Latest / The Curve / RTC128: Behind the rings: the economics of the Olympics

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RTC128: Behind the rings: the economics of the Olympics · The Curve

• 0:00
  Welcome to Raising the Curth, a podcast designed to teach you everything you need to know
• 0:05
  to be better with your money.
• 0:07
  And the wise words of Amy Schumer were slipping carrots into the brownie recipe.
• 0:11
  I don't really get the saying.
• 0:13
  It's kind of like eating vegetables that actually taste good.
• 0:17
  You know, I'm like, I'm still not ready to do.
• 0:19
  Are you on the script?
• 0:20
  It's basically like saying, investing in finance can be boring, but it totally doesn't
• 0:26
  need to be.
• 0:27
  OK, OK, so we're making it fun by putting the carrot.
• 0:31
  OK, the vegetables are good for you.
• 0:33
  It's the brownie recipe.
• 0:34
  OK, we got there, we got there.
• 0:36
  OK, OK.
• 0:36
  Well, you've really got a finance, mate.
• 0:38
  Yeah, one of us has to.
• 0:40
  This is true.
• 0:41
  OK, come and learn alongside me from Vick Harris, ex-fun manager.
• 0:45
  Well, I'm going to ask all the questions that you wish you could.
• 0:48
  And I'm going to be eating all the brownie you wish you could.
• 0:50
  No, that's so not the joke, Vick.
• 0:53
  Oh, OK, just come and talk and learn and laugh with us.
• 0:56
  Because together, we really can raise the curve.
• 1:01
  Sorry, we didn't dress up.
• 1:02
  We are doing an Olympic special.
• 1:05
  Yeah, and you know what?
• 1:06
  Like, there's been quite a few random facts that I've seen in the last couple of weeks
• 1:11
  that I don't know.
• 1:13
  I feel like there's a way deeper meaning to things like the Olympics.
• 1:16
  Not just history-wise, stat-wise.
• 1:19
  Obviously, there's a lot of stuff going around about, you know, gender equality
• 1:23
  and there's just as much women competing as men blah, blah, blah.
• 1:26
  But there's actually a lot of deep-rooted information around how it's affected economies
• 1:31
  over hundreds of years, how there's a lot to be learned here.
• 1:35
  And I feel like it's just nice sometimes to focus on stuff that's topical
• 1:39
  and actually educate around what is a mess of conversation.
• 1:44
  Most people around the world would have in some way shaped or formed
• 1:47
  surely watched some part of the Olympics.
• 1:50
  Yes, hopefully.
• 1:51
  Well, I'm really sad because I missed the rhythmic gymnastics, which is what I used to do.
• 1:55
  I actually saw this girl, and she threw it up, and then threw the ribbon thing.
• 2:01
  Yeah, yeah, sorry.
• 2:03
  Everyone's like, no one can see you.
• 2:05
  She threw up the ribbon thing and did this 12 and then landed,
• 2:08
  and then like put her hand up to catch it.
• 2:11
  And she missed.
• 2:12
  Oh, yeah.
• 2:13
  And I was like, I actually thought of you.
• 2:15
  Not like, like, I was like, oh my god, actually quite hard.
• 2:18
  She wasn't even looking.
• 2:19
  She was just like, I mean, yeah, it's quite funny because I used to do that.
• 2:25
  Well, I'm probably not anywhere as good as her, but I'm really clumsy,
• 2:28
  but for some reason I was able to like hand eye coordination.
• 2:31
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's so devastating when you see gymnasts.
• 2:35
  I mean, any athletes, they've trained for millions of hours,
• 2:40
  and then they mark it up at their Olympics like devastating.
• 2:44
  I know.
• 2:45
  I think the only thing is, which is...
• 2:47
  It's like, go viral like Ray Gunn.
• 2:48
  Who's that?
• 2:49
  The break dancer.
• 2:50
  Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 2:51
  The Australian break dancer.
• 2:52
  You come 16th, but you go viral.
• 2:53
  And you're now a household name, and everyone knows you.
• 2:56
  And the poor person that won gold in the break dancing,
• 2:58
  it was like, I didn't know who that was.
• 3:00
  Do you reckon they did on purpose, like, to get to...
• 3:03
  I mean, it's genius if it was a public system.
• 3:05
  Australia, the most gold medals per capita.
• 3:07
  Oh, that's right.
• 3:08
  And also the lowest paying in terms of like what gold silver bronze gets.
• 3:12
  Did you know that?
• 3:13
  No.
• 3:14
  The highest paying country is Hong Kong.
• 3:16
  Yeah.
• 3:17
  And I think it's something like, it's in the hundreds of thousands
• 3:20
  in terms of what they earn, and then Australia for gold
• 3:23
  only get like $13,000.
• 3:24
  I thought Britain didn't pay them anything.
• 3:25
  Hong Kong for first, this is all in USD,
• 3:28
  pays $768,000 for gold.
• 3:32
  Australia pays $13,000.
• 3:35
  Wow.
• 3:36
  How gutted would you be?
