Africa-Press – Uganda. The official cost of the just-concluded Olympics comes in at a staggering $15.4 billion
With Tokyo 2020 Olympic cauldron extinguished and the Olympic flag passed on to the 2024 hosts Paris, France – as winning athletes’ bath in victorious glory, one Question seems to loom over the Olympic sport as a whole – is it worth it?
The official cost of the just-concluded Olympics comes in at a staggering $15.4 billion. Japan’s National Audit Board and Nikkei newspaper earlier reported that the games would amount to $22 billion and $28 billion, respectively. And this comes after having been postponed due to the pandemic, which cost Japan a further $2.8 billion. In the previous 50 years, each host city has gone over budget, with overrun’s averaging at 172 per cent, according to a study by Oxford University.
And this does not take into account the far-reaching economic lessons each host city has had to learn. Business Insider claims that most stadiums cost $30 million yearly to maintain, and most cities do not even know what to use them for after the games. Unkept facilities deteriorate, inflicting property value, and environmental disruptions could threaten already fragile biodiversities.
After subsequent financial undertakings, fewer and fewer countries bid to host the games. Twelve countries bid for the 2004 games, five for the 2020 games and only two for the 2022 Winter Olympics. Cities used to make a profit from the Olympics. However, with the IOC (International Olympic Committee) seeking out a larger share of revenues – taking out a mammoth 70 per cent of revenue made from the Rio 2016 games, it only serves to add to the long list of reasons cities disdain from hosting the games.
Thomas Bach, president of the IOC, in 2014 conveyed a list of 40 actions the IOC could take to ‘’shape the future of the Olympic movement’’: Reduce the cost of bidding; include sustainability in all aspects of the game, to mention but a few. But will this be enough to offset the increasing unpopularity of the Olympic Games? US television audience for the Tokyo Olympics opening was down 37 per cent from the 2016 games and a further 59 per cent from the 2012 games – the worst rating for the event in 33 years. However, not all hope is lost.
The fragmentation of media has displaced viewership from traditional media to streaming services. Such was the case for NBC’s streaming service Peacock, having a solid viewership of the games. All in all, only time will tell where the Olympic Games will go.
Author: Treasures Ewila,
Kampala Uganda
