Texans Will Be Watching the Summer Olympics in Paris: Here are Some Fun Facts

The Olympics are one of the the things that keep Americans, especially Texas stuck to their TVs, phones, and computers.  It's safe to say that some work won't get done in those two weeks.  We will be cheering on our favorite Olympians while they compete in Paris.

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The Summer Olympics will kick off on Friday, July 26, and extinguish the torch on Sunday, August 11th.  The Summer Olympics take place in the City of Light, Paris, France.  It has been 100 years since the Summer Olympics was last hosted in Paris.  This will be the 3rd time that Paris has hosted the Olympics.  The first time was in 1900 and again in 1924.

Read More: How Many Texas Athletes Will Be In Paris For The 2024 Olympics?

The Olympics are expensive.

It's not a cheap endeavor to host the Olympics.   The cost of this year's Summer Olympics is estimated to be more than $8.2 billion.   To put on an event of this size and to host more than 200 other countries.  It adds up.  Especially when the games are expected to bring over 15 million people to the city during the two weeks.

Those going to Paris for the Summer Olympics need to prepare to spend lots of money.  Just to put costs in perspective, the average cost of a hotel room in Paris on opening night will be 200% more than it would any other time.

How many events will happen at the Summer Olympics?

The Summer Olympics will consist of 329 events that will take place in 39 venues across Paris. Ten past Summer Olympic sports are no longer included and 2024 will bring one new sporting event to the games, Breaking, which is break dancing.

Over 5000 medals have been made for the Paris Summer Olympics.

This year the medals will contain something unique, they are made partially from iron used in the Eiffel Tower.  Winners will take a piece of this historic landmark as they return to their home countries.

Read More: Olympic Gold Medals Won By Texans |

The youngest athlete in the Summer Olympics this year is Hezly Rivera, a Team USA Gymnast.  She is 16 years old.

Security

As always, coordinators of an event this size want to keep the athletes and spectators safe and security is of the utmost importance.  Over 45,000 security persons will be keeping the Olympics safe, and this year the games security will use AI-managed security features.

NBC has held the rights to the Summer Olympics since 1988 and to keep those rights NBC Universal spent over $7.65B.  That's about $1B less than what the Summer Olympics cost to host.

How will people be watching?

Over 9 hours of Olympic games will be shown each day and over 4 billion people will be watching the games cheering on their teams.   However, most of this viewing won't be taking place on a TV, 85% of viewing will take place on other devices.