Revisiting the Tokyo Olympics as the track and field world championships open in Japan’s capital

TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s National Stadium was fan-less four years ago during the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Olympics; zero atmosphere in the $1.4 billion, 60,000-seat venue for the globe’s greatest track and field athletes.

Many recall the sterility of the opening and closing ceremonies, the quiet as Japanese Emperor Naruhito addressed thousands of empty seats to officially begin the Games of the XXXII Olympiad.

The most hyped event of the Olympics is often the men’s 100-meter final. But only silence and a small throng of media serenaded winner Marcel Jacobs — a Texas-born Italian — as he posed at the finish line to celebrate with an Italian flag stretched across his shoulders.

The stadium designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma in central Tokyo is about to get the attention it missed when the nine-day track and field world championships open Saturday.

The championships are sure to enliven a venue with stars like American sprinter Noah Lyles, whose struggles with depression tainted his trip to Tokyo, and pole vault world-record holder Mondo Duplantis. The venue has awaited this kind of event ever since it was completed in 2019.

This is good news for fans hoping to experience an atmosphere that was lacking in 2021.

But the focus on the stadium will again raise questions about government spending on a stadium that has struggled to find uses following the Olympics. The Olympics have a long history of producing white-elephant venues created with public money: Athens in 2004, Beijing in 2008, and Rio de Janeiro in 2016.

The background

Plans for a new stadium by Zaha Hadid were scrapped in 2015 when costs soared to over $2 billion. That stadium had a futuristic look, some comparing it with a bicycle helmet.

Kuma won a second bidding contest, designing a stadium that fit into the existing urban landscape with more Japanese elements including wood, gardens and flowing water.

The new venue replaced the stadium used for the 1964 Olympics, which was razed and was never regarded as an architectural gem.

However, Tokyo’s ‘64 Games did generate iconic architecture including the Yoyogi National Stadium, the jewel of those Olympics and a symbol of Japan’s rise following World War II. It’s a smaller indoor arena, the host for swimming in the ’64 Olympics.

Stadium costs

The National Stadium, built with taxpayer money for the Tokyo Olympics, appears to be a money loser. At least for taxpayers.

Victor Matheson, who studies the economics of sports at College of the Holy Cross, said a stadium like Japan’s National Stadium has too few uses, no permanent tenant, ongoing maintenance and operation expenses and possible payments on debt service.

“There are simply not that many events that require a 60,000-plus capacity,” Matheson wrote in an email to The Associated Press. “There are not many music concerts that can fill a stadium that size. And things like a soccer or rugby World Cup or track and field championships only come around rarely.”

The National Stadium was reported to be losing about 1 billion yen annually (about $7 million) as late as fiscal 2024. It has since been privatized to reduce public-sector expenses. A private consortium is managing the stadium although the national government still owns it and is picking up some of the bills.

Matheson cited a study that showed large stadiums in the United States, home to NFL teams, typically hosted fewer than 10 major entertainment or sports events per year outside of NFL games.

“So, most of the time you end up spending $1 billion-plus on a facility that sits empty 350 days a year,” Matheson said.

Jingu Gaien

The National Stadium sits adjacent to an area known as Jingu Gaien, a park-like space that includes a famous baseball and rugby stadium and a cherished avenue lined by more than 100 gingko trees.

There are plans approved by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government to raze the baseball and rugby stadiums. They are to be rebuilt in the same area, but in reconfigured space.

This will allow developer Mitsui Fudosan and others to build three skyscrapers in what was essentially a park area, some of the most valued real estate in Tokyo.

The zoning changes to allow this high-rise development — it won’t be finished for a decade — were pushed through by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government when the Olympics were on the horizon and the new National Stadium was seen as an urgent priority

Not only were the 2020 Olympics very costly for taxpayers, they also provided an opening for private developers to encroach on what has traditionally been park-like space.

“When someone else is footing the bill, we tend to build Rolls-Royces and not Toyota Corollas,” Matheson, the economist, said.

“At a price of $1.4 billion, Tokyo’s Olympic stadium costs roughly the same amount as the entire 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, even after accounting for inflation.”

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