• 3:37
  Or their bronze, Hong Kong's bronze is $192,000.
• 3:41
  That's more than what Australia gets for first place.
• 3:43
  It would definitely make me want to win gold.
• 3:46
  Same.
• 3:47
  Yeah, if you don't get any like financial benefit,
• 3:50
  it's not all about finances, is it, Vic?
• 3:51
  But like the fashion of the sport.
• 3:53
  Third place is still like 20 times more
• 3:58
  than what first place wins in Australia.
• 4:00
  Wow.
• 4:01
  Ridiculous.
• 4:02
  In the UK, athletes don't get anything.
• 4:04
  What?
• 4:04
  Yeah.
• 4:05
  Don't they?
• 4:06
  Why would you...
• 4:08
  No, it's not about money, but why would they get anything?
• 4:11
  Money is life.
• 4:14
  They don't get anything, that's weird.
• 4:15
  But all the sponsorship deals that you'd get,
• 4:17
  all the endorsements, like I remember reading a set ages ago,
• 4:20
  that when it comes to tennis players,
• 4:22
  they only make 10% of,
• 4:24
  and please don't affect check this.
• 4:27
  They only make 10% of their earnings actually playing tennis.
• 4:30
  And winning tennis games,
• 4:31
  the rest is all endorsements.
• 4:33
  But the thing with the UK is they do support the training, et cetera,
• 4:37
  and they pay for all of that,
• 4:38
  which I actually thought I was like,
• 4:40
  Olympics is every four years.
• 4:42
  Like, who is paying for all that while you're not earning,
• 4:47
  but then you're just like, yeah, it's interesting.
• 4:49
  But I guess that's what I mean.
• 4:50
  I think that's what's interesting for...
• 4:52
  As an example, in places like Bulgaria,
• 4:55
  where gymnastics is like the national sport,
• 4:58
  is it actually, did you just make that up?
• 5:00
  I think I made it up, but there's like, definitely...
• 5:02
  It's like, wow, that's a fun fact.
• 5:04
  But it's definitely like one of the more...
• 5:05
  Like, it's how a lot of people make the way out of poverty is.
• 5:08
  And I guess in New Zealand,
• 5:10
  a lot of money's pumped into rugby.
• 5:12
  Yes, every country has their sports that they focus on.
• 5:15
  And in New Zealand, when I was a gymnast,
• 5:18
  my family had to fund my training,
• 5:21
  buy my leotards, buy all of the tickets to competitions,
• 5:27
  entries, you know, it's a hugely expensive.
• 5:29
  Like, I look back and I'm like, God, I was spoiled.
• 5:31
  My family was probably like, thank goodness, you're not an athlete.
• 5:34
  It's so expensive, but yeah, it's a really good point
• 5:36
  because if in the UK, they sponsor or pay for training for athletes,
• 5:41
  it means that you're able to choose...
• 5:43
  That is a career without worrying about money.
• 5:45
  Yes, yeah.
• 5:46
  But I'd be interested to know how much
• 5:48
  and what are various from sport to sport.
• 5:50
  Prize money is probably just like such a small percentage
• 5:54
  of their personal brand as well as an athlete.
• 5:57
  Like, I reckon this Olympic has been...
• 6:00
  I felt one of the most on social media.
• 6:03
  Like, people that have won gold medals or done interesting things
• 6:06
  or even like this dude that ran over and hugged his girlfriend
• 6:09
  and now they've gone viral.
• 6:10
  I think it all comes down to that of like,
• 6:12
  how do you build your personal brand?
• 6:13
  And therefore, you get sponsorships and endorsements all of that.
• 6:15
  And like, Serena Williams got a $40 million Nike deal
• 6:20
  after winning their Olympics versus someone who won the weightlifting.
• 6:24
  They got paid the same prize money.
• 6:26
  You know, it's like, it's not all about prize money.
• 6:28
  I think it's your brand as an athlete now.
• 6:32
  It's almost like what you need to be spending money on as an athlete.
• 6:36
  There's your PR plan.
• 6:37
  Totally.
• 6:38
  Opposed to your skillset.
• 6:39
  Yeah.
• 6:40
  Yeah.
• 6:41
  Because yeah, if endorsements is majority of your money,
• 6:43
  even if you're not the best, maybe it doesn't matter.
• 6:45
  Maybe it's all about your attitude or how you inspire young people
• 6:48
  or bubblegum.
• 6:49
  And for a lot of sports, like Serena Williams,
• 6:51
  tennis in the Olympics would not be a big kind of tournament for her.
• 6:56
  It would not be as big as the US Open or Wimbledon or things like that.
• 7:01
  You know, winning those would be way more high profile for her
• 7:05
  and I guess that's an interesting point.
• 7:07
  Is the idea that some athletes, the pinnacle, is the Olympics.
• 7:10
  Yes.
• 7:11
  And maybe their prize money is reflected in that way.
• 7:13
  But then for others, it's not.
• 7:14
  Yeah.
• 7:15
  But the Olympics actually started back in 1896.
