On the first anniversary of the countdown to the Olympic Games, I revisited Dr. Li Xiaolin and asked him to talk about the risks facing the Olympic Games today from a historical perspective.
"Every Olympic Games has its own risks, such as Sydney, Atlanta and Barcelona. Since the signing of the first contract related to the Olympic Games, the risk has been with us. " Li Xiaolin said: "It is not because the time and place of an Olympic Games are different from the past that the risks are completely different, but there are some differences."
He analyzed it from the perspective of theoretical research. Generally speaking, the risks faced by the Olympic Games mainly include the following categories:
I. Financial risks
Financial risk refers to the risk that customers, suppliers or sponsors who have reached an agreement with the Organizing Committee cancel the agreement due to bankruptcy, non-compliance or non-performance of obligations, and the income of the Organizing Committee cannot be realized (including losses caused by interest rate and exchange rate risks), as well as TV broadcast cancellation, advertising revenue, interest rate or exchange rate changes and other risks.
For example, in the process of organizing and implementing the Olympic Games, some sponsors cannot fulfill the agreement for various reasons, which may cause risks to the organizers; Because sponsors are playing an increasingly important role in the Olympic Games. For example, during the Barcelona Olympic Games in 192, the advertising share of the official sponsors selected by the Olympic Organizing Committee in global television broadcast was 10%, while it was 75% during the Sydney Olympic Games. In addition, 65,438+006 enterprises have become various sponsors of the Sydney Olympic Games, including 24 top sponsors (including 65,438+03 Australian companies), 65,438+08 supporters, 40 general product suppliers and 24 sports product suppliers. The Organizing Committee of Seoul Olympic Games signed sponsorship contracts with 23 companies as formal suppliers, 57 trading companies and 62 trading companies as licenses. The sponsorship activities jointly carried out by the Atlanta Olympic Organizing Committee and the US Olympic Committee earned 537.4 million US dollars.
Second, the risk of loss in business activities.
The risk of event management loss refers to the risk of partially or completely canceling the whole event due to unexpected events and event interruption. This kind of risk is the biggest risk for the organizers of the Olympic Games, because the purpose of the whole Olympic Games operation is to ensure the smooth progress of the final events. Once the event is partially or completely cancelled, there will be a chain reaction, leading to heavy losses. Such as ticket revenue loss, TV broadcast refund, etc.
Ticket revenue is often an important source of Olympic revenue, and the cancellation of the event will directly affect the ticket revenue. Tickets for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Seoul Olympic Games alone sold 107368 tickets, earning11500 million won. The Sydney Olympic Games sold 6.68 million tickets, with a direct economic income of 460 million US dollars. 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games * * * sold about 1 1 10,000 tickets, with an average ticket price of $40, and the ticket revenue reached $468 million, accounting for 26% of the total revenue of the organizing committee.
Television broadcasting income has become the main economic source of modern Olympic Games. For example, 65,438+040 countries, including 226 broadcasting companies, have signed TV broadcasting rights contracts and agreements with the organizers of the Seoul Olympic Games. Television broadcasting fee income reached 403.6 million dollars. Organizers received 75% of it, or $308 million, and the remaining 25% belonged to the International Olympic Committee. These TV broadcasting fees accounted for 34% of the direct funds needed for the conference. The economic income brought by the TV broadcast of Sydney Olympic Games is even as high as $6543.8+33.2 million.
All previous Olympic Games organizing committees have signed broadcasting rights contracts with international television broadcasters, stipulating that when the Olympic Games are cancelled or postponed for specific reasons (such as missing the weekend), the organizers of the Olympic Games should refund part or even all of the prepaid broadcasting fees. However, in fact, this expense has already been used in the preparations for the Olympic Games. Once the Olympic Games are cancelled or postponed, the organizers will face the dilemma of being unable to pay and fall into a great financial crisis. For example, for the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games, the organizers were forced to refund the TV broadcasting fee due to the boycott of the United States. Another example: 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games and 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics, the bomb explosion and abnormal weather almost caused the TV broadcast fee to be refunded. Usually, the IOC also has specific requirements for organizers to spread the risks.
