Why Not to Host the Olympics

Every time a non-First World country hosts the Olympics or football World Cup, a bunch of people in India will start lamenting that India can’t host such an event. The most recent for such comments is Brazil hosting the Olympics.

Forget the Kalmadi fiasco and how such an event would actually be handled in India. Even if it were managed right, should any country in their right mind want to host such an event?

National ego boosting aside, it is almost always financially ruinous. Even for rich countries that already have good facilities, hotels and transport systems in place. A poor country has to build even those; and such projects always overrun their budget, even in rich countries. London (2012) did an accounting trick to claim they came in under budget: they simply increased the planned cost value from £2.4 billion to £9 billion!

So how much do countries spend in hosting an Olympics? An analysis of all events from 1988 (Seoul) to 2016 (Rio) indicate that the cheapest was Atlanta (1996) at $3.6 billion and the most expensive was Beijing (2008) at a whopping $45 billion (yes, that’s $45 billion, not $4.5 billion). Tim Harford called Beijing a “national vanity project”.

The average cost is around $10 billion, a number that almost guarantees a loss. Broadcasting rights, advertisements and tourism can never recover that amount.

So maybe we should be glad we never win the rights to host an Olympics. Hosting them is a white elephant, something to be avoided, er, at all costs. This is one of those rare cases where Aesop’s moral doesn’t apply: those grapes really are sour.

Comments

  1. Ramiah KumarJuly 5, 2016 at 3:31 PM

    What you say makes sense. No need for such ruinous pomposity.

    On the other hand, countries like ours should divert their ability and effort in managing and organizing well what we have and what we can have. If we can organize the selection, grooming and training process in various sports like Germany or it equals do, that would be nice. In India there is no less politicking and exploitation in sports than politics itself. Merit is pretty low in our priorities in many of government controlled or interfered organizations.

    Agreed politicians can never have be straight forward. But it is certainly possible to let organizations run with minimal political influence, when that is possible and preferred. The reason why our space research is at par with world's best is primarily because the politicking is within limits there. And the reason why that kind of thing cannot work in sports is because the politicians interfere - Kalmadis are not "a dime a dozen" here; they are "a dime a dozen-dozens"; they don't know "how much fuel not to pack?" "how to calculate orbits" "what materials to choose" for the space vehicle etc. so their ability to interfere is less with space agencies. (They did their corrupt act on the commercial front even there, we all know.) Whereas any self-centered fool of a politician can meddle with sports selections. Why should they care if the nation loses because of them?

    I am not just blaming the politicians. Actually we the people of India need to transform. Once our base culture is better the political class would also be of better caliber. That is my prayer and aspiration.

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