• 7:18
  Oh.
• 7:19
  I know.
• 7:20
  Oh, it's ages away.
• 7:21
  It's so long ago.
• 7:22
  Yeah.
• 7:23
  But I actually also didn't realise that when the Olympics started,
• 7:28
  it was actually like it started in Greece.
• 7:31
  And it was like more of a religious festival than it was.
• 7:37
  And the whole concept that's, I guess, evolved over time.
• 7:41
  I mean, when we were researching this stuff that kept coming up
• 7:43
  was like Olympic troughs and...
• 7:45
  Yeah.
• 7:46
  It's all about equality and diversity and animations.
• 7:48
  And yeah, it is definitely one.
• 7:50
  Like the whole opening ceremony in Paris was all around, like doves and peace
• 7:55
  and like white flags and like Serena, you know, like the whole ethos
• 7:59
  is like, yeah, leave your disagreements at the door.
• 8:03
  Well, that's not really weird.
• 8:05
  No, no, no.
• 8:06
  And if you're disagreements at the door, we're all here for sport.
• 8:09
  And I reckon there was definitely moments where I was like,
• 8:11
  sport just brings people together.
• 8:13
  Even if you're watching a rugby game, a hockey game,
• 8:16
  a tennis, like everyone there is just in such good spirits.
• 8:20
  Yes, you've got your football and soccer fans over here that are a bit...
• 8:24
  I've got it sometimes.
• 8:25
  But you know, it's kind of...
• 8:27
  It's this weird camaraderie.
• 8:29
  Yeah, I don't think I realized the positive impacts or motives behind it
• 8:36
  in general until we started digging deeper.
• 8:38
  And I think even like one of the things that we came across was like the flag,
• 8:42
  each color that's chosen, like in terms of those rings,
• 8:46
  represent the five continents, like as in every single country,
• 8:52
  one of those ring colors features on their flag.
• 8:55
  You know, it's the idea of unity and diversity and coming together,
• 8:58
  which is so cool.
• 8:59
  But they've banned Russia.
• 9:01
  Have they?
• 9:02
  Yeah, they banned Russia from the Olympics.
• 9:04
  Oh, wow.
• 9:05
  But that's what I found quite interesting is the whole idea of,
• 9:08
  you know, away from the right white flag and coming together,
• 9:11
  the fact that there's a war going on at the same time.
• 9:13
  It's like...
• 9:14
  It's a bit contradictory.
• 9:15
  Why is no one...
• 9:16
  Yeah.
• 9:17
  Let's chat about the economics when it comes to Olympics.
• 9:19
  Because in the curve weekly, we spoke a little bit about how sometimes the ongoing effects
• 9:24
  of the Olympics and tourism can reverberate through different generations.
• 9:29
  Yeah.
• 9:30
  Can we speak about that?
• 9:31
  Because I'd love to know, like, how far in advance people find out they're hosting.
• 9:35
  And which Olympics have actually impacted in a positive way financially?
• 9:40
  Yeah.
• 9:41
  So the Olympics happened every four years except poor Tokyo in 2020 was COVID.
• 9:47
  So it was the Tokyo 2020 Olympics but held in 2021, which is kind of confusing.
• 9:52
  Because all the merch is like...
• 9:53
  Oh, yeah.
• 9:54
  Oh, yeah.
• 9:55
  Oh, yeah.
• 9:56
  Oh, no.
• 9:57
  Imagine the amount they put into merch and, like, signage and everything.
• 10:01
  Infrastructure, building stadiums, aquatic centers, like, roads.
• 10:06
  But that stuff still lasts, like, the amount of, like, things that have, like...
• 10:11
  Yeah.
• 10:12
  Especially even, like, medals.
• 10:14
  Like, they would have had, like, 2020 on it, wouldn't they?
• 10:17
  That's why they kept calling it...
• 10:18
  Oh.
• 10:19
  That's called Tokyo 2020, but it was held in 2021.
• 10:21
  And that is the change of everything.
• 10:23
  Yeah, yeah.
• 10:24
  Yeah, it was just held a year later.
• 10:26
  So I know.
• 10:27
  But it's more the people that missed out on going, or they were going to go to Tokyo,
• 10:30
  that would have spent money on restaurants, accommodation, shopping, that didn't.
• 10:35
  Yeah.
• 10:36
  Anyway.
• 10:37
  But yes.
• 10:38
  So Paris, budget for the Paris 2020 for Olympics.
• 10:42
  They spent 9 billion euros on their Olympics.
• 10:45
  9 billion.
• 10:46
  9 billion.
• 10:47
  Just casual.
• 10:48
  Like, nearly two of that was cleaning up the CN River.
• 10:51
  And...
• 10:52
  2 billion, that's right.
• 10:53
  Yeah.
• 10:54
  That's a lot of money.
• 10:55
  And...
• 10:56
  When you just find another person...
• 10:57
  The triathletes.
• 10:58
  Imagine how dirty it would have been if he hadn't spent 2 billion.
• 11:00
  I know.