Third, the risk of property loss.
The risk of property loss mainly refers to the losses caused by the following events, including: damage to Olympic buildings; Property loss, fire, explosion, vandalism, equipment damage (losses caused by external factors or improper use of computer systems and auxiliary equipment, competition equipment, television, telephone, hi-fi equipment, office and medical equipment) and related financial risks, theft, fraud, misappropriation, etc. Transportation insurance (the risk of loss of related goods during transportation) and automobile insurance (the risk of loss caused by accidents such as collision).
4. Obligations and responsibilities committed due to the requirements of laws or agreements and the requirements of the International Olympic Committee.
Verb (abbreviation for verb) Risk of accidental personal injury.
Personal accidental injury risk mainly refers to personal accidental injury caused by industrial accidents, traffic accidents and other accidents related to Olympic activities, specifically the losses caused by death, disability, medical expenses, nursing/repatriation, etc.
Relevant personnel of Olympic activities include those who have labor contract relations with the organizers and other relevant personnel. The former includes staff employed by organizers for a long time or temporarily, as well as volunteers, whose personal accident risks are sometimes reflected in the form of employer's responsibility; The latter mainly refers to the accidental injuries of Olympic participants, media, intermediaries and spectators.
Other unexpected risks of intransitive verbs
Mainly refers to the following risks: technical risks (TV signal failure, etc. ), climate risk (rain, wind, earthquake), political risk (boycott, terrorism, war), natural disaster risk, income failure risk (TV broadcasting rights, viewing tickets, sponsorship, commodities), extra expenses (unexpected expenses lead to a serious shortage of mobile expenses).
Seven. Debt risk
Li Xiaolin believes that the big problem of property insurance is not the risk of the Olympic Games, but the liability risk. From the establishment to the dissolution of the organizing committee, even after the dissolution, there are many liability risks related to the Olympic Games, and some problems even appear after the Olympic Games. Among them, the losses caused by the personal decision-making mistakes of the management of the organizing Committee are more losses caused by non-decision-making mistakes and many uncertain factors. These liability risks mainly involve the responsibilities of the following organizations or personnel, including: organizers of sports competitions (including personal responsibilities and professional responsibilities of relevant responsible persons of the Olympic Organizing Committee), travel agencies, employees, marketing (including product responsibilities), experts in equipment, organizers of medical facilities and so on.
Eight. environmental risk
Environmental risk refers to the direct or indirect impact on the protection of the atmosphere, water, soil and other environmental factors during the preparation and holding of the Olympic Games, as well as the destruction of archaeological sites and historical sites during the construction of stadiums, roads, related facilities and other buildings, especially during the construction of underground projects.
According to the degree of influence of the above risks on the Olympic Games, Li Xiaolin divides them into two categories: one is the risk that threatens the Olympic Games to be held as scheduled and planned, such as the first three risks mentioned above; The other is the non-core risks that can have an impact on the Olympic Games, but the impact is limited to a certain range: the latter five risks mentioned above. Therefore, the first type of risk should be paid more attention and considered.
In addition to the overall risk, Li Xiaolin believes that due to the different time and place of each Olympic Games, there will be some different degrees of risk in the following aspects:
I. Traffic risks
Traffic risk means that athletes, government officials or TV reporters can't get to the stadium because of road congestion, TV broadcast can't be carried out as scheduled, or the sports competition itself can't be held.
Atlanta 1996 Summer Olympic Games once proved that "problem" roads and traffic are very difficult. Atlanta can provide 16 Olympic venues in Fiona Fang, 2.5km away from the Olympic Village, but one of the competitions will be held in Sepina, 400km away. Research shows that during the climax of the Atlanta Olympic Games, 700,000 people need 1932 buses, 2 18 luggage carts and 2,300 cars a day. The arrangement of public transportation often seems too little, so we have to turn to the school bus or other departments for support.
