2008 Olympic Ticket Prices Set
Respect to the Beijing Olympic Committee for pricing the tickets to the 2008 games properly. Wednesday the Beijing Organizing Committee announced that tickets to the games would cost between USD$3.82 (Chinese foot massage) to $638 (two months rent) when they are sold next year. The group also boasted that 58% of all tickets to the games would cost less than $13 (the value of the largest Chinese paper bill) and thus be affordable to the average Chinese fan. We often forget with all of the talk of how China is on the rise, and how China has enormous financial reserves, that it is still a developing nation. And the first developing country to host the Olympics. And the Olympic Planning Committee took this into account when pricing the tickets. The average salary for a Beijing resident is less than USD$5000 per year. And other than Shanghai, this is China’s richest city. With this in mind, the tickets to the Beijing games will be, on average, 30% cheaper than the prices in Athens in 2004. The International Olympic Committee said of the plan, “The IOC is very pleased that BOCOG (Beijing) has found an affordable ticketing program which will maximize the opportunity for the Chinese public to enjoy the Games, whilst balancing with interest from the international community.” I agree with the affordable for the Chinese part. But maximizing interest from the international community? Are there really people out there who would look at the ticket prices to the Olympics and say to themselves, “too cheap, no interest, wouldn’t want to be seen at such a reasonably-priced event”? It’s the Olympics! There’s one group of oversized sport jacket-clad gentleman who must be happy about the surprisingly cheap ticket prices– the Chinese scalpers. They’re gonna make a killing.