Sport and London 2012

I like sport, I'm sat here just watching Arsenal fight back from a goal down against Barcelona, the Olympics are coming to London next year and along with about 2 million other UK/EU residents have registered for tickets, which applications open for next month. I know its the biggest show on earth and this will be the only chance in my lifetime to see it in the UK and I'm usually glued to the TV coverage (when I'm allowed control of the remote) when it comes around every four years but I'm just not sure I want to go. There's a number of reasons and its probably a combination of all those below.....

1. I like Olympic sport but I'm really a big football (or Soccer if you must!) fan. I view Olympics football as a bit second rate. 2012 is also the year of the European Championships so Europe's top players won't be at the Olympics. The Olympics is not the pinnacle for Football or Tennis as it is for a large number of other sports. I'm not sure I'm that interested in the other sports which leads into....

2. Ticket Prices - The cheapest seats start at £20, for the heats/preliminary matches etc. They are the cheap seats though the higher priced tickets are just out of mine and I suppose a lot of ordinary Briton's price range (up to £725 for the major athletics finals). I've no doubt the higher priced tickets will be sold for the finals etc, but mainly to overseas visitors on packages or corporate entertainment.

3. Ticket Allocation - My plan would be for me and my wife to go down for an entire day, Athletics session in the morning (2 x £20), and then two sessions of Boxing/Basketball/Hockey/Swimming/Diving etc in the afternoon and evening (4 x £20). I'm  budgeting £120-£160 for tickets. Problem is the application for tickets starts on 1st March and closes mid April. You have to give them a VISA card where they take payment sometime in May/June. You actually get notified of what tickets you have been allocated at the end of June. Any over subscribed tickets are allocated on a lottery basis. We don't live in London, it's not so much the expense of getting there, a free London travel card is included with all tickets for the day concerned. Its just the hassle. I only want to go for one day and do as much as possible but I'd primarily be going for the athletics. They've not released and details of how many tickets there are in each price range. Nightmare scenario would be to get allocated tickets for the afternoon/evening events and miss out on the Athletics. I'm not sure I'd want to go. The £120-160 was money we had earmarked towards a week away in Scotland later this year, we're not sure about committing that much money on what could be a  lottery. Every message board you look on people are saying the tickets are too expensive, I have a feeling that demand for the cheap tickets may well exceed supply especially in the Athletics. I only want to apply for three sessions as there are no refunds and there's the possibility of having to pay for all tickets you apply for and ending up with tickets you don't really want and are unable to get rid of.

4. My wife isn't too keen. I spoke to her on the phone the other day and asked of she wanted to go to the Olympics, she was really keen....then she saw the schedule and ticket prices.....she had second thoughts.

5. The economy, I think my job is pretty secure, I've been with my present company for 13 years, and we've just had a good year, the second half of last years bonus, which we receive in a couple of months, would be paying for the tickets. Inflation is rising and they say interest rates will have to eventually as well. Our fixed rate deal ended a couple of years ago and we reverted onto a lower standard variable rate but that's not going to last for ever.