Dear Friends and Colleagues,


This is a reminder that on Friday, November 16th we are hosting a colloquium "Toward Effectively Using Olympic Stadiums: Conditions and Case Examples," at the Japan Foundation from 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm. We are still accepting registration, so please let us know if you would like to attend!


We look forward to seeing you there!

Social Science Research Council

Abe Fellowship Program Tokyo Office

Link (Japanese): https://www.jpf.go.jp/cgp/fellow/abe/news/colloquium181116.html

To register, please contact our staff at abetokyo@ssrc.org <mailto:abetokyo@ssrc.org> with your name, affiliation, telephone number, and email.


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ABE FELLOWSHIP COLLOQUIUM

"Toward Effectively Using Olympic Stadiums: Conditions and Case Examples"

Notes: Admission is free. Presentation in Japanese with English questions accepted.

When: Friday, November 16, 2018, from 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm

Where: Sakura Hall 2nd Floor, Japan Foundation, 4-4-1 Yotsuya, Shinjuku, Tokyo

http://www.jpf.go.jp/j/access/map.html


Speaker:

Isao Okada, Professor, Osaka Seikei University /Abe Fellow(2015)

Okada had worked for the Mainichi Newspapers from 1988 to 2018. At Mainichi he served as a senior staff writer of Economic News Department and Sports News Department, and the deputy editor of Arts and Cultural News Department. His education includes a B.A. in law from Soka University (Japan) and a M.A. in International Economics and Finance from Chulalongkorn University in Thailand. He received a Fulbright Journalist fellowship in 2007, spending time at Harvard University. He was an Abe Fellow in 2016-2017. During his Abe Fellowship period he was a visiting scholar at Harvard University and Oxford University, visiting ten cities that hosted summer and winter Olympics, researching how each city dealt with the problems of maintaining and utilizing facilities built for the Olympics. He is a member of the Japanese Association for Sports Management and the American Marketing Association. He has published, in Japanese, a book on "Why is Major League Baseball So Profitable?"


Outline:

In recent years the costs of hosting the Olympic Games have ballooned. China spent 40 billion (USD) on infrastructure investment for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and Russia spent 50 billion (USD) on the 2012 Sochi Winter Olympics. Beyond the initial investment to reform and construct, who knows how much these gigantic sports-facilities will accrue for maintenance and operation after the attention-gathering events are over? Without a way to manage them in the post-Olympic period so that income sufficiently covers maintenance expenses, host cities and their tax payers risk footing the bill. As we look forward to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, how can we insure sustainable maintenance? Is there a magic formula to turn Olympic facilities into "positive legacies"? This talk will focus on the main stadiums constructed or refurbished for the summer games. Built to accommodate an audience of upwards of 70,000 spectators, these large-scale facilities have been particularly difficult to manage and maintain. I will examine the lessons that can be learned from recent Olympics since the 1972 Munich Games.

*This event is jointly sponsored by the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) Tokyo Office and the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership (CGP). ※Personal information provided will be used for arrangements for the event and evaluation of the event, as well as providing information for future events.