In the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, all Olympic venues were located within 20km of Fiona Fang Olympic Park, and only two stadiums were 40km apart.
Second, infrastructure risks.
The infrastructure of the Olympic Games includes not only newly-built sports facilities, but also stadiums, news centers, Olympic villages and accommodation for male and female athletes, officials, media and spectators. The functions of some buildings can replace each other, but there must be emergency standby buildings to ensure that some accidents will not affect the smooth progress of the Olympic Games. The total loss of sports venues usually means the cancellation of related events.
Third, the possible risks of TV broadcasting.
Television workers need to start debugging the technical equipment of competition venues at the right time to ensure high-quality broadcast pictures. If the venue changes suddenly, there will be many problems, such as poor lighting, unsatisfactory sound effect, unsuitable logistics service and TV signal transmission, which will affect the normal TV broadcast and bring economic losses. For example, in history, people in charge of sports facilities thought that if the original stadium could not be used, an old stadium could be used to hold the competition. But when they consulted TV workers, they were told that although the old gymnasium had the necessary equipment, the lighting was not enough to produce the necessary quality TV pictures.
Fourth, the risk of adjusting the competition schedule.
In any Olympic Games, abnormal weather has the risk of affecting the competition schedule. Some events are usually held at the beginning of the sports meeting, because postponing these events will bring greater risks than others. On the other hand, some extremely wonderful programs are often arranged on weekends, sometimes even on the weekend of the last week of the sports meeting. This is the time when the audience is the largest and public activities are the most concerned. This requires a more comprehensive risk management plan.
Verb (abbreviation for verb) security risk
In the security of the Olympic Games, the first priority is the direct safety of all participants, and the choice of the venue of the event is very important for security issues.
The risk of intransitive verb boycott.
Since 1980 Moscow Olympic Games and 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, the Olympic Organizing Committee has been well aware of the risks brought by a team's boycott. Li Xiaolin added: "Although this possibility has been greatly reduced now."
The Moscow and Los Angeles Olympic Games showed the impact of boycott. When the American team refused to participate in the Moscow Olympic Games to protest the war in Afghanistan, TV companies, especially some companies in North America, suffered a huge blow. However, the situation of 1984 is completely different. The former Soviet team refused to take part in retaliation, but this did not lead to ABC's loss. On the contrary, because of the absence of the Soviet Union, the United States won more medals than before and attracted more audiences. This example shows that the risks associated with each location can be very different. It mainly depends on American companies, and recently it also includes the huge fees paid by European companies for TV broadcasting rights.
Seven. Risks caused by the organizer's domestic situation
At the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games, student protests are likely to cause serious problems.
The risk of strike is more fatal to some extent. A strike will completely paralyze the transportation system. 1997 French truck drivers' traffic jams paralyzed the whole country, because the holiday traffic on expressway was restricted in midsummer.
Eight. Risks caused by terrorist acts
What international sports fear most is large-scale terrorist incidents. Since 1972 Munich Olympic Games, terrorism has become one of the most noteworthy aspects of Olympic risks.
More carefully, before 1992, the Summer Olympic Games and the Winter Olympic Games were held in the same year. Since the Winter Olympics in 1994, the Summer Olympic Games and the Winter Olympic Games have been held alternately every two years. More countries participated in the Summer Olympic Games, attracting more international attention. Therefore, for the Summer Olympic Games, the risk of terrorist activities caused by politics and religion is much higher.
Nine. War risk
Li Xiaolin said that the assessment of war risk depends largely on its definition. He believes that it is easy to estimate the possibility of war if it is limited to the risk that the host country will cancel its activities due to war. However, the risk of cancellation directly or indirectly caused by war in a certain part of the world is much more complicated. If a war breaks out somewhere in the world and a country or team is prevented from participating in the sports meeting, the situation will be different.
X. Climate risk
In the Summer Olympic Games, weather risk is still a big problem. For example, competitions or water sports competitions are rarely cancelled completely because of bad weather, but rain and strong winds can indeed lead to the postponement or cancellation of competitions, and unstable weather represents risks.