• 11:01
  You dry-riching, because you think you have lots in the government.
• 11:03
  I'm thinking of something in the teams.
• 11:05
  And London, I'm just like...
• 11:06
  Oh.
• 11:07
  Oh.
• 11:08
  You couldn't pay me.
• 11:09
  You couldn't pay me to billions from there.
• 11:11
  Really?
• 11:12
  Oh my God, a big jump in nude.
• 11:14
  Oh, swim.
• 11:15
  I'll drink it.
• 11:16
  I'll drink it.
• 11:17
  I'll drink it.
• 11:18
  Anything.
• 11:19
  Yeah.
• 11:20
  Actually, maybe.
• 11:21
  The London 2012 Olympics, which I actually went to.
• 11:25
  Did you?
• 11:26
  Well, my sister was living here at the time and I came and visited.
• 11:29
  And we could...
• 11:32
  The only thing we could afford to get tickets to was the dressage.
• 11:35
  What do you...
• 11:36
  Oh, they're horses.
• 11:37
  And we were like, oh, horses are fun.
• 11:39
  Oh, my God.
• 11:40
  We get there.
• 11:41
  And they're just going like this.
• 11:42
  No one can see me.
• 11:43
  They're just...
• 11:44
  Trotting.
• 11:45
  Trotting, weirdly.
• 11:46
  And stepping really slowly.
• 11:48
  And not really doing much.
• 11:50
  And we were sitting...
• 11:51
  Like the most underwhelming event to go to.
• 11:53
  Oh, my God.
• 11:54
  I was so excited to go to the Olympics.
• 11:56
  And it was the biggest...
• 11:57
  Well, you're like, when's it stopping?
• 11:58
  When is the worst to say?
• 12:00
  Oh, my God.
• 12:01
  Now I've got to sit here for hours watching these horses.
• 12:03
  Did you think they'd do jumps and stuff?
• 12:04
  Yeah.
• 12:05
  Yeah.
• 12:06
  What is dressage again?
• 12:07
  It's just the movement of the feet.
• 12:08
  I don't know.
• 12:09
  Some horse riders are going to be like...
• 12:10
  How much were tickets to that?
• 12:11
  I paid about 20 pounds.
• 12:12
  Oh, that's nothing.
• 12:13
  I know.
• 12:14
  You can't complain about that.
• 12:16
  You know, you got to get the vibe of the Olympics for 20 pounds.
• 12:20
  Yeah.
• 12:21
  Honestly, if you had seen nothing but like the horses getting brushed,
• 12:25
  I would have been like...
• 12:26
  Woohoo!
• 12:27
  Yeah.
• 12:28
  But the 2012 London Olympics cost about 9 billion pounds.
• 12:33
  So we're relatively the same as Paris, but in pounds.
• 12:38
  Rio was about 13 billion US dollars.
• 12:42
  Why would they have spent more?
• 12:44
  Because I wouldn't have had the infrastructure.
• 12:46
  Oh, they're starting base was stadiums, roads, all that kind of stuff.
• 12:51
  But then again, like you said, it can pump a lot into the economy.
• 12:55
  And L.A., they've got about a $7 billion budget.
• 12:58
  So at least everyone else.
• 12:59
  L.A. is 2028.
• 13:00
  I mean, your budget.
• 13:01
  We all know the prankers of a budget.
• 13:03
  But by like, double?
• 13:05
  $7 billion, imagine.
• 13:06
  Yeah.
• 13:07
  Oopsies, we would have a budget by $7 billion.
• 13:09
  Well, we'll report back in 2028 on how much they spent.
• 13:13
  I don't beat you.
• 13:14
  Should we have a beat?
• 13:15
  No, we don't.
• 13:16
  We beat.
• 13:17
  We beat.
• 13:18
  We'll just beat a lollipop or something.
• 13:20
  I reckon 12.
• 13:21
  We reckon that's been 12?
• 13:22
  12 years.
• 13:24
  So there's 8, 9, 10.
• 13:25
  There's 5 billion over budget.
• 13:27
  Surely someone's flagging that as they're going a billion,
• 13:30
  2 billion, 3 billion over.
• 13:31
  Imagine just getting that invoice from the builder.
• 13:33
  And I know you think you're like house renovations when over budget.
• 13:37
  They're like, yeah, it's 5 billion over budget.
• 13:39
  You actually need a new bridge.
• 13:41
  This is a going up.
• 13:42
  American, sorry.
• 13:43
  Yeah.
• 13:44
  So if we were to look at some of the last locations where the Olympics were held.
• 13:47
  For example, Rio, what year was that?
• 13:49
  2016.
• 13:51
  2016, and then London in 2012.
• 13:54
  2012.
• 13:55
  Yeah.
• 13:56
  This looking to LA in 2028.
• 13:59
  London was considered like financial success, right?
• 14:03
  Yes.
• 14:04
  Yes.
• 14:05
  So there was areas around the Olympic Park and places they built stadiums,
• 14:10
  which really benefited in terms of house prices and their economies.
