Hosting the Olympic Games: Overview

Introduction

Perhaps the world's most prominent international sporting event, the Olympic Games are known as grand spectacles that show off both the peaks of human athletic achievement and the sights and cultures of the cities that host them. As an international event, the Olympic Games are not held in one set location; rather, they move from city to city and alternate between Summer and Winter Olympics. Between the introduction of the modern Olympic Games in 1896 and 2022, the games were held in more than forty different cities, and only nine hosted more than once.

In light of the Olympic Games' status as both a major cultural touchstone and a substantial commitment for the cities in which it is held, the benefits and drawbacks of hosting the games have fueled a lively ongoing debate. Proponents argue that hosting the Olympic Games has a variety of benefits for the city in question, including a boost to the city's economy thanks to Olympics attendees as well as improvement to city infrastructure and sporting venues. They also argue that in addition to the numerous tourists who visit the city during the Olympics, having hosted the Olympics encourages tourism to the city long after the games are over. Perhaps the most significant yet intangible benefit that proponents of hosting the Olympic Games cite is the pride felt by a city and country's residents for having held a successful international event with a long and storied history.

Opponents of hosting the Olympic Games, however, argue that the games place a substantial financial burden on the host city, as they typically necessitate major infrastructural improvements, the building of new stadiums and other sporting venues, and other costly ventures. They likewise assert that many newly constructed sports venues and other facilities become essentially useless after the end of the games, typically falling into disrepair and neglect. In addition, opponents of hosting the Olympics note that host cities must likewise bear the burden of potential security threats, such as an increase in crime or terrorism, as well as a variety of health and safety issues and potential political and institutional corruption.

Understanding the Discussion

Host city: A city selected as the central location in and around which the Olympic Games will take place.

International Olympic Committee (IOC): The nonprofit organization responsible for overseeing the Olympic Games.

Olympic Games Knowledge Management (OGKM) program: An IOC program dedicated to helping host cities prepare for the games by taking the lessons learned by previous hosts into account.

Summer Olympic Games: An international sporting competition held in the summer and featuring sports such as track and field, swimming, archery, soccer, and gymnastics.

Winter Olympic Games: An international sporting competition held in the winter and featuring sports such as skiing, curling, bobsleigh, figure skating, and snowboarding.

History

The Olympic Games originated in ancient Greece, where they were held at a site known as Olympia, in the southwestern region of Greece's Peloponnese peninsula. Dedicated to the Greek gods, the games included boxing, discus throwing, and running and equestrian events, among other sports. The games are thought to have been first held in the year 776 BCE and continued to take place until the year 393 CE, when they were outlawed by the Roman emperor Theodosius, who sought to Christianize the region and disapproved of the games' pagan origins. Although a number of sporting events were referred to as Olympics or Olympiads during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Olympic Games did not officially return in their modern form until 1896, when the first such international sporting event was held in Athens, Greece. The event was overseen by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which was formed two years before with the goal of establishing a new tradition of Olympics.

The first Athens games proved to be a success, and the IOC has continued to oversee such events for more than a century. The scope of the Olympic Games expanded over the years, with the Winter Olympic Games, which specialize in sports that generally could not be performed during the summers, being introduced in 1924. While scheduling for Olympics varied in the first decades of the modern games, in part due to world wars that necessitated the cancellation of several games, the IOC ultimately settled on a schedule in which both Summer and Winter Olympic Games are held every four years, with the Winter Olympics taking place two years after the Summer Olympics. In addition to those games, the IOC introduced the Youth Olympic Games, for athletes between the ages of fifteen and eighteen, in 2010. Additional well-known international competitions such as the Paralympics, for athletes with physical disabilities, and the Special Olympics, open to athletes with intellectual disabilities, have relationships with the IOC but operate independently.

In the more than a century since the modern Olympic Games were first held, the Olympics have been held in more than forty different locations between the Summer and Winter Games. Nine locales had hosted multiple games between 1896 and 2022, including Athens (1896 and 2004); London, England (1908, 1948, and 2012); Paris, France (1900 and 1924); Innsbruck, Austria (1964 and 1976); St. Moritz, Switzerland (1928 and 1948); Lake Placid, New York (1932 and 1980); Los Angeles, California (1932 and 1984); Tokyo, Japan (1964 and 2020); and Beijing, China (2008 and 2022). The number of countries participating has varied over the years, from just over a dozen countries in the first modern Olympics to more than two hundred in the early twenty-first-century games.

The procedure for determining which town or city will host a particular year's games has likewise evolved over the course of the modern Olympics' existence but, until 2019, consisted of a multistage process that began a decade before the games in question. The process began with an invitation stage in which the national Olympic committees of countries interested in hosting first declared their interest. Over the next stages, the national Olympic committees put forward specific locations for consideration and prepared proposals that demonstrated the viability of their bids, accounting for factors such as legal and financial ability, existing facilities, and public support for the bid. All the while, the candidate cities received feedback from the IOC, and some could drop their bids. To facilitate decision-making, the IOC created a report analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of each remaining bid. Finally, approximately two years after taking formal bids, the IOC's members voted to determine which location would host the Olympic Games. The Olympic Games Knowledge Management (OGKM) program exists to assist the future host city with planning its games, taking into account the lessons learned by earlier hosts.

