Why are rich countries rich? The 2024 Olympics closing ceremony offers clues… brought from the sky by Tom Cruise.
How can you top the elegance of a race of athletes over the River Seine that divides Paris? Can there be a better cauldron than the one that hung flames from a balloon in the Tuileries Garden? It seemed impossible, until the screen reminded us that now comes Hollywood and the adrenaline of California music, courtesy of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
On summer days, the USC Hotel costs the equivalent of about 5,000 pesos per night for a double room. That’s cheap compared to other hotels near the Los Angeles Coliseum. Renting a home on Airbnb can save you perhaps 40 percent.
You will hardly pay less than 30 thousand pesos for a 10-day stay as a couple, but keep in mind that prices can skyrocket due to inflation and the demand during those days will be higher than in a conventional summer. And that’s just the lodging.
But can we avoid the desire to participate in that experience? It all depends on who you ask.
Older generations will probably find the question meaningless. But they are not the majority.
At least in Mexico, the army of adults born since the 80s triples the number of those who are thinking about retirement today. They know the term FOMO and have incorporated the anglicism into colloquial conversations.
Fear Of Missing Out It is a blow of anxiety that particularly attacks the generations that cannot let go of the smartphone And the next Olympic celebration seems to be made for these, not only because of the relevance of the event itself, but because it will take place in the magnet for Western brains, near Silicon Valley and the source of franchises like The Avengers and everything that comes out of Pixar.
If Paris captured the attention of the West for its strident beauty, the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games – officially known as the Games of the XXXIV Olympiad – are a call to the future, a general invitation to see how the economy and humanity will behave in the next era.
This weekend, Disney announced what it has in store for those days. Its executives did not mention the sporting event during its Sunday event called D23 Expo, but they did warn that they will renovate its historic Anaheim park, Disney California Adventure, to add attractions based on the Marvel Cinematic Universe; James Cameron’s Avatar franchise; and the Pixar film, Coconut.
It makes sense. The Experiences division, led by Josh D’Amaro, which includes theme parks, cruises and video games, produced 69 percent of Disney’s nearly $90 billion in revenue in 2023.
Well, making movies is part of the business, but the narrative of each one becomes a lure for clients, with no expiration date. That’s how they squeeze money out of Snow White or Spiderman, in perpetuity.
It is the cultural machinery of nations. France, with its Musée D’Orsay; the United States, with a wooden sign that says Hollywood. That bet has already been made.
Because the California natives won’t have to invest much. In defense of sustainability, they will give a once-over to all of their historic sports infrastructure in Los Angeles: The Coliseum; SoFi Stadium; the LA Convention Center; the historic 1932 Swimming Pool in Exposition Park and of course, the now-named Crypto.com Arena, previously known as Staples Center.
But there’s the other point. By 2028, the United States, at the forefront of cryptoassets, will have finished building the semiconductor infrastructure in which various companies are investing more than $100 billion.
SpaceX and Blue Origin, the companies of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, respectively, will probably have already completed some extraterrestrial project on the Moon and of course, artificial intelligence will have a muscle that we cannot imagine today and will be sharing its days fully with human intelligence in a world where the neighbors want to be leaders. Number one. Like in the Olympics.
That’s what great nations do, while carrying all their flaws. Who wants to go to #LA28?