• 14:14
  And like Stratford, for example, which at house prices did fantastically.
• 14:18
  Well, they're about 100% since then.
• 14:20
  So it's like there are areas that benefit like pockets of London that benefit.
• 14:25
  Because I guess Stratford as well is like probably the only place there was space to build stuff.
• 14:29
  Yeah.
• 14:30
  And put those areas on the map and you get all this new shiny infrastructure,
• 14:33
  all these restaurants, but you know, like it's kind of accelerates the development of your borough,
• 14:37
  which is only going to be beneficial.
• 14:39
  But there's not always the case.
• 14:42
  Yeah, because I guess it's like with London,
• 14:45
  there's the constant like pushing people out of the centres who can't afford it,
• 14:50
  like gentrification in general and people kind of moving further away from the centre of a city.
• 14:55
  Stratford is like, I guess as people are living in London just for context.
• 14:59
  It's not that far.
• 15:01
  Like Stratford now is like a pretty normal place to go.
• 15:05
  It's not like, oh, you're going out to the war.
• 15:07
  Yeah.
• 15:08
  Whereas beforehand it probably was.
• 15:09
  Yeah.
• 15:10
  And so I guess like they're looking at Rio.
• 15:13
  How did that financially affect the country differently?
• 15:17
  Like why do you think London was able to kind of like?
• 15:20
  Because I guess there's the maintenance cost as well.
• 15:22
  Like once you build these big stadiums, etc.
• 15:24
  It's like you need to keep using them and keep refurbing them, maintaining them.
• 15:28
  Whereas Rio didn't have that money afterwards to do that.
• 15:31
  You don't have the if you fund.
• 15:32
  Yeah, they didn't have the if you fund.
• 15:33
  And so they've become ruined.
• 15:35
  It's been a waste of money.
• 15:36
  They've also had to like push people out to build those stadiums.
• 15:39
  And now it's like, yeah.
• 15:40
  So it just wasn't as successful post Olympics as London has been, which is, you know,
• 15:48
  you're spending Rio spent $13 billion dollars waste of money.
• 15:53
  Yeah.
• 15:54
  And so like if you'd spent $13 billion cleaning up the slums and the favelas and like all of
• 15:58
  that, not that I'm telling, you know, Rio.
• 16:02
  They come to like parliament one day.
• 16:05
  But I think it also comes back to political stability as well.
• 16:08
  It's like Rio very politically unstable versus London LA.
• 16:13
  But then LA, a lot of homelessness, which they're worried about, heating into 2028.
• 16:18
  What do you do with all those people?
• 16:20
  You know, it's going to get pushed further away.
• 16:22
  Yeah, yeah.
• 16:23
  It's more around the fact that you're going to see all this money be poured into building
• 16:28
  these flashing new stadiums and not fixing a homelessness crisis.
• 16:32
  It's also what we talk about with the sign river.
• 16:34
  It's like you're spending all that money to clean up a river for Olympic games.
• 16:39
  Why don't you pour that into cleaning up the streets so there's this rubbish, you know, like
• 16:44
  reducing carbon emissions.
• 16:46
  Yeah.
• 16:47
  It's sometimes the priorities are probably misaligned for the Olympics in terms of what other
• 16:55
  money could be spent on.
• 16:57
  And do you know what I mean?
• 16:58
  Every politician has their own kind of things that they want to spend money on.
• 17:03
  Yeah.
• 17:04
  It's so interesting though, because it's similar to how when you talk about like business
• 17:08
  or the stock market or the economy, there's always those like knock on effects.
• 17:11
  It's like, what would the social knock on effects be if there were no Olympics and there were no sport?
• 17:15
  Like because that brings people together, people's been money going to see them.
• 17:19
  They've been money and pubs to watch it.
• 17:21
  There's like young kids that are trying to know the true dollar values of like the longering effects, I guess.
• 17:29
  I think it's an incredibly bad taste to think about because in LA the homeless is problem is
• 17:35
  actually enormous.
• 17:37
  And it's so hungry games energy to be going and building these outrageous stadiums and places for
• 17:43
  the Olympics to be housed when they're there, when there's people that can't afford to eat or sleep in a bed.
• 17:50
  But then like the flip side of that is, yeah, but you're bringing all these tourists and people spending money
• 17:57
  to LA, which will make the economy better, which means there'll be more jobs for those homeless people.
• 18:01
  You know, like it's all a cycle.
• 18:04
  Yeah.
• 18:05
  I'd love to put like, oh, this is so random.
• 18:08
  Put a little camera on money, like on some dollar notes and just watch it go around in society.
• 18:16
  I love that.
• 18:17
  That's a great campaign for something.
• 18:19
  Kind of hard though, because we don't really use cash anymore.
• 18:22
  But how cool would it be to see how a little dollar just goes around and around and around?
• 18:26
  I love that.
• 18:27
  If anyone happens to own micro cameras and if we would be put in jail for filming random people, please do this one.
• 18:33
  One of the things that I've heard spoken about a lot because a lot of professional athletes get paid a shitload of money
• 18:40
  in quite a short space of time.
