Hosting the Olympics is a massive undertaking, not every city comes out on top
Hosting the Summer or Winter Olympics is highly competitive, with host cities selected roughly seven years before the event in an open-bidding process. However, for some host cities, being selected has proven more of a curse than a blessing.
Cities hope that playing host to the world’s greatest sporting events will give them prestige, draw more tourists and leave a lasting and positive legacy when it comes to infrastructure, architecture and participation in sport. However, vast expenses, inaccurate financial forecasts and disappointing (or no) profits means choosing to host the Olympics is a massive and potentially risky undertaking.
Almost every single Olympic Games has ended up costing more than originally estimated. Take the 2012 London Games. Organisers originally won the bid in 2005 with a cost estimate of £2.4 billion, this was revised upwards within two years to £9.3 billion. When the final costs came in at £8.77 billion, the organisers said the event had come in under budget — a bold claim.
Here, we take a look at some of the winners and losers when it comes to hosting the Olympics.
The winners
Los Angeles — 1984
No one wanted to host the 1984 Olympic Games. Montreal’s well-publicised financial troubles in 1976 made the pitfalls of hosting plain to see. In the end, it was between only Los Angeles and Tehran — the latter bid being withdrawn in 1979 when the Shah of Iran was overthrown.
Despite this inauspicious start, the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles were a huge financial success, turning over a profit of over $232 million, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal. The organisers were likely helped by the fact LA was the only viable contender. This meant they could negotiate exceptionally favourable terms with the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Most importantly, according to the Council of Foreign Relations, Los Angeles was able to rely almost entirely on existing stadiums and other infrastructure rather than promise lavish new facilities to entice the IOC selection committee.
The LA games also saw a sharp jump in television broadcast revenue, and the pioneering organising committee was the first to successfully use commercial sponsors.
Barcelona — 1992
The Olympics can serve to put a city on the map as a tourist destination. It doesn’t always work. But for Barcelona, which hosted the 1992 Summer Olympics, the decision seems to have paid off. The city is widely considered to have benefited from hosting the Olympics and is the premier example of capturing the world’s attention — in a good way.
A 2016 research paper found that, in 1990, Barcelona was the 13th most popular tourist destination in Europe with fewer than half the number of bed nights as its neighbouring rival, Madrid. Following the 1992 Summer Olympics, however, the city experienced the fastest growth in tourism among large European cities. By 2010, the city was the fifth most popular destination on the continent and had eclipsed Madrid.
Salt Lake City — 2002
Not everything about the Utah-based Winter Olympics of 2002 was a roaring success. They got off to a terrible start when it was revealed that the organisers had spent US$1 million on medical care, gifts and tuition for IOC members and their families. In addition, the September 11 terrorism attacks happened only months before the opening ceremony.
Nevertheless, the Salt Lake City Olympics are touted as a success in many areas. Ending in a profit (a rarity for Olympic hosts), the city experienced a tourism boost, with ski resorts in Utah experiencing a 20.4 percent increase in skier visits between the year before the Salt Lake City Games and 2014–15 (although the actual year of the games saw a fall in skiers). In addition, Utah wound up with expanded highways between Salt Lake City and the popular ski resorts in the mountains to its east.
City officials clearly think the games were a success; the city has officially submitted its bid to host the 2034 Winter Olympics. If the deal is finalised, it will be the fifth time in history that the USA has hosted the Winter Olympics.
The losers
Montreal — 1976
The 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal came to symbolise the fiscal risks of hosting the games. The projected cost of $124 million was far below the actual cost, largely due to construction delays and cost overruns for a new stadium, leaving the city’s taxpayers with some $1.5 billion in debt that took nearly three decades to pay off.
Montreal built a massive new stadium for its Olympics in 1976, a building to this day is described in the Canadian press as a ‘money pit’. While the stadium is still used for occasional events, it costs millions of dollars a year to maintain and has not had a permanent tenant since 2004.
Athens — 2004
Despite being the birthplace of the Olympics, poor Athens is invariably held up as the most well-known Olympic failure, with some economists tracing the beginning of Greece’s ongoing economic woes to the 2004 games.
