Not All Fun And Asian Games

AsiaOne Sports reported that only 100 people were on hand at the centerpiece Goyang Stadium Sept. 18 when Jordan’s soccer team played the United Arab Emirates, the reigning silver medalists at the games.

The stadium holds 62,000, and there were still thousands of empty seats for the opening ceremony the next day, which featured Asian pop superstar Psy and Chinese classical pianist Lang Lang. As a matter of fact, as the Games began, only 18 percent of the available tickets for the two-week extravaganza had been sold.

Consequently, the city is now reporting only revenues from ticket sales rather than number sold, but even in that regard it has only reached a little more than 50 percent of its goal of 35 billion won ($42 million).

Though some business leaders in the city play down attendance and point to the PR value of the Games, the fact remains that the event has made Incheon the most indebted city in South Korea. It has so far spent $2 billion, mainly in the construction of 17 new sports venues.

But even the PR value may be over-determined as there seems little evidence that the 200,000 visitors the Games were expected to draw are going to show up. It’s a far cry from 1988, when Seoul hosted the summer Olympics and all events were sold out. Sporting events aren’t as appealing to the average Korean these days. Even those who are interested don’t see the point in coming to see the events live.

They can watch on TV or, more likely, their mobile devices. South Korea is one of the most wired countries on the planet. Then there’s the structure of the Asian Games themselves, which feature more events than the Olympics.

Many Koreans have never heard of some of these sports, during which local athletes don’t even participate. This appears to be a relatively common situation throughout Asia, as other countries don’t seem interested on hosting future games.

The 2018 Games were originally going to take place in Vietnam, but will now be in Indonesia after Vietnam withdrew when it realized how much it would have to spend. Apparently, there was no discussion of an alternative site because Indonesia was the only other country to make an offer.