00:00Birmingham has become a regular host for global sport. The Commonwealth Games came in 2022,
00:07the European Athletics Championships arrive in August and the Invictus Games follow next year.
00:14These events promise visitors investment and pride but what do residents pay and what lasts?
00:21The whole thing about sort of hosting these events is it's about prestige but of course
00:26prestige which of course good as it is because it brings lots of attention it comes at a price.
00:31If I talk about the sort of Commonwealth Games first they came with a sort of you know huge amount
00:36of
00:37cost in terms of creating the sort of the the infrastructure so a lot of work done in Birmingham
00:41particularly of course to sort of the athletes village which never actually served as that in
00:45Paribas but the big problem was of course there was a sort of deficit which the government picked
00:50up a bit of but the council taxpayers are sort of also having to sort of pick up a tab
00:54so of course
00:55people in Birmingham whatever sort of um perfected glory they got out of those games yeah it's
01:01short-lived um and of course then they sort of have the sort of the the payment to sort of
01:05to
01:05to you know make sure all sort of gets uh uh covered. The Commonwealth Games had a budget of 778
01:12million pounds with Birmingham and partners due to contribute about 184 million. An independent
01:20evaluation estimated 1.2 billion pounds was added to the UK economy nearly half of that here in the
01:27West Midlands. It identified jobs, tourism, community programs, better transport and an upgraded Alexander
01:35Stadium but that economic impact was not cash returned to Birmingham Council. One year later fewer than a
01:43quarter of residents say they were doing more physical activity. Separately the Games-linked
01:49Perry Bar housing scheme left around 150 million pounds worth of council debt. But of course if we sort
01:56of go back to any sort of event you know um and of course I'm old enough to remember the
02:00time before
02:01the sort of the convention centre that brings in lots of attention um and of course prestigious events.
02:06So the real difficulty is and particularly when it comes to sporting events they are notorious for
02:11sort of for going over budget and sort of costing a sort of a huge amount of money. Just as
02:14a footnote
02:15um it's interesting to remember that in the 1980s Birmingham went for a sort of Olympic spin
02:21incredible as it may seem lost out to Barcelona and Barcelona became if you like the sort of the
02:26the um the poster child for what can be done if you put lots of money and Barcelona sort of
02:30flourished as
02:31a city. The real difficulty is you've got to be very careful about these things because of course once you
02:36get started and you're fixed into it it's you can't back out of it. It does happen occasionally and of
02:41course you're sort of left with the sort of the cost and sometimes very sort of questionable legacies
02:46in terms of what it brings into the city so it has to be sort of done with care. But
02:50hey the marketing
02:51people would say it's a good way if you like to put yourself in the sort of the uh the
02:54showcases of
02:55what goes on in the world and if you don't do it then of course you'd be you're forgotten as
02:59it were.
