The Olympics came home to Greece at the weekend but nobody was in. Three days into the 28th modern Olympiad, officials in Athens are under pressure from the International Olympic Committee to paper the city with free tickets if necessary to solve the growing crisis of low turn-outs. Broadcasters cringed as television audiences around the world saw tennis, weightlifting, hockey and gymnastics played out in half-empty stadiums.Even last night's main attraction - the clash of the two young Titans of the pool, Ian Thorpe and Michael Phelps - failed to sell out as Athenians declined to buy into the rhetoric of the great Olympic homecoming.
I watched some Beach Volleyball, and it was pretty easy to count the seats that were filled. Looks like this could get ugly.
I was surprised that Bob Costas took the time to explain the reason for the empty seats the other night during the prime-time broadcast, I had heard for awhile now that not only is August the semi-official holiday month in Greece when many people leave on vacation to other places, but Sunday was one of the biggest religious holidays in the Greek Orthodox church, and there have also been currency fluctuations with the euro that have raised ticket prices beyond levels that were originally planned.
I saw some beach volleyball that did pretty well. But I’m wondering if some of this is the attitude that they’re watching their own athletes and no others. I remember seeing World Cup highlights from Italy in which non-Euro teams had a lot of empty seats.
Of course, Greece is one-tenth our size, and the travel isn’t as easy as other locations.
All of which people should’ve known seven years ago.
I watched some of the gymnastic competition and the seats were much more than just half empty (more like 4/5ths). I’ve seen higher attendance at girl’s high school basketball games.
Half-empty is being generous. As for the excuses, gee, if they are all on holiday then attendance should actually be higher, not lower, right? What it also means is that virtually no one travelled to Greece to watch the games from the rest of the world. Whether it is because Athens isn’t really all that nice a place, the concerns about security, the mess that they had getting everything together towards the end, or all of the above, Greece is going to wish they had never hosted these Olympic Games for a long time.
Greece only has 11 million people and they may lose billions on these games. That’s a big problem for a small, poor country. Gee, maybe the EU will come and bail them out.