Good morning. Lady Gaga and Céline Dion are tough acts to follow, but if anyone can do it, it’s Simone Biles, Katie Ledecky, LeBron James, and the rest of the athletes capable of seemingly superhuman feats currently housed in the Olympic Village. The 2024 Summer Games are in full swing, and to celebrate, we’re bringing you Olympics Brew—a look at what it takes to make the event happen (besides the years of intensive athletic training).

—Abby Rubenstein

Are the Olympics an economic boon?

The Olympics are a spectacular display of athletic achievement but also a costly flex for the host country. The Paris Games are estimated to cost around $9.7 billion, with the local and national governments footing about half of the bill.

While French officials boast the 2024 Games are the most economical in recent history, many Parisians are asking the question that comes up every time the torch gets lit in Olympia: Is the investment worth it? Historically, the answer has been no.

Gold medal for bleeding cash

The upside of hosting the Games is straightforward: The host will get infrastructure for future use, positive PR, and tourism revenues. But research shows that although local hotels and construction companies typically reap gains, employment benefits are often fleeting, since most jobs are temporary. Meanwhile, city infrastructure improvements can be completed without incurring the security and operations costs of running a massive spectator event.

After hosting, many cities have found themselves with a financial hangover, saddled with debt and upkeep expenses for seldom-used sports facilities.

• The 1976 Summer Games left Montreal with decades of debt and the Big O stadium that locals call the Big Owe.
• Many experts say the $11 billion Greece spent on the 2004 Athens Olympics contributed to the country’s debt crisis.
• China shelled out $40 billion for the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and Russia spent over $50 billion on the 2014 Sochi Games. Though they resulted in major infrastructure improvements, both events were plagued by corruption.

But…there are rare success stories. Los Angeles, which hosted in 1984, is the only city to ever profit from the Olympics, largely due to its use of existing athletic facilities and a jump in TV broadcast revenues. And Barcelona successfully beautified its cityscape for the 1992 games, boosting tourism in the long term.

Why might Paris be more cost-effective?

Recent overspending inspired the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to prioritize frugality in Olympic bids. It no longer encourages cities to outdo themselves with flashy proposals, and favors plans to use existing facilities or provide a concrete use case post-Olympics for new ones.

Paris minimized its reliance on government coffers, with 96% of Olympic operational costs (which doesn’t include infrastructure spending) handled by the private sector and few new facilities built from scratch. Much of the infrastructure, including the Olympic Village, is located in a low-income neighborhood, where many of the new buildings will be converted into mixed-income housing or other nonathletic uses after the Olympians head home.

Even stricter measures…have been floated to save cash in the future, like holding the Olympics only in high-income countries or having the same city play host permanently.—SK

You can’t spell Paris Olympics without AI

Athletes are not allowed to artificially enhance themselves at the Olympics, but there’s no stopping NBC from using AI to cultivate viewership mass.

Sagging Olympics ratings have plagued the network in recent years. It has posted three straight record lows across the Winter and Summer Games. NBC will most likely see an uptick in viewership with this year’s Games taking place in a much friendlier time zone for US viewers, but it’s also embracing AI as a way of generating interest.

Does Al Michaels believe in AI? Yes.

The legendary sports broadcaster has had his share of memorable calls, but when you hear his voice at this summer’s Games, it will be AI-generated. The 79-year-old, who still calls NFL games for Amazon, granted NBC permission to clone his voice for 10-minute personalized daily recaps that will be available on Peacock.

The verbal deepfakes will have quality control editors making sure A-I Michaels doesn’t make any mistakes, especially with the pronunciations of athlete names. Real Human Michaels told Vanity Fair that when he heard his machine-generated voice, he realized he could become obsolete: “I just sat there and thought, ‘In the next life, I’m going to need a new profession.’”

Google AI tech will be in the spotlight

Google is using the Paris Games to put its AI tools on display during broadcasts and will also serve as Team USA’s official AI search partner, so hopefully nobody gets caught using ChatGPT late at night in the Olympic Village.

• SNL alum and Olympics enthusiast Leslie Jones will play the role of “chief superfan commentator,” which will see her learn a new sport with the help of Google Gemini.
• Many sports broadcasts already have a tie-in with Apple where announcers tell viewers to say, “Hey, Siri…” in an effort to get the AI assistant to answer a question about the game. NBC will do something similar using Google’s beleaguered “AI Overview,” so don’t be surprised if you’re told athletes are using glue during an equestrian event.

