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Here on THE INDICATOR, we've been keeping a very close eye on the Olympic medal tables.
我们一直密切关注着奥运奖牌榜。
Yes, but a special type of medal table. Which city had the most expensive Summer Olympics ever? 'Cause we want to know why the Olympics are so costly and what can be done about it.
是的，但奖牌榜很特别。哪个城市的夏季奥运会花费最多？因为我们想知道奥运会为何如此昂贵，以及可以做些什么。
Look, this is a multinational competition for the ages. You've got Tokyo coming in third place. It's $14 billion.
看，这是一场历久弥新的跨国竞赛。东京位居第三。花费140亿美元。
That's in 2022 dollars, which we'll use for the rest of the show. So, Tokyo, you have a bronze.
这是2022年的美元汇率，我们将在接下来的节目中使用它。东京获得了铜牌。
London 2012 was $17 billion. That's the silver. Congrats, London. And for gold, Rio 2016 at $24 billion.
2012年伦敦奥运会花费170亿美元，获得银牌。恭喜伦敦。而金牌是2016年里约奥运会，花费240亿美元。
Womp, womp. It is a disastrous amount of money for that gold medal. It is $1 for every 8 that was earned in Rio de Janeiro that year.
这枚金牌的金额太可怕了。里约热内卢当年的收入中，每8美元就有1美元投入奥运会。
Costs were equivalent to roughly $1,800 for every adult and child living there. CBS covered this in 2016.
成本相当于每个居住在那里的成人和儿童的生活费用，大约1800美元。CBS在2016年报道过此事。
Rio has cut spending on healthcare and education. The police have gone unpaid for weeks at a time, and 20% of the population here...
里约削减了医疗和教育支出。警察一度数周没有领到工资，这里20%的人口……
So you're telling me they spent so much on the Olympics they had to cut basic services?
所以你是说他们在奥运会上花了这么多钱，以至于不得不削减基本服务？
Yeah. And they were asking the Brazilian government for a bailout. It was a complete mess. Paris is also on the expensive side this year.
是的。他们要求巴西政府救助。情况一团糟。今年巴黎的花费也比较昂贵。
It ranks fifth in Olympics Games expenses since 1960 - where data was available - $8.7 billion.
自1960年以来，巴黎奥运会的开支排名第五，87亿美元。
The Paris Games are also extremely over budget, more than double Paris' original bid.
巴黎奥运会的预算也严重超支，是巴黎最初申办的两倍多。
These costs are getting so high the International Olympic Committee is finding it harder to lock in host cities.
这些成本越来越高，国际奥委会发现很难锁定主办城市。
This is THE INDICATOR FROM PLANET MONEY. I'm Wailin Wong. And I'm Darian Woods.
这是THE INDICATOR FROM PLANET MONEY。我是Wailin Wong。我是Darian Woods。
Today on the show, why are the Olympics always over budget, often by billions? We crunch the numbers with a project management specialist.
今天在节目中，我们将讨论为什么奥运会总是超出预算，通常超支数十亿美元？我们与项目管理专家一起分析了这些数字。
We ask whether it ever makes sense for a city to host an Olympic Games. And we learn what could be the Olympics' original economic sin.
一个城市举办奥运会是否合理？奥运会的原罪是什么？
If you're a city thinking about hosting the Olympics, first, you might want to read research by Professor Bent Flyvbjerg and his co-authors.
如果你是一个正在考虑举办奥运会的城市，首先，你可能想读一读傅以斌教授及其合著者的研究。
That's what Rome's mayor did several years ago when the city was bidding for the 2024 Olympics.
几年前，罗马市长在申办2024年奥运会时就是这么做的。
The mayor of Rome met the world press, you know, and I couldn't believe it.
罗马市长会见了世界媒体，我简直不敢相信。
She was holding our study in her hand and said, we are withdrawing from the bid process because I read this report, and Rome cannot afford this.
她手里拿着我们的研究报告，说我们退出申办程序，因为我读过这份报告，罗马负担不起。
She's saying it's irresponsible to say yes to this candidacy. So the way the Olympics works is this. Cities submit bids for their vision, plans and budget for a future Olympic Games.
她说同意申办是不负责任的。奥运会的运作方式是这样的。城市提交他们对未来奥运会的愿景、计划和预算的竞标书。
A city is then chosen. The International Olympic Committee pays for some operational costs, like the Games' broadcasting, but the host city is on the hook for pretty much everything else - the stadiums, the Olympic Village, security.
然后选择一个城市。国际奥委会支付一些运营成本，比如奥运会的转播，但主办城市要承担几乎所有其他费用——体育场、奥运村、安保。
And essentially, whatever the IOC asks for, the host city has to pay. Any cost overruns are the city's responsibility.
