The Incredible Logistics of the Tokyo Olympics

 This video was made possible by CuriosityStream. Watch an exclusive companion video to this by signing up for the CuriosityStream/Nebula bundle deal at CuriosityStream.com/Wendover. Ten years ago, in May 2011, Adele’s Rolling in the Deep was topping the Billboard charts, the first season of Games of Thrones was on its way to becoming a television phenomenon, Osama Bin Laden had just been killed by USNavy Seals, and the International Olympic Committee was sending letters to NationalOlympic Committees soliciting bids to host the 32nd running of the Summer Olympic Games. This moment marked the start of a decade-long process of planning and preparation all leading up to a mere 16 days of international sporting competition. Step two was this: one month later, the governor of Tokyo, Japan announced his city’s intention to submit a bid—in large part to mark their recovery from the massive, 20,000 death earthquake that had devastated the country mere months before.

Soon enough, Madrid, Istanbul, Baku, and Dohaeach submitted bids as well but, in the end, after a two-year evaluation process, a contract was signed between the International Olympic Committee, the Japanese Olympic Committee, and the City of Tokyo in September 2013—Tokyo would host the 2020 Summer Olympic Games. For an event of this scale—tens of thousands of athletes, millions of spectators, and billions of television viewers—a mere seven-year planning period, believe it or not, leaves no time to waste. The most-watched television broadcast in existence needs to be planned; a whole village needs to be constructed; dozens of stadiums and venues need to be built, refurbished, or adapted; and one of the world’s largest cities needs to plan for what might be the busiest three weeks of its existence. To complete this task, Tokyo was given this: the Host City Contract - Operational Requirements document. Across its 273 pages, this outlines, in incredible detail, what the International Olympic Committee, or IOC, requires from its contractual partner, Tokyo, in order to complete the Olympics successfully and, crucially, consistently with all past and future Games. It's essentially the bible for Olympic organizers. The 2015 edition, made for the 2020 Games—now being held in 2021—outlines some absolutely minuscule details. 

For example, Tokyo had to install weather stations at the sites of all outdoor competition venues three years prior to the start of the games in order to collect long-term data to be used by the IOC to inform their scheduling of events. The document also establishes some basic but far-reaching guidelines, such as the fact that the Olympics will last 16 days, except for a certain number of preliminary competitions that, subject to IOC approval, can be held prior to the opening ceremony. It also, in a matter of mere paragraphs, outlines massive asks, such as the necessity for Tokyo to book 41,177 hotel rooms for the media, marketing partners, future host city representatives, IOC executives, National Olympic Committee representatives, International Sport Federation representatives, and more. This is equivalent to close to half of all of Tokyo’s hotel rooms, and it only represents the accommodation requirements for those actually running the games—not those competing or spectating. The hotel capacity crunch was such an issue, in fact, that prior to the prohibition of international spectators due to the Coronaviruspandemic, the city had planned to dock cruise ships in Tokyo Bay to serve as additional, temporary hotels. Athletes, however, do not stay in hotels. 

Since the 1932 Los Angeles Games, each host city constructs a dedicated Olympics Village to house athletes—far away from the crowds of fans and hoards of media. Now, the IOC’s operational requirements set strict standards to assure that, for the most part, the 2012 village is just like the the2020 village, for all practical purposes. For example, it has to be within 50 kilometers,31 miles, or a 60-minute drive of all venues so, if any event takes place further from the main host city, an additional village is constructed. This is especially relevant for the winter games, with which indoor sports often happen within the main host city, but outdoor events happen further away at mountain resorts. For example, in the case of the 2014 games, a primary village was constructed in Sochi, while an additional one was set up at the Roza Khutor ski resort where snowsports events took place. For the summer games in Tokyo, however, just one village was constructed, and the Operational Requirements dictated that it must have the capacity for 16,000 people, so it operates at the scale of a small town. The requirements also dictate that rooms must be at least 97 square feet or 9 square meters in size, or 129 square feet or 12 square meters with double rooms, and even outline their required contents. 