Financially, the games were a disaster, with costs of $15 billion far surpassing the original budgeted amount. While organisers have been accused of irresponsible spending, a significant portion of the overrun was due to additional security costs incurred in the aftermath of 9/11. Economists estimate the cost per household at more than $56,000, which has been shouldered by Greek taxpayers ever since.
Legacy-wise, the games have not proved a success. Many of the venues from the 2004 Athens Games have now fallen into disrepair, becoming so-called ‘white elephants’ — expensive facilities that, because of their size or specialised nature, have limited post-Olympics use. Spyros Capralos, head of the Hellenic Olympic Committee, said the lessons learned from Athens ‘are that in today’s world (host cities) should not try to build permanent facilities that would have no use afterwards’.
Rio de Janeiro — 2016
Historically, Olympic host cities came almost exclusively from rich, industrialised nations. Between 1896 and 1998, over 90 per cent of all host cities came from Western Europe, the United States, or Canada, Australia, and Japan. This changed in 2008 when Beijing was host and, from then on, the IOC has encouraged bids from developing countries. The 2016 Summer Olympics, held in Rio de Janeiro, represented the first time the event had ever taken place in South America.
The timing of the Rio Games, however, did not prove fortuitous for the Brazilian city. They took place during the largest economic crisis in Brazil’s history. The cost of the games exceeded $20 billion, and Rio required a $900 million bailout from the federal government to cover the cost of policing the Olympics. It was also unable to pay all of its public employees.
The city also had to invest heavily in infrastructure, which was meant to reinvigorate some of its struggling neighbourhoods, yet in the aftermath most venues were abandoned or barely used. An investigation a year after the games found that while 15 of the original 27 venues had hosted some sort of event, others were largely abandoned. The iconic soccer stadium, the Maracanã, had been vandalised, and had its power shut off completely after amassing a $950,000 electric bill.
Good and bad
Sarajevo — 1984
Bosnia’s capital city (then part of Yugolsavia) hosted the Winter Olympics in 1984. The relatively small town built new ski trails, ski jumps, bobsled and luge runs, a skating rink, dozens of apartment blocks and numerous hotels. A few years later however and the country was embroiled in a bloody conflict with Serbia and its allies, which saw 100,000 people killed, including 11,000 in Sarajevo alone. The city was under siege from 1992 to 1996, during which most of the Olympic infrastructure was destroyed.
Today, many Bosnians remember the games fondly, as a better time before the war. Some people believe that the games helped put the city on the map, making what came next even more shocking to external eyes. At an event in February to mark the 40th anniversary of the games Izet Radjo, president of the Bosnia-Herzegovina Olympic Committee, said, ‘Our Olympic spirit is alive.’ Sarajevo is eying a bid to host the 2032 Winter Youth Olympic Games.
Today, the most obvious reminder of the games is the abandoned bob-sleigh track, accessible via cable-car, which has become a tourist destination in its own right. With its concrete runways snaking between trees it seems more modern-art installation than failed sporting project.
Sydney — 2000
Sydney’s Olympic games were certainly seen as a success at the time. Well-organised and attractive, the city also experienced a slight increase in tourism after the event.
However, as is so often the case, the New South Wales government was forced to spend a great deal more than it initially budgeted and Sydney’s Olympic stadium became a well-publicised icon of failed Olympic venues. The site was meant to be converted into a residential suburb but the plans largely failed and the building costs the city $30 million a year to maintain.
London — 2012
There was a positive energy to London’s air in 2012, when the city hosted the Summer Games. GB’s athletes triumphed and the organisers pledged to ‘inspire a generation’ to take up sport.
What followed has been mixed. GB athletes have continued to win more medals ever since the games. But at a grassroots level, not much has changed. A report by the National Audit Office in 2022 confirmed that London 2012 did not boost participation in grassroots sport. London is not alone in this however. Although host countries often earn more medals in the Olympic Games (on average, an additional 1.8 per cent of medals), a study by researchers at Anglia Ruskin University and the University of Colorado found no evidence to support the claim that hosting the Olympics boosts national participation in sport in the long term.
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