So Brisbane will host the Olympics, and you know what, it’s kind of a big deal.

For a couple of weeks, the entire world will be focused on the capital of the Sunshine State, which will continue its rise from being a sleepy sub-tropical town.

The 1982 Commonwealth Games gave the place a kick start, and World Expo ’88 put it on the map. 2032 will take it to the next level.

Events, though, run deeper than getting your city shining on TV and selling tickets to punters at the turnstiles.

It doesn’t matter if it is the Olympics, a Supercars street circuit or a low-level race meet in a regional centre; they all play their own critical roles event economy.

The Sydney Experience

In the lead up to last night’s announcement, every time a news story regarding the finances of the Brisbane Olympics has been posted to social media, it has garnered a relentless barrage of angry face emoji reactions.

What a waste of money, repeats the angry corner of the internet. Not in my backyard.

While the organisers plan for the event to be cost-neutral, and the fact there is an $845million contingency built into the budget, it will inevitably cost more than expected to stage.

Studies have been produced that the eight Olympic Games held since 1976 have had an average cost overrun of 213%, with Sydney’s effort pegged at 90% over budget.

That said, in difference to the 2000 Sydney Games, Brisbane won’t be working from a clean sheet, with many venues recycled and repurposed, so the direct infrastructure outlay will be far less.

Other items like the new Brisbane Arena at Roma Street, and a spruce up of the Gabba, would be forthcoming with or without an Olympics.

The flipside to being pessimistic about Brisbane’s financial prospect is considering some of the other flow-on effects from the Sydney Olympic experience, outcomes that don’t necessarily get added into a line item on a spreadsheet.

In my actual real-life job outside of The Race Torque, I have been fortunate over the past decade to complete many transport industry related company profile stories, on a wide range of subjects, right across Australia.

It is fascinating stuff, especially so in the past 12 months regarding the pandemic’s effect on different industries. Such as why a doughnut shop has expanded, how a horse feed outlet has battled, why a heavy haulage driver for a major infrastructure project was sacked, all while a truck driver training business has flourished.

Relating this line of work to the Sydney Olympics, two stories instantly come to mind.

One was a Sydney based vacuum truck business, a small-time operator, that was until the Olympics came to town.

How? With the Harbour lined with cruise ships to cater for the mass influx of visitors, this particular operator worked overtime to empty their septic requirements around the clock for two straight weeks.

Another was a freight logistics company, which for the Olympics won a contract to act as a backup for the baggage handling system at the Sydney Airport, just in case things absolutely fell in a pile during its busiest ever period.

Their free-kick was the fact that the company earned numerous airside work permits, which they otherwise would have never received, and have subsequently used in trading to much bigger and better things over the two decades since.

There would undoubtedly be many other examples of how the Olympics experience touched a broad cross-section of the business community, providing them with continued growth long into the future.

A megaproject event like the Olympics takes so many people along for the ride.

Hang On, Isn’t This A Motorsport Site?

True, you’ve got me there.

The thing is, events, no matter if the size of the Olympics, or much smaller, have far-reaching footprints and implications that are often difficult to quantify.

We’ve discussed it here extensively in the past, but street circuit events are important to Australian motorsport because they are a shopfront, they bring the sport to the people and expose it to an audience that would never be drawn to out of the way specialist venues located in the sticks.

In the context of major events, they are sold to the various state governments around Australia on the basis that they drive the local economies, while at the same time are a postcard for the region as a tourist destination.

If you were couped up in a southern state for the past two weekends, wouldn’t you have preferred to be partaking in Townsville’s “shorts weather”?

Also, if you had never been to Newcastle before, would you have known there is a spectacular beach downtown, i.e. right where the race track goes?

Think for a moment what those events do for the local economy – for three decades now, the Gold Coast has sold out their available accommodation on race weekend. All of those people spend up big at restaurants, pubs and clubs. The taxis and Ubers shuffle back and forwards to the airport. The all-hours bakery at Main Beach does a roaring trade at 2am. People stay around for a day or two afterwards and visit the local tourist attractions. Or the pub, again.

Then you have the event itself. Think of all of the contractors and suppliers who set the venue up. The caterers, the vendors, the cleaners, the providers of temporary facilities, security, program sales, merchandise, the list goes on.

It would be impossible to track all of the cash that is pumped into the region as a result of the event happening, but it would add, and add, and add up.

Proponents of permanent facilities are quick to bash the expenditure and effort put into temporary facilities. Still, the uncomfortable truth is, growth in grassroots motorsport over the years has been parallel with the continued push by the professional side of the sport into the mainstream.

This said, the lower levels of the sport play a massive role in the event economy, and what they lack in one-for-one impact with a street circuit, they play a role by sheer force of numbers.

Take, for instance, Morgan Park Raceway, a regional Queensland circuit just outside of the town of Warwick, a two-hour cruise west from the future Olympic host.

You might have seen this place mentioned in the motorsport press this week with the cancellation of its upcoming Shannons Motorsport Australia Championship round.

While the venue has been around for over 50 years, it shot to prominence on the local scene in 2003 when the circuit was expanded to host state championship level events, and has continued to grow and evolve since then.

If it weren’t for Morgan Park, I know I would have no excuse ever to visit Warwick, outside of a possible service station pit stop on a road trip to Bathurst.

But over the years I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve made the journey to report for magazines, film for TV, organise events, do PR, commentate, take photos and datalog race cars, both on race days and test days.

Tallying up the receipts for all of the accommodation, the pub feeds, the Maccas runs, the visits to Big W, the tanks of petrol, and the mad dashes to Supercheap or Repco from the past 23 years would be staggering.

And by no means would I consider myself to be a big spender of those who frequent the track.

You see, practically every weekend, the facility hosts events of varying descriptions, and every weekend the area fills up with out of towners, with the quality and quantity of accommodation and hospitality options over the years continuing to advance as supply has met demand.

Then you look at the situation at Wakefield Park, set outside of the similarly provincial Goulbourn, a venue that is currently at loggerheads with the local council over the future use of the venue.

The madness of it all is that the town has the potential to lose a significant draw of visitors and their cash.

So what am I saying in this long-winded ramble?

Embrace the Olympics.

There’s no point getting uptight about the numbers behind the event, because sometimes numbers don’t paint the whole picture.

Show ‘em what you’ve got, Brisbane…

Morgan Park, circa 2003