In addition, the village must have an Olympicsmerchandise store, a bank, photo store, hair salon, florist, dry cleaning shop, travel agent, post office, and more. Typically, McDonald's also sets up a temporary restaurant in the village for the games, which is like any Mcdonald's except that its menu has no prices—the company provides athletes with food for free in exchange for the publicity inevitably attracts. Lastly, according to the operational requirements document, the village even must have a designated place of mourning. Now, constructing brand new dedicated venues, such as the village, for the purposes of a 16-day event quite obviously presents problems. While in decades past cities were essentially willing to throw any amount of money at the Games—and sometimes run at hundreds of percent over budget—due to a belief that the publicity they attracted was invaluable, taxpayers, and therefore governments, are increasingly skeptical of the value that the Games truly provides for a city and country. There are plenty of horror stories of places like Turin, Italy, the host of the 2006 Games, whose village now sits derelict and is inhabited by squatters—essentially a complete waste of money from the perspective of the city and, therefore, its taxpayers. There are also, however, cases like that of Sydney, which redeveloped its Olympic Park into a true neighborhood. It’s now home to upscale hotels, restaurants, and housing complexes, and hosts nearly 6,000 events both large and small each year. Altogether, having seen the horror stories, the Olympics are becoming less attractive for cities. 

In decades past, plenty of cities would bid to host each Olympics, but now there are situations like Paris 2024 or Los Angeles 2028 where cities are awarded the Games effectively by default—having faced zero competition in the bidding process. For those that do host the games, though,cost-consciousness has increased dramatically and they’re now trying to craft their venue strategy closer to that of Sydney, rather than Turin. In Tokyo, three categories of Olympic venues are being used. The first is temporary. With certain events, such as canoeing, climbing, beach volleyball, or sailing, there’s little prospect that the city can redevelop the venue into something self-sustaining after the games, so they either set up spectator and media facilities at existing sporting facilities that just lack the scale to host an Olympic event, or they set up an entirely new, temporary venue. For more popular sports that require less specialized facilities, however, Tokyo is using pre-existing venues around the city. For example, with Table Tennis, which requires little infrastructure, the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium is being used—just as it was during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics for Gymnastics. With certain events, however, the Tokyo organizers believed it was actually worth it to build a brand new venue. 

Swimming and diving events, for example, will happen at the brand-new Olympics Aquatics Center. This is often the case at summer games. Swimming and diving are typically some of the most watched sports at the Olympics, despite mediocre popularity as a spectator sport outside of the games. That means cities often lack aquatics venues with the scale necessary for Olympic events, so this is one of the venues more often built as new. At the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games, a temporary aquatics stadium was built, while at London 2012, Beijing 2008, Sydney 2000, and plenty more, new, permanent facilities were created. Now, with each of these new, permanent venues, the Bureau of Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020 Preparation had to justify their long-term value beyond the games to the government and public. Therefore, they released this document. It outlines the core of their development strategy: they want to create not only effective venues, but an appealing neighborhood, certainly following the model of Sydney 2000, so that they can consider any money spent an investment, rather than a cost. With each of these new venues, such as the new Olympic Aquatics Centre, for example, they’re published a detailed post-gameplan. Through redeveloping the venue into both along-term competition venue and a community recreation center, the Bureau believes they can attract a million visitors per year after the games, and while they project the facility to run at a loss, it's one small enough to be comparable with other similar public recreation centers created outside of the context of the Olympics. Some of the other venues, such as the AriakeArena, to be used for Volleyball, are expected to turn a profit after the games so, altogether, if projections are accurate, these new venues won’t be a long-term financial burden to the city and its taxpayers. 

Now, of course, like with anything regarding the Olympics, each of the 42 venues needs to follow a sprawling set of strict standards. For example, they each need to have the Olympicsflag and respective International Sporting Federation flag flying in a conspicuous spot. They need to have a full backup power system for all broadcast, media, technology, sport, and security operations, while their lighting systems must be split into two sections with independent power supplies for each so that events can go on even through a power failure. In terms of the actual sporting facilities, however, these are each subject to the standards of the respective IOC-recognized InternationalSports Federation. For example, Olympic rowing is managed by the International Rowing Federation, which recommends 531 feet or 162 meters of course, and requires 2,162 meters or 7,126 feet of length. Their standards get plenty more specific, though: they specify the intricacies of the course buoy system; outline where advertising banners can go; detail the location, construction, and operation of timing huts; and much, much more. Each Olympic event is essentially the pinnacle of its sport, so the International Federations are heavily involved. Of course, the Olympics are a made-for-television event. While millions of spectators do typically watch the Games in person, billions watch on TV. 

