One of the things that got me interested in this topic was repeatedly hearing that the Own the Podium program was valued at $110 million. Somehow this money was to have been distributed to athletes to help them win gold, the overall goal being for Canadians to win more medals than any other Vancouver 2010 participant nation. When I went to their website and looked at their various funding programs the largest winter Olympics related number that I could find was $97 million, which is about $13 million shy of the frequently cited value. I guess I should mention that when I looked through their news releases the larger number was cited, though without reference to specifics as to how this money was spent.
It should also be noted that the Own the Podium initiative supports both summer and winter sports (though the previously mentioned $97 million related only to winter sports) and is supported by both government and corporate sponsors. The website suggests that the Canadian government is their largest contributor, with an annual contribution of $47 million a year (only $11 million of which is targeted at winter sports). Provincial governments (other than New Brunswick) also seem to contribute to this program, though it is not immediately clear how large these contributions are. A similar lack of clarity exists regarding the size of corporate donations (and whether they are in the form of good and services rather than cash). I guess what I am saying is that a detailed budget outlining the sources of revenues would shed light on quite a number of these things, especially as it seems that about $86 million is coming from sources other than the federal government.
From the Own the Podium website I ended up at the Canadian Heritage website, the federal government department responsible for a big chunk of federal government sports funding. What I quickly noticed about this source of funding is that the mysterious $110 million made another appearance, though this time it was backed up by details to show the distribution of the funds.
Source: Winter Olympic Quadrennial History
I am now starting to wonder if there has not been some confusion between the aspirations of the Own the Podium program and the actual budgetary allotment made by Canadian Heritage. I should mention that it is not clear to me whether these numbers include the federal government contribution the Own the Podium program or not (so their contribution could easily be $121 million for this year's winter athletes).
I guess what I find most remarkable about all of this is the quantity of funding per athlete. If we take the $110 million from Canadian Heritage and $86 million from Own the Podium (I won't include the $11 million in federal funding that might otherwise be double counted) we can see that about $196 million in athlete funding was available for this year's winter Olympic athletes (and this isn't even counting smaller private funding initiatives like b2ten).
If we place this $196 million next to the fact that the Canadian winter Olympics team is composed on 206 athletes it seems that the per capita cost of a Canadian winter Olympics athlete is close to a $ 1 million (or $250 000 per year). Another way of looking at it is in terms of medals. While Canada has won 10 medals at the moment, lets assume that Canada wins a total of 16 (2 in curling, 2 in hockey, and 2 miscellaneous). This would make the per medal cost about $12 million.
Of course it would be one thing if the athletes representing Canada were known years in advance and could take advantage of these resources, but in many cases it is not clear which athletes will be representing Canada until just weeks before the events. If this is the case, and athletes are preparing for qualification events with their own resources, what exactly is this money being used for? For instance, how is the $9.25 million that is going to 'curling' being used to benefit Canadian Olympic curlers? This one is particularly worthy of attention as the two teams that represented Canada at the last Olympics are nowhere to be seen this time around, though both teams won medals in the last games. Hockey, with its $14.5 million in funding also boggles my mind as the male half of the program are pros who have their primary training and coaching costs covered by their professional teams.
I guess all of this leaves me wondering what the overall goal of these funding programs are and whether they are in any way justifiable? If the goal is to encourage participation and healthy living we seem to have failed as the emphasis seems to be on the 206 athletes currently representing us at the Olympics instead of the wider population. If the goal was to win medals this too seems to have failed as 10 medals doesn't even get Canada close to top of the medal standings. Of course these programs also need to be placed in the context of the current economic and taxation climate. Can such extravagant (I think $12 million bronzes are extravagant) expenditures be justified in the face of possible tax increases and program cuts? Would Canada really be all that worse off without an Olympic speed skating team (or luge, or any other sport that is infeasible without government funding)?
These thoughts are probably a little disorganized and incomplete, but they are somewhat representative of some of the things I started thinking about once I started to get a better sense of the athletics funding regime in Canada (and this doesn't even include summer sports of the cost of the Olympics). In many ways actually looking at the numbers confirmed my fears that the Olympics are a huge burden on taxpayers for very little return (except for those companies lucky enough to cover them). It also confirmed my suspicion that the media coverage regarding funding has been vague at best.
Blog-off Score
Neil: 0
Cameron: 38
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