基本上，无论国际奥委会要求什么，主办城市都必须支付。任何超支都是城市的责任。
We find that there's not one instance of an Olympics that were delivered to budgets, which is really unusual.
我们发现，没有一届奥运会是在预算之内完成的，这真的很不寻常。
We study a lot of other project types, so the Olympics are unique in this sense, that we cannot find one example of them being delivered to budget.
我们研究了许多其他类型的项目，所以奥运会在这个意义上是独一无二的，我们找不到一个在预算之内完成的例子。
You'd think after the second or third or fourth time of over budget, they might adjust their estimates. Well, yeah, but they don't. They don't.
你可能会认为，在第二次、第三次或第四次超出预算后，他们可能会调整预算。是的，但他们没有。他们没有。
Well, that's that. Case closed. It's like, we simply refuse. Bent says one big reason for this is something he calls eternal beginner syndrome. As in the host cities, or at least the people who run, them are always newbies.
情况就是这样。我们只是拒绝。傅以斌说，造成这种情况的一个重要原因是“永远的初学者综合征”。就像主办城市一样，或者至少是管理者，他们总是新手。
There is always a beginner who is planning and putting on the Olympics. And we know from other projects that you want experienced people to do things like this, not beginners.
总有一个新手在计划和举办奥运会。我们从其他项目中知道，你希望有经验的人来做这样的事情，而不是新手。
Also, a lot of big projects delay their completion date when things go wrong. But being late is not an option for the Olympics. So instead, the costs get blown out.
此外，许多大型项目在出现问题时会推迟完成日期。但奥运会不能迟到。因此，成本反而会过高。
The big reason, perhaps the original economic sin of the Olympics, is the way those contracts are arranged, how the International Olympic Committee decides which city hosts and how much of the Games are going to be run, with the city paying for most of it and any extra costs.
主要原因，也许是奥运会的原罪，是这些合同的安排方式，国际奥委会如何决定哪个城市主办以及奥运会的举办程度，城市将支付大部分费用和任何额外费用。
Just imagine if you're going to build a new house and you can write the specs and you don't have to pay the bill.
试想一下，如果你要建一栋新房子，你可以写出规格说明，而不必支付账单。
That would be great. I'd have a swimming pool. I'd have maybe an elevator. Why not?
那太好了。我会有一个游泳池。我可能会有一部电梯。为什么不呢？
Exactly, and gold handles. And that's exactly what the Olympics look like.
没错，还有金把手。奥运会就是这样的。
The IOC is aware of this issue of high costs. Rome pulling out of 2016 is just one example. In response, the IOC has tried to make the Games cheaper to host. And the first initiative is learning.
国际奥委会意识到了高成本的问题。罗马退出2016年奥运会只是一个例子。作为回应，国际奥委会试图降低奥运会的举办成本。第一个举措就是学习。
Around Sydney, 2000, they did something they called a knowledge-sharing program.
2000年悉尼奥运会前后，他们做了一项他们称之为知识共享计划的事情。
So the host of the next Olympics can sit on meetings and planning for the current Olympics.
这样下一届奥运会的主办国就可以参加会议并规划本届奥运会。
And it's a good idea, you know, so that we don't have to make the same mistakes over and over.
这是一个好主意，这样我们就不必一遍又一遍地犯同样的错误。
Unfortunately, though, Bent and his colleagues' research concludes that it didn't really reduce costs.
然而不幸的是，傅以斌及其同事的研究得出结论，这并没有真正降低成本。
Another thing the IOC is trying - modular designs. This means blueprints for stadiums that any country can pick up and use.
国际奥委会正在尝试的另一件事是模块化设计。这意味着任何国家都可以获得并使用体育场馆的蓝图。
Bent supports this, but he hasn't seen evidence that it's really been pushed to host cities in a way that can make the Olympics cheaper and easier to plan.
傅以斌支持这种做法，但他没有看到证据表明主办城市真的被推行了这种做法，从而使奥运会更便宜、更容易规划。
Another tactic the IOC is using to try to lower costs - renovating existing buildings.
国际奥委会试图降低成本的另一种策略是翻新现有建筑。
That's something you're seeing a lot with the Paris Olympics - fencing and taekwondo in the epic glass and steel Grand Palais. You've got equestrian at the Versaille Palace Gardens.
巴黎奥运会上经常可以看到这种做法——在宏伟的玻璃和钢铁大皇宫里进行击剑和跆拳道比赛。凡尔赛宫花园里有马术比赛。
Versaille, famous for being a symbol of thriftiness, but is renovating really cheaper than building from scratch?
凡尔赛以节俭的象征而闻名，但翻新真的比从头开始建造更便宜吗？
Well, Bent's view - and maybe you're noticing a theme now - is that renovation is nice in theory, but it's hard to see a step change in practice.
傅以斌的观点是——也许你现在注意到了一个主题——翻新在理论上很好，但在实践中很难看到重大改变。
It looks great, I think, when you watch the Olympics in Paris. These are Olympics that are much more integrated in the city than others.
