When Tony Blair reacted to last week's IOC announcement that London had made it onto the shortlist of cities bidding to host the 2012 Olympics, he spoke of the Government's desire to deliver a "memorable Games for the capital".

He also talked of providing the perfect event for the competing athletes and the entire Olympic family.

Then, as his list of potential beneficiaries drew to a close, the Prime Minister mentioned the positive effect the Games would have on the rest of the country.

Here in the North-East, his words hardly made waves.

For many in the region, bidding for the 2012 Olympics involves spending a lot of money for no practical benefit whatsoever.

The finances of the bid are both protracted and provisional.

The latest estimates suggest hosting the Olympic Games would cost London between £4-5bn, although double that figure might have to be spent on improvements on infrastructure prior to the Games taking place.

Any shortfall would be funded by a combination of central government, a precept on the London Council Tax, and a new series of National Lottery games.

More detailed funding proposals will emerge as the bid develops but, with this year's Athens Games currently operating four times over budget, taxpayers in the North-East will end up spending something somewhere down the line should London be successful.

So what will we get in return? Well, on the face of it, not a lot.

One of the IOC's key demands from a host city is that the Olympic events are held in as geographically small an area as possible.

The only action that will take place in the North East will be a series of football matches at Newcastle United's St James' Park that will involve young emerging talent that nobody has heard of.

Nice enough to watch, but hardly the kind of top-level action that will whet the appetite of a region so passionately devoted to sport.

As regional director of Sport England North-East, Judith Rasmussen is charged with giving our region a voice in the ongoing process of moulding London's bid.

It's easy to see where hosting the Olympics would have tangible benefits for those living in London - but Rasmussen is equally as effusive about the positive effects it would have on the North-East.

"You've got to remember that the Olympic Games are not just about the three or four weeks in which the event takes place," she said.

"During those weeks the focus will inevitably be on London.

"But, for the four years leading up to that, teams will be flocking to England to start preparing for the Games.

"All the major teams that are visiting will be setting up base camps for training in the run-up to the Games, and we can offer great opportunities for that here in the North-East.

"We have fantastic facilities in terms of training venues and accommodation that teams would be able to use prior to the Games.

"As a region, it would be up to us to make sure that those opportunities were exploited to the full.

"It wouldn't just be in Olympic year either.

"English athletes have been training and working in Greece and Cyprus ever since the last Olympic Games finished in Sydney in 2000. We would expect a similar thing to happen in the four years before 2012."

In 2000, the British Olympic team generated an estimated £1m for the Queensland economy by being based there before the Games and, with all of the leading nations certain to be represented in 2012, attracting the likes of the United States or Australia to the North-East would have massive economic benefits.

"It's not just the athletes either," said Rasmussen.

"You'd have hundreds of thousands of spectators coming to England as well as a host of journalists, broadcasters and officials.

"They would all need places to stay and places to come to and visit while they were over here.

"The tourism potential offered by the Olympic Games is massive because you'd get people coming over here who probably wouldn't otherwise."

The building of the new Wembley also highlights another key way in which the North-East could benefit from a future Olympic Games.

The football ground's famous Twin Towers will be replaced by a 133 metre-high arch built, at a cost of £60m, at Cleveland Bridge in Darlington.

Hosting the Olympics would mean a wholesale overhaul of London's sporting infrastructure with the construction of a brand new Olympic village, Olympic stadium and aquatics centre heading the list of planned ventures.

"All of the regional agencies would be working together to make sure that North-Eastern companies were in the best possible position to bid for those infrastructure contracts," said Rasmussen.

"The region has a considerable history in that field and North-Eastern companies would be at the forefront of the race."

Helping to build new sporting stadiums is one way the North-East could tap into London's bid, but laying foundations for future sporting success could be just as significant a process for the region.

Australian sporting officials are still basking in the glory of 2000's Sydney extravaganza, with national participation rates still higher than they were prior to the Games.

Watching the London Olympics could provide the spur needed for the North-East's next Jonathan Edwards or Steve Cram to take to the track.

"The legacy in terms of people's participation in sport could turn out to be one of the biggest benefits of them all," said Rasmussen.

"The country that hosts the Olympics tends to do better in that year than it normally would.

"But then it also tends to do better over the next five or ten years because of the knock-on effect that all of the interest has had."