• 18:42
  And we went to an event.
• 18:44
  It was like hosted by a, it was almost like a venture capital company that had invested in a company.
• 18:52
  It was something to do with like heaps of athletes, host like their professional career.
• 18:58
  I don't know, like invested in, I can't remember what it was, but one of the stats that was shared.
• 19:02
  They gave their money for their fund from professional athletes.
• 19:05
  That's right.
• 19:06
  The basketball players made me.
• 19:07
  Yeah.
• 19:08
  And one of the stats that the founder was speaking about, he said something like, you know,
• 19:12
  the amount of, I can't remember what the percentage was, of professional sports players that end up in financial hardship
• 19:18
  after their peak is really massive.
• 19:21
  And I'd love to speak about like what some of that earning capacity is and why and who maybe that's happened to.
• 19:29
  There's any like case studies or one because imagine if you were 16 and you know competing at the Olympics earning millions of dollars
• 19:38
  and you have no financial education.
• 19:42
  A way in which that would like affect them from a mental health perspective.
• 19:46
  I don't know.
• 19:47
  And it's like when you become, when you go from being non-professional to professional and then you sign a contract,
• 19:54
  like Serena Williams, if that was the first time signing a Nike contract for $40 million,
• 19:59
  like that would fuck with you.
• 20:01
  Oh totally.
• 20:02
  14 million.
• 20:03
  Good God.
• 20:04
  But it's like making sure that these athletes, particularly the young athletes, have the right kind of support and advice around them
• 20:11
  and not someone that's taking advantage of the fact that they've now got loads of money.
• 20:16
  What are they spending it on?
• 20:18
  It's like someone automatically winning Lotto.
• 20:20
  And then there's all these kind of shady people being like, let's be friends.
• 20:25
  Let's go hang out.
• 20:27
  Oh yeah.
• 20:28
  But yeah, it's just, I think it's also when you're an athlete, your body is what is making you money.
• 20:36
  And your body can only last for so long and you can only be in that peak performance for so long.
• 20:41
  And so it's making hay while the sun shines and realizing what are you going to do after that?
• 20:48
  So you don't have like an identity crisis, do you know what I mean?
• 20:51
  There's also a case of a lot of young athletes being, you know, if you were a young poll voter.
• 20:58
  All right.
• 20:59
  If you were a young poll voter, and you're just thinking, he had the penis man.
• 21:03
  Who's penis go caught on the bar?
• 21:06
  Honestly, that is the funniest thing to come out of this Olympics.
• 21:10
  Oh good.
• 21:11
  Yeah.
• 21:12
  So if you were a famous poll voter, you're focusing on that and that is 110% of your time.
• 21:17
  And you're not sitting there learning about finance and how to manage money on the side.
• 21:21
  So when you do get a whole lot of money, you haven't had that financial education.
• 21:25
  You've probably actually taken time out of school even to focus on your sport in your career.
• 21:30
  So you do lack that financial education and are probably going to make some stupid financial decisions.
• 21:37
  Yeah.
• 21:38
  I also think it's similar to celebrities.
• 21:39
  It's like you really need to have, I'm sorry, I mean, I know some of these sports people ask celebrities.
• 21:44
  But if you think of Britney Spears or, you know, any of the pop stars that have been
• 21:51
  really massively taken advantage of, you would need to have such trusted people around you
• 21:57
  from like an advice perspective who have access to your money.
• 22:00
  Like, I reckon there would be some pretty scary horror stories of people who have been taken advantage of financially.
• 22:05
  Yes.
• 22:06
  And we also spoke about the fact that female participation in the Olympics was not allowed until the 1900s.
• 22:11
  We're supposed to stay at home and look after the kids.
• 22:13
  You got more bread to make.
• 22:14
  Yeah, yeah.
• 22:15
  We don't have bodies that are made from sports.
• 22:18
  Don't even try and jump over a high jump.
• 22:21
  You're too precious.
• 22:22
  You're too fragile.
• 22:24
  You might get your period.
• 22:26
  Oh, God, sometimes it fucks me off.
• 22:31
  Sorry.
• 22:32
  But anyway, so women were allowed in the Olympics in 1900s, which was kind of when they started,
• 22:38
  when the Olympics started.
• 22:39
  But I think the participation was so low.
• 22:42
  And it's quite incredible to now see equal participation in the Olympics.
• 22:48
  We're finally at 50 percent male, female.
• 22:51
  100 years later.
• 22:53
  Oh, sorry.
• 22:54
  So just backtracking to our, you know, mocking the kitchen, bathroom vise.
• 22:58
  Yeah.
• 22:59
  It wasn't actually that there was a huge time that women weren't seeing.
• 23:02
  It was just the representation was super low for a long, long time.
• 23:06
  Yeah.
• 23:07
  And now we're at equal participation in 2024.
• 23:10
  Yeah.
• 23:11
  And did you know in Australia this year, so this was the Olympic Games medal-wise?
• 23:16
  Yeah.