我认为，当你观看巴黎奥运会时，情况看起来很棒。这些奥运会比其他奥运会更融入城市。
So in that sense, you know, you can say that it works aesthetically, and it works in the sense of the experience that people get and so on.
因此，从这个意义上来说，它在美学上是有效的，它在人们获得的体验等方面也是有效的。
But when we look, you know, hard at the numbers, we can't actually see that it's that big of a saving.
但是，当我们仔细查看这些数字时，我们实际上看不到它能节省这么多钱。
Ultimately, Bent sees these reforms is not driving down the cost of the Olympics because of that original economic sin - misaligned incentives.
最终，傅以斌认为这些改革并没有降低奥运会的成本，因为经济原罪——激励机制错位。
The IOC doesn't really have the incentive because they're not paying the bills, so there's lacking a real drive behind this, like somebody really hungry who needs to save that money and therefore drives the change.
国际奥委会实际上没有动力，因为他们没有支付账单，所以这背后缺乏真正的动力，就像一个非常饥饿的人需要省钱，因此推动变革。
OK. So those are the huge costs, always bigger than expected, and giving cities like Rio buyer's remorse.
所以这些是巨大的成本，总是比预期的要大，让里约这样的城市后悔不已。
But what about the benefits? Like, Paris used the Olympics as a target date to add a new metro line connecting some of its suburbs.
但好处呢？比如，巴黎利用奥运会作为目标日期，增加了一条连接其部分郊区的新地铁线路。
Do you think that a big event like the Olympics could be a galvanizing event to build infrastructure that might be needed anyway?
您是否认为像奥运会这样的大型活动可以推动建设可能需要的基础设施？
I don't only think that. I mean, that's what happens. I mean, cities are deliberately using an event like this to fast-track things, and they get a focus.
我不只是这么认为。这就是发生的事情。城市故意利用这样的活动来加快进程，得到了关注。
The really smart cities do what Barcelona did, is to use the Olympics as a generator for a more wide development scheme for the city.
真正聪明的城市会像巴塞罗那那样，利用奥运会作为城市更广泛发展计划的推动力。
One example in Barcelona was the city decontaminating an industrial port for the sailing competitions. Now that area has beaches that are popular with locals and tourists.
巴塞罗那的一个例子是该市为帆船比赛净化了一个工业港口。现在，该地区拥有深受当地人和游客喜爱的海滩。
Often politicians will take this potential economic flashpoint to the extreme, arguing that big sports events, like the Olympics or World Cups, are justified on the basis that there'll be a ton of economic benefits that may outweigh the costs.
政客们经常将这一潜在的经济热点推向极端，认为大型体育赛事（如奥运会或世界杯）的合理性在于，其将带来大量经济效益，可能超过成本。
Could it be that despite the high cost, the Olympics could still be worth it for the hosting city?
尽管成本高昂，但奥运会对主办城市来说是否仍然值得？
Theoretically, it could be, yes, and we do have colleagues who have studied this. They have asked the question, did the benefits actually justify the cost? And on average, they don't.
从理论上讲，是的，确实如此，我们的同事也对此进行了研究。他们问过这样一个问题：效益是否真的与成本相符？平均而言，并非如此。
So my advice is that if you're considering hosting the Olympics, you shouldn't do it for business reasons. You should do it for - you know, for what it is. It's a great party.
因此，我的建议是，如果您正在考虑举办奥运会，则不应出于商业原因。您应该为奥运会本身而举办。这是一场盛大的聚会。
It's a spectacular event, you know, and if you are rich enough that you can afford an event like that, by all means, go ahead and do it. But don't do it because you think it's good business.
这是一场壮观的盛会，如果您足够富有，能够负担得起这样的盛会，那么请继续举办。但不要因为您认为这是一笔好生意而举办。
We want to have a gigantic party and invite the world. But let's not kid ourselves that the tourism benefits and the economic development benefits are going to outweigh that and it's going to pay for itself.
我们想举办一场盛大的派对，邀请全世界的人们。但我们不要自欺欺人地认为，旅游效益和经济发展效益将超过这个数字，而且会物有所值。
Exactly. And this is very basic human. We all have parties, you know, privately in our families and so on, all the time.
没错。这是非常基本的人类本性。我们所有人都会开派对，我们家里私下里开派对等等。
And they don't think about cost-benefit analysis like, are the benefits bigger than the cost of the party? We just want to have a party, and we pay for it.
他们没有考虑成本效益分析，比如，效益是否大于派对的成本？我们只想举办派对，然后我们自己付钱。
Yes. But we could have a less expensive party if we follow more project management principles. For sure.
是的。但如果我们遵循更多的项目管理原则，我们可以举办更便宜的派对。肯定的。