In fact, 73% of the Olympic's total revenue comes from television rights alone. They simply would not happen in their modernform if not for their massive television audience so perhaps the most important facility ofall is this: the International Broadcast Center. In Tokyo, this facility is constructed in Tokyo Big Sight—the country’s largest convention center—and is run by the OlympicsBroadcasting Services, or OBS. Now, for the longest time, broadcasting operations were being something that the International Olympic Committee would contract out to a third party, but in advance of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, OBS was established to act as the host broadcaster for all future Games. Now, like with most large sporting events, you won’t see cameras from NBC, BBC, Eurosport, and all the other national broadcasters that carry the events on TV actually at each event. That’s because OBS is responsible for filming and producing each event, and then they provide produced feeds to each broadcaster, who acts as their customer. While NBC, for example, might have reporters and commenters at each event to augment the OBS feeds, they don’t actually film the sporting events themselves. 

Now, OBS is a standalone, independent company set up by the IOC to fulfill these broadcast functions. While typically it has some 166 employees, this balloons up to 8,100 during the Games—mostly comprised of the operational staff filmingand producing the television feeds. Its ultimate task in Tokyo is to create 9,500hours of content—more than with any prior Olympic Games. To accomplish this, it has deployed some 1,049cameras and 3,600 microphones across Tokyo’s 42 venues. These are cut together into produced “WorldFeeds” in dedicated broadcast compounds at each venue before being delivered to here: the International Broadcast Center. From one month before the games until its conclusion, this is a 24/7 operation and, much like the Olympics Village, operates like a small town with restaurants, coffee shops, bars, a medical center, bank, convenience store, dry cleaners, and even a massage room. Many of OBS’ facilities at the International Broadcast Center deal with the technical aspects of taking the World Feeds, of which as many as 64 are produced simultaneously in the case of day two of the games, and disseminating these out to all the different rights-holding broadcasters around the world. However, in addition to television production,much of the purpose of this facility is to act as workspace for all the journalists fromaround the world who have travelled to the Games. 

During the Olympics, one of OBS’ main functions is as essential as a landlord. They manage the International Broadcast Center and rent out space to different broadcasters to serve as their workspaces. A private office in the center comes in units of 270 square feet or 25 square meters, and in the case of Tokyo, costs some $5,011 per unit for the duration of the games. Of course, though, there are plenty of upcharges. Even once a broadcaster has paid to rent aspace, two normal wall plugs will cost them $876, and the OBS rate card even includesthe option to purchase a power strip for $27. Meanwhile, getting a dedicated 100 Mbps ethernet plug, to provide more stable internet than the free wifi, costs broadcasters $19,044. OBS also sells broadcasters a digital datafeed, giving real-time access to results, schedules, medals, records, news, biographies, statistics, and more. This is what ultimately gets repackaged into, for example, the real-time results you’ll see on the NBC or the BBC websites. Finally, OBS’ rate card includes options to outfit a broadcaster’s private office with a printer for $356, a walkie-talkie for$438, a small folding table for $67, a microwave for $105, and an electric kettle for $23. With 6,000 accredited journalists awardedaccess to the Tokyo Games, it's as much a job to manage them as the athletes and, whileprocuring an electric kettle for an LA Times sportswriter might seem like a trivial task, it makes the journalists’ jobs easier, and doing so plays a tiny but present part inhelping the Olympics run smoothly. 

Now, ultimately, while there are plenty ofbig decisions required in planning the Olympics, there are few small ones. For the most part, the host cities’ jobs are just to follow an incredibly detailed set of instructions. They spend the better part of a decade doing exactly that, but the ultimate goal of the 2020 Games is to make an event that’s just as successful and runs largely the same as the Games of 2016, 2012, 2008, or any year before. The goal is consistency, and therefore the task, while enormous, is strictly prescribed. That doesn’t mean it’s straightforward, though. Every page of this document represents an incredible amount of work—a single line might become an individual’s job for years—and then actually putting that together, combining the tasks as small as placing the right flag in a venue with those as large as building an entirely new stadium, is what makes fora truly successful and impressive event. As anyone knows by now, the 2020 Tokyo Olympic games are actually happening in 2021. Of course, taking one of the world’s largest events and postponing it by a year mere months before, after a decade of preparation, is an incredible feat. I didn’t have time to cover that in this video, but for those interested, I made a companion video about the subject and put it on Nebula. 

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