforces the claim that the Olympics is the world's biggest sporting festival.

"Hugh blocks of vacant seats suggests the opposite and the IOC is very concious of its image," said an international marketing expert here for the Games.

people who paid will be pissed off

Who cares? It's all about the worldwide ad revenue. :glugglug

OMG, the olympics have already started. I missed it.

I wonder if they made the price out of reach of the average Athenian

wow thats ridiculous i didn't think this whole terrorism bullshit would have that big of an effect, considering they have a blimp, 9 helicopters, 4,000 cars and who knows how many people patrolling that shite

Anyone watch the weightlifting and boxing today?

... is actually wrong, as a matter of the fact it was really hard to get tickes, even for not so popular events like rowing.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...3723&printer=1


you = owned

"So far 2.9 million tickets have been sold out of a target of five million.

In Sydney, 9.5 million tickets were sold"

How so?

Jumpedtheshark, jumpedtheshark... welcome to Howard Stearn circa 2001.

read the thread title

I dont think its terrorism , I think the olympics are over hyped now and they have lost their charm.

I'd say the information is wrong, I was in sydney 4 years ago and could not get any tickets, so I decided to see the road cycling events, they were free to watch and did not require tickets.

i really do believe the info at yahoo.com is wrong.

no shit lmao

sucks to be them :1orglaugh

It's pretty simple: there are hundreds of thousands of tickets available for events taking place every day. This is the equivalent of 12 huge rock bands playing different venues every night for two weeks. You wouldn't expect every show to be sold out, would you?

Have you watched the olympics ? It's the best part laughing at the empty stadiums. The volleyball match yesterday probably had 80 - 90 % of the seats empty.

Uh...he's talking about the 2000 Sydney Games...which is where he's from. He's not quoting some online article...he's talking from experience.

FYI, yesterday was a special religious day in Greece.

oh yeah ? what kind ?

who do greeks worship ?

Agreed


The olympics suck.


X-Games... now thats fun to watch.
but curling? figure skating? pole vaulting? shot put? fuck that. I would much rather watch some kid doing back flips over helicopter rotors on his motocross bike.

Good point. It's still funny :1orglaugh

How dare his personal experience differe from some dubious news article. The news is always right! :1orglaugh