Athletes will be involved, too: Members of Team USA will take part in “One Day in Paris” promos where they explore the city using AI tools, per The Hollywood Reporter. It remains to be seen if the AI will consider them loud and annoying like a local would.—DL

How to root for the only Olympic sport with a DJ

Rule No. 1: Don’t call it breakdancing. The Bronx-born hip-hop dance that’s actually named breaking is hitting the Olympic stage in Paris next month, and even your most Games-obsessed friends probably don’t know what the new events will look like.

This year, you stunt on them.

How it’ll work

Sixteen men and 16 women will compete one on one in three-round battles. In each round, the breakers (known as b-boys and b-girls) will improvise a combination of hip-hop and acrobatic dance moves for a minute each over a track the DJ chooses.

How breakers break. There are three main types of moves: top rock, down rock, and freeze.

• Top rock is anything done while standing.
• Down rock is all the sick floor moves you probably associate with “breakdancing.”
• Freezes are full stops in difficult positions.

Breakers are expected to transition smoothly from one type of movement to the next and show off “power moves,” like jumping on one hand. Many also have signature moves.

How they’re scored: Breakers are judged in comparison to one another on five criteria: technique (proper form, general athleticism), vocabulary (variety of moves), execution (hitting moves cleanly), musicality (dancing on the beat), and originality (personality/wow factor).

How to tell who’s winning: You probably won’t notice when someone messes up since the competitors are very good at transitioning from one position to the next, according to Oliver Marte, a New York City-based breaker who’s excited for the expression form’s Olympic exposure. He told Morning Brew that some of the best b-boys and b-girls are improvisational masters with a unique flair: to impress the judges, “One way is to go signature, meaning you come up with your own style and [bring] your own energy to the jam—your own aura…something fresh nobody’s seen before,” Marte said.

The breaking battles take place on August 9 and 10. Marte’s pick for one breaker to watch is Team USA’s Miguel Rosario, aka b-boy Gravity.—ML

Paris beefs up security for the Olympic Games

After five years and two Olympic Games without an audience, athletes at the 2024 Games in Paris can wave to their supporters in the stands. But with as many as 3.1 million spectators expected to attend across 35 different venues, managing security for the Paris Games amid global conflict is a behemoth of a task.

“French Security is taking a ‘whole of government’ approach to securing the Games—it is unprecedented,” Chief of Security & Athlete Services for the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee Nicole Deal told Morning Brew.

Nearly 30,000 police officers are being deployed each day. An additional 18,000 French military members and ~25,000 private security agents will also provide services throughout the Games.

• General Christophe Abad told the AP in the lead-up to the Games that “there has never been such a massive mobilization of military forces on French soil” since the end of World War II.
• Security officials are also using a controversial AI surveillance system, a first in Europe, to identify suspicious behavior.

Laptop security. The French cybersecurity agency, ANSSI, has spent the last two years working to combat the high number of cyberthreats expected during the Games, according to Politico.

But it hasn’t all been gold-medal-worthy so far. Friday’s opening ceremony was protected by numerous snipers from above and 35 security boats. Nearly 45,000 police officers created a “bubble” around the 85 boats carrying athletes through a four-mile section of the Seine River. But with all eyes on Paris, coordinated arson attacks on high-speed rail lines snarled transportation throughout France hours before the big event. —MM

The biggest restaurant in the world is open

Anyone who’s ever been in charge of snacks for a weeklong beach trip can empathize with the more than 200 chefs in France tasked with feeding the 15,000 elite athletes in town for the Olympic Games.

It’s also an Olympic feat for these culinary professionals who, over the course of the event, will serve more than 13 million meals to athletes, who each have specific tastes and needs.

Where? The Olympic Village restaurant, considered the biggest restaurant in the world, sits inside a 700-foot-long former electrical power plant and is expected to serve 45,000 meals a day, 24/7.

What’s on the menu? Despite being Parisian favorites, there will be no foie gras (animal welfare is top of mind) and no french fries (deep-fat fryers create a fire hazard). But the potassium-filled athlete favorite, the banana, will be available—an estimated 3 million of them have been ordered. Some other signature culinary offerings include:

• Red and white quinoa muesli topped with parmesan
• Chickpea pommade with beets, peas, and a seafood broth
• Poached-egg croissants with artichoke cream, goat cheese, and truffles

Global impact: The Olympic restaurant is doing its part to meet Paris’s goal of halving the carbon footprint of the 2012 London Olympics. That means 80% of ingredients are sourced from France, with 25% from within 155 miles of Paris, and only reusable cutlery and plates are allowed.—CC