Olympic zeros

What is the "Olympics in Sochi"? Today there are three interpretations that are not quite banal. The Olympiad is a marketing product. The Olympiad is a way of elegant development of a megabyujet. The Olympiad is a way of hardware capitalization.

They advanced something

The victorious relations around the Olympics in Sochi do not subside. Well, for example, Dmitry Chernyshenko, Director General of the Sochi-2014, said-“Looking back, we are sure that the applicant committee made everything as possible for victory, we created a unique application, seriously influenced the perception of the city of Sochi and our country without exaggeration around the world. We are proud of the result achieved. ” It also comes out of this statement that the skeptics from the IOC have defeated almost the entire people. And it ends in the spirit that “to relax early” and “we must work further.” This style is easy to find out-this is an epic, akin to “Word of Igor’s Regiment” (there, however, “ours are strongly getting”), only a bureaucratic outliest.

There are, however, more balanced comments. The reason for the victory of Russia in the race for OI-2014 was the synergy of three components-says one of the sports marketing specialists with whom the Polit.ru correspondent talked. The first is a personal participation in the project of President Vladimir Putin (literally everyone notes this-probably the judgment is still fair). Despite all the pathetics, the president significantly strengthened the Russian delegation, and if not for his presence, Sochi would have been less likely to win. The second - the delegation spent time in Guatemala with benefit and managed to personally engage in lobbying, to convince everyone of its sincerity and stability. Russia's speech was extremely emotional, unlike Korea and Austria. The third component was the successful use of marketing technologies. Sochi's application was created according to the rules and in accordance with the technology of promoting goods. Everything that we saw was the promotion of a product with brilliant packaging and content, with a worked out ideology and built by communication. True, there was one small nuance: this product does not exist in reality. Now it is clear that the bar in marketing is set very high. In general, the entire election company, according to the expert, cost tens of millions of dollars. This is comparable, say, with a campaign to promote any product in a large market where competition is strong. And the order of numbers is approximately the same that the St. Petersburg Summit G8 had.

Exciting word

Everyone usually worries the question - and how much “this” costs. It is difficult to evaluate, for various reasons. Our expert noted that if you distribute expenses for cost centers, that is, the Olympics itself and the reconstruction of Sochi as a city, then it is unlikely that the holding of the Olympics itself will cost more at times more than in Turin 2006. Those. about $ 1.5-3 billion.

But there is a nuance. Now Sochi is a complete absence of sports facilities, transport infrastructure, etc. Oi by and large are an ideological factor justifying such large -scale investments. The expert also noted that in the case of a budget, the funds invested in the reconstruction of Sochi and the implementation of the OI can be returned in the form of taxes. After all, we are, first of all, about the creation of a giant tourist and sports center.

However, the Olympics, whatever they say, the event is unprofitable. The net profit from the Olympic Games in Turin seemed to have been about $ 265 million. It is a lot or little to evaluate (the calculations of games of games are often sinned against common sense and accounting). True, it is clear that there will be no such income from the Sochi Olympics.

For example, due to banal circumstance-the human factor. According to the expert, the fact of the construction of planned facilities within the time limits is not in doubt. A great risk is the operation of these objects, both in normal mode and in the Olympiad mode. One of the largest Sochi problems today is the lack of proper number and quality of staff. And the staff will need to be taught, hired or taken from all over Russia.

The interlocutor of Polit.ru almost confirmed our fears that the principle of “appointed sponsors” will also be used to fulfill the budget, along with “honest” built marketing decisions for various business spheres. The largest investors of the project are known quite widely-this is a number of large business groups, including the “basic element”, “Interros”, “Gazprom”. Either they were appointed investors of the project, or they themselves "are a lot for the prestige of Russia." It is believed that businessmen will nevertheless earn at the Olympics-at the construction of objects (in the short term) and on the operation of objects (if the Russians will still go to these “new” Sochi after the Olympics). Anyway - a game with billions of amounts is rarely conducted without an idea to earn money.

Finally, the Olympiad is still a pleasant and relatively harmless way of mastering the budget. Today, the word “sawing” is not scared, but in this case, if it happens, then with the most noble intentions. And interested parties will have an argument - that in such a case it is impossible otherwise.

And the image of the country ...

At the same time, individual officials will receive the opportunity to increase their hardware weight with this. Hardware capitalization is a difficultly evaluated effect. Say, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov seems to have won from the Olympics-a large project allows him to perform on TV without any risk. But German Gref, rather, went out “to zero” - he did not have time to leave for Guatemala, as the arrests of officials of his ministry began in Moscow. Go guess-there would be a hardware profit, lose Russia in the struggle for OI-2014.

We finish on a major note-there is still a clear benefit of the OI in Sochi. It’s hard to believe, the interlocutor of Polit.ru noted, but today Russia from the point of view of sports marketing is at the level of the third world. However, after five, seven, ten years, sport will switch to the rails of a market economy. And this will be a huge merit of Sochi 2014. In Europe, similar processes lasted decades, they fly in our years. So the time of competent sports-marketing strategies in the near future. Yes, and the general director of the application committee - with the help of the Olympics, Russia receives a unique opportunity to solve the issue with the status and image in the eyes of the world community.

As elites, this opportunity will be scheduled - a different question. In the end, the First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov not so long ago promised that in 2020 we will live in democratic Russia. And 2014 will be just in the center of the path to the long -awaited goal.