2024-08-30 06:06:06
The 2024 Summer Paralympic Games are underway and the event fever is still building in Paris. Some 4,400 athletes will take to the world stage to compete in 22 different sports.
The Paris Paralympics attracted more than 2 million tickets Now sold. Some now Speculation The event has the potential to make Paralympic history and become the first ever sold-out event in Paralympic history.
This raises some important questions for host cities. How do the economic benefits of the Paralympics compare to the Olympics? Who will get the broadcast rights?
Most importantly, what legacy can the event itself (not linked to the Olympics) bring to Paris? The Olympics will bring the expected economic benefits, but their real value lies in the growing attention they will bring to elite para sport.
These games are closely linked
It is well known that the costs of hosting the Olympic Games can far exceed initial estimates. Since the early 2000s, host cities have also been awarded the right to host the Paralympic Games, meaning that the economic benefits of the two, as well as the risk of cost overruns, are closely linked.
Oxford University recently Report This suggests the total cost of the 2024 Paris Olympics is $12.8 billion, an overspend of about 115%.
Long-standing concerns about cost overruns prompted the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to develop theThe new normalThe 2018 Olympics model was approved in 2018 and contains 118 reforms aimed at reducing the financial burden of hosting the Games.
The Paris Olympics actively adopted several elements of this model. Some of these initiatives (which have also been continued at the Paralympics) include the use of existing infrastructure and attractions wherever possible, as well as the extensive use of temporary venues.
Christoph Einer/AP
The Paris Paralympic Village has design Achieve 100% accessibility and reuse much of the Olympic infrastructure.
Since the sports involved in the Paralympics are different from those of the Olympics, a series of venues have been reused, for example the volleyball court of the Eiffel Tower will be used to host blind football matches.
Making Paris more accessible to everyone
Paris has taken a series of measures to make the city more accessible, and around 350,000 disabled tourists are expected to attend the Olympics.
These include repairing damaged roads, lowering pavements to improve road intersections and installing new warning strips and traffic lights.
The city also spent €22 million ($35.8 million) to fully operationalise 59 of the 61 bus routes.
Roman Zaitz/Shutterstock
Because these infrastructure improvements need to be implemented quickly, the cost of the improvements is likely to increase.
But for Paris, as a structural legacy of the 2024 Paralympic Games, they will undoubtedly bring long-term benefits to city users and future visitors.
Tourism boom?
Hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games can quickly put a city in the international spotlight, and the resulting tourism boom is considered one of the biggest benefits of hosting the Olympics.
Given that France is already the world’s Most visited A country popular with international tourists.
It’s hard to pinpoint the exact impact the Paralympics will have on tourism, especially compared to the Olympics, but we can look back at past Paralympics.
one Polls A survey of visitors to the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics group found a significant difference in average daily tourism expenditure between Olympic visitors ($381) and Paralympic visitors ($281). This was due to higher ticket and transport costs for Olympic visitors.
But tourists traveling to the Paralympics stayed longer in their destination, meaning that total expenditures were similar between the two groups.
The two groups of tourists also have slightly different motivations. Olympic tourists are more focused on the games, while Paralympic tourists tend to seek out the festive atmosphere that the Olympics bring to a destination.
Jeff Crowe/AAP
What about broadcasting rights?
for For the first time in historyThe Paris Games will broadcast all 22 Paralympic sports live through a record number of global media partners, but they are not automatically included in the Olympic broadcast rights.
In Australia, Channel Nine Paid It paid the International Olympic Committee A$305 million for exclusive broadcasting rights for the Olympic Games from 2024 to 2032. It also negotiated with the Australian Paralympic Committee to secure media rights for the 2024 Paralympic Games.
The exact amount of the second contract has not been made public, but as the Paralympic Games involve fewer sporting events, it is likely to be lower than the cost of Olympic coverage.
Both transactions brought huge profits to the network. At the beginning of August, Nine had received more than AUD 140 million Advertising revenue from Olympic and Paralympic Games coverage.
Where is the real value?
Beyond the economic factors, many believe the real value of hosting the Paralympics lies in the opportunity to put elite para-sport in the spotlight.
Media coverage of the Paralympics has been problematic in the past, focusing on athletes’ disabilities rather than their performances.
Joel Marklund/EPA
As media coverage of the 2024 Paris Olympics reaches record levels, the International Paralympic Committee has launched a major Social Media Activities It is emphasized that athletes with disabilities are not “participating” in competitions, but “competing”.
We are now hoping that cities like Brisbane, which will host the Olympics in 2032, can learn from Paris, improve accessibility across the city and avoid some of the historic cost overruns of previous Olympic and Paralympic Games.
1725140059
#Paralympics #bring #economic #benefits #host #cities #leave #unique #legacy