• 23:17
  And didn't Australia do the best of all medals per capita?
• 23:21
  How annoyed would you be though, financially, you were bringing in like a 40th of what, like,
• 23:27
  as enough Hong Kong had won that many more, if Hong Kong being the highest paying in terms
• 23:32
  of the athletes, if that one that imagined the money being pumped into.
• 23:36
  Yeah.
• 23:37
  Or is it the country that pays them?
• 23:38
  The country.
• 23:39
  Oh.
• 23:40
  Yeah, it's not the Olympics.
• 23:41
  Right.
• 23:42
  Each country has like an Olympic pool of money.
• 23:45
  Union or Olympic committee.
• 23:47
  Anyway, in Australia, yes, the most medals per capita.
• 23:51
  But that was all driven this year by woman, the participation of woman.
• 23:58
  So 70, over 72% of the gold medals that were won in Australia were won by woman.
• 24:03
  Yeah, that's amazing.
• 24:04
  Yeah.
• 24:05
  And that's versus in London, it was like 37%, won by woman in Australia.
• 24:11
  So that whole move of Australia being the best medal winning country per capita was all driven
• 24:18
  by woman.
• 24:19
  Oh, I have a question.
• 24:21
  Are the medals actually gold?
• 24:24
  Gold silver bronze.
• 24:26
  And water, they just melted their medals and went in like invested.
• 24:31
  Yeah.
• 24:32
  I mean, commodities are, as you always talk about, actually really safe investments.
• 24:37
  Yeah.
• 24:38
  Is that a thing?
• 24:39
  Like, are they solid gold?
• 24:40
  Well, the gold and silver medals are mainly made out of silver.
• 24:43
  There is some gold in the gold medals, but they're worth about $900.
• 24:47
  That's a lot.
• 24:49
  No.
• 24:50
  But it's more the statue.
• 24:51
  Yeah, they're heavy.
• 24:53
  But they also, this year, include a little piece of the evil tower.
• 24:56
  Oh, I love that.
• 24:57
  I don't really know how that works.
• 24:58
  I'm going to cut it a bit off.
• 24:59
  Yeah.
• 25:00
  And then you also like, don't want to keep doing that.
• 25:03
  Fall over.
• 25:06
  Yeah.
• 25:07
  Friends walking around.
• 25:09
  Sometimes the way your brain works sometimes, I'm just like, so funny.
• 25:13
  They're not going to take a whole section out of one side.
• 25:16
  And you take it off the top, not the bottom.
• 25:18
  Oh, yeah.
• 25:19
  Yeah.
• 25:20
  So no one sees it.
• 25:21
  And if it was like this guy, I don't just slowly go.
• 25:24
  Just the top of it just slowly goes down.
• 25:27
  Yeah.
• 25:28
  But yes, so they're worth $900.
• 25:30
  They do have gold in them, which means gold price is going up.
• 25:34
  Oh, really?
• 25:35
  Your medal is going up in value.
• 25:37
  Right.
• 25:38
  So it has nothing to do with the commodities as in gold, silver, bronze, don't go up because
• 25:42
  they're Olympics.
• 25:43
  No, not because they're the Olympics.
• 25:44
  But there was a gold medalist from Berlin in 1936 that recently just sold their medal.
• 25:52
  And they sold it for $1.5 million.
• 25:54
  Million.
• 25:55
  Cool.
• 25:56
  Sorry, it was a few years ago.
• 25:58
  They sold it.
• 25:59
  Like still like that's insane.
• 26:00
  It's maybe one of their athletes that's in financial hardship.
• 26:02
  And they're like, oh, sell my medal.
• 26:04
  You know, like quite sad.
• 26:06
  Or just very financially savvy and thinking, I'm sitting on this.
• 26:10
  Amazing asset.
• 26:12
  Oh, check it out on trade.
• 26:14
  Yeah.
• 26:15
  It's also with noting that afterwards, after the Olympics finish, it's not over.
• 26:20
  What do you mean?
• 26:21
  There's the parallel impacts.
• 26:22
  Yeah.
• 26:23
  Do you think it's a bit weird that they, you know, as we spoke about like the whole purpose
• 26:28
  of the Olympics is to create diversity and unity, but then they separate the parallel
• 26:36
  impacts from.
• 26:37
  Yeah.
• 26:38
  I wonder how much longer that will be for.
• 26:39
  Do you know what I mean?
• 26:40
  Before they just combine it all.
• 26:41
  Yeah.
• 26:42
  But there is less demand in terms of viewership and attendance for the parallel impacts.
• 26:47
  So unfortunately, though, the ticket sales were a lot cheaper for the parallel impacts.
• 26:52
  What was the difference in ticket price B for the Olympics that's just been compared
• 26:58
  to the parallel impacts?
• 27:00
  So ticket prices in Paris in 2024 for the Olympics were about 24 euros to about up
• 27:08
  to 1000 euros depending on what your team did.
• 27:11
  That's expensive.
• 27:12
  Whereas the maximum price of the parallel impacts is 100 euros.