Because of continued scrutiny and criticism of the host selection process, however, beginning in 2019 a new system came into effect. This process, which the IOC argued would allow for more varied participants and prove more cost effective, begins with national Olympic committees engaging in an informal, confidential exchange with the IOC that can then lead to a stage of noncommittal continuous dialogue. At that point, the potential host, which could now include multiple cities or countries, receives aid from the IOC to develop a plan before a feasibility study is conducted. From there, a Future Host Commission will oversee a period of targeted dialogue with preferred hosts that include independent reports and the completion of a questionnaire. An Executive Board then recommends a preferred host(s) for election, at which time they must give a presentation and receive a positive vote from IOC members. Unlike before, this system does not have a deadline, due to the elimination of the rule stipulating a vote seven years in advance. Additional changes focused on flexibility and sustainability included opening up hosting to multiple cities or countries at a time and encouraging the use of existing or temporary venues instead of building new ones just for the purpose of the games.

Although numerous factors play a role in determining the legacy of a particular Olympics, the games' financial success and impact on the host city are widely considered particularly important criteria. Among the least financially successful Olympic Games was the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics, which was estimated to have lost over US$15 billion and exceeded the Greek Olympic committee's projected budget by 97 percent. Many international commentators linked the subsequent debt crisis in Greece to the massive overspending that occurred during the Olympics, and the neglected state of many of the facilities built for the games further underscored the detrimental impact of the event on its host city and nation. A similar instance of overspending occurred with the Montreal Summer Olympics of 1976, leaving the city of Montreal with CAN$1.6 billion in debt as well as a stadium, known locally as the Big Owe, that was not fully constructed in time for the Olympics and deteriorated significantly over the subsequent decades. Olympic Games widely considered financially successful have included the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics, in which the event's organizers reduced expenses by making use of existing sporting facilities.

Hosting the Olympic Games Today

During the early twenty-first century, individuals and organizations concerned with financial, social, and environmental burden placed on Olympic host cities raised questions regarding whether hosting the Olympic Games was advisable. The debate around hosting the Olympics became particularly significant in light of the economic troubles faced by Greece, to which many argued the 2004 Athens Olympics had contributed. While proponents of the Olympic Games, including the IOC, continue to assert that hosting the games is worth the expense and will have numerous benefits for the host city, opponents argue that the drawbacks do not outweigh the benefits of hosting the games.

The debate accelerated during the lead-up to the 2016 Olympics, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. As Brazil was then facing both economic recession and political upheaval, some commentators argued that it was inappropriate for the country to be spending billions of dollars on athletic arenas and facilities for visiting athletes and audience members at such a time. Those concerned with the economic and social impacts of the Olympics on host cities likewise called attention to the widespread poverty in Rio de Janeiro as well as the ongoing concerns about the mosquito-transmitted Zika virus, both of which fueled debate regarding the costs of hosting the games. Although the Rio de Janeiro Olympics proceeded with little initial trouble, the full fallout from the games remained to be seen. The Maracanã Stadium, which had been renovated at a cost of $500 million for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games by the construction company Odebrecht, remained a source of scandal; Odebrecht faced allegations of corruption, the stadium's concessionaire set such high rental prices that most Brazilian teams could not afford to play there, and the stadium itself has been looted of televisions and seats, leaving the facility grossly underutilized. According to reports in 2017, the games ended up costing Brazil over $13 billion.

In light of the debate surrounding the Olympic Games, some cities became reluctant to commit to hosting such events. Winter Olympics were scheduled for PyeongChang, South Korea, in 2018 and Beijing, China, in 2022, while Summer Olympics were scheduled for Tokyo, Japan, in 2020 and Paris, France, in 2024. The bidding process for the 2024 Games, however, was marked by opposition as residents of prospective host cities came into conflict with the national Olympic committees and other groups associated with the bids. Residents of Boston, Massachusetts, strongly opposed a bid for the city to host the 2024 Olympics despite the bid's support from prominent Massachusetts politicians, business leaders, and sports executives. The opposition faced in Boston led the US Olympic Committee to drop the bid in July 2015, instead choosing to support Los Angeles as the official US bid for a prospective host city. Similar opposition led the city of Toronto, Canada, to drop a bid for the 2024 Games that September, demonstrating that opposition to hosting the Olympic Games was not limited to the United States. Commentators noted that the decision to simultaneously award Los Angeles hosting rights at that time for the 2028 Summer Olympics indicated a continued decline in countries willing to make hosting bids.

Reviews of the 2018 and 2020 Olympics often continued to criticize the host cities' expenditures and failed economic boosts. Though Pyeongchang spent approximately $110 million on a new stadium for the 2018 Winter Olympics, it sat unused and unmaintained years later while the country had not experienced an increase in tourism outside of the events. For Tokyo, the host of the 2020 Summer Olympics eventually priced at over $15 billion, the traditionally costly nature of putting on the games only worsened under the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. With the games postponed to the summer of 2021, the city had to put additional investments toward ensuring that the events and venues aligned with new health measures put in place to protect against the spread of the virus. At the same time, because of a spike in cases in the weeks prior to the opening ceremony, no spectators were allowed in the venues, cutting out this large source of revenue. Debate, and some opposition, had also occurred, including in Japan, over still having the events go on despite the ongoing pandemic risks. The IOC argued that Beijing, which had won the opportunity to host the 2022 Winter Olympics after almost all other contenders had dropped out, had seen economic and social benefits from hosting, even though only a limited number of spectators were allowed to attend once again because of the pandemic.

Many waited to see if the revisions to the hosting selection process would have an impact on opinions regarding hosting in the future, particularly after Brisbane, Australia, became the first host to receive that right under the new system when it was chosen in 2021 to host the 2032 Summer Olympics.

These essays and any opinions, information, or representations contained therein are the creation of the particular author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of EBSCO Information Services.

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