• 27:17
  That is terrible.
• 27:19
  Yeah.
• 27:20
  I think so.
• 27:21
  I think so.
• 27:22
  Like say you're paying a thousand euros to watch Serena Williams at the Olympics.
• 27:28
  And it comes to this whole discussion of athletes where their sport isn't viewed as much,
• 27:34
  aren't paid as much, but then in order to get them to increase viewership, you need to pay
• 27:39
  them more.
• 27:40
  And it's like the whole discussion around gender in particular around women are paid less
• 27:45
  because they bring in less viewership for their sport.
• 27:48
  It's like the cycle.
• 27:49
  It's like they haven't had years where they could actually participate in sport at a full
• 27:56
  city like Mencood.
• 27:57
  So therefore they're not considered probably as good.
• 28:00
  Honestly, it's just, yeah, it does my hidden.
• 28:03
  And I just want to finish on one person that attended the Olympics that got paid about
• 28:10
  $500,000 a day to attend.
• 28:12
  Oh, no doubt.
• 28:14
  No doubt.
• 28:15
  Oh my god, can we come in?
• 28:17
  I'm sorry.
• 28:18
  But what was that about 500,000 a day?
• 28:22
  500,000 a day to attend.
• 28:25
  That is outrageous.
• 28:26
  And again, I think it just plays into this whole thing about like trying to make the
• 28:29
  Olympics more fun, accessible, interesting for people.
• 28:33
  It was the first year, it was all of my social media.
• 28:35
  They need to send someone to the Paralympics.
• 28:37
  Yes.
• 28:38
  What it does.
• 28:39
  It's maybe honestly that money was very well spent because if he's there and lots of people
• 28:44
  are all of a sudden posting about it thinking it's cool blah, blah, blah.
• 28:48
  The same concept needs to be applied for all the other Olympics.
• 28:51
  Yeah, definitely.
• 28:52
  And because also surely that then increases money and increases how much they pay for tickets
• 28:57
  everything.
• 28:58
  Yeah.
• 28:59
  It's quite a good strategy from them to be honest.
• 29:01
  No.
• 29:02
  I might.
• 29:03
  I would go.
• 29:04
  Same.
• 29:05
  Even if I had to pretend I was interested in all of that.
• 29:06
  I would watch the dressage.
• 29:07
  Yeah.
• 29:08
  Yeah.
• 29:09
  Yeah.
• 29:10
  For ten days.
• 29:11
  No, you get so bored of it.
• 29:13
  Oh, no.
• 29:14
  I would.
• 29:15
  Yeah.
• 29:16
  You would hate that.
• 29:17
  Ten days of dressage.
• 29:18
  I should just get so dry.
• 29:19
  And paint dry.
• 29:20
  No offense to any horse riders.
• 29:21
  It's a very, it's a very, it's a very skilled sport.
• 29:25
  I get it.
• 29:26
  Sorry.
• 29:27
  It just wasn't really up my, my early.
• 29:29
  Nice.
• 29:30
  Fender dressage.
• 29:31
  Do I have fans?
• 29:32
  They're going to like.
• 29:33
  If you.
• 29:34
  Yeah.
• 29:35
  So interesting.
• 29:36
  I'd actually would love some feedback on this.
• 29:39
  Like we, whether it be commenting on Spotify or Apple, like putting your feedback.
• 29:44
  Are these types of episodes interesting in terms of just holistic economics?
• 29:49
  What goes on with things like sport and money?
• 29:52
  Because I'd be really interested maybe in doing a deep dive on sport and money.
• 29:55
  Like comparing some of the.
• 29:57
  We'd love to get some athletes on to talk about it as well.
• 30:00
  They're experienced.
• 30:01
  So if you know of any athletes that are willing to talk about.
• 30:04
  Yes.
• 30:05
  The paper's frequency or just like how it fucking works.
• 30:08
  Yeah.
• 30:09
  So I find it fascinating.
• 30:10
  But it'd be good to know if you do.
• 30:11
  Because if you're listening and like, no, this is not an episode for me.
• 30:14
  Please can you comment or make messages.
• 30:16
  It'd be really good to get some feedback on that.
• 30:18
  But you know, four years time.
• 30:21
  We've got four years.
• 30:22
  So if you hated it, there'll be a few episodes in between.
• 30:24
  Yeah.
• 30:25
  Thanks.
• 30:26
  Okay, bye.
• 30:27
  Thank you so much for listening to Raising the Curve.
• 30:29
  These conversations are designed to teach you everything that you need to know to be
• 30:33
  better with your money.
• 30:34
  From saving, to investing, to talking to your friends about your salaries.
• 30:38
  And if you liked what you heard, we would love it.
• 30:41
  If you could hit subscribe button, please.
• 30:43
  Or leave a review.
• 30:44
  It'll take five seconds and it would really make our week.
• 30:48
  Oh, yeah.
• 30:49
  Our month.
• 30:50
  Okay.
• 30:51
  Lots of love.
• 30:52
  See you soon.
• 30:53
  Bye.