The successful regional development associated with the Barcelona Games was a great and lasting inspiration for Brazil’s Olympic bids: this South American nation had to prove their hosting credentials via lesser events before being awarded the 2016 giga-event (Zimbalist, 2017, p. 208). The initial budget was estimated at $7.5 billion (in 2016 prices), with advantage being taken of facilities created for the South American Games of 2007 and the FIFA World Cup of 2014. However, the cost soared out to at least $16.7 billion. One critic maintained that it was actually above $21.8 billion owing to cost overruns associated with corruption, inefficient administration, and changing plans. Short-term revenues possibly reached $3 billion which implies a significant negative financial balance (Zimbalist, 2017, p. 221). This was not what the economic consultants had prepared the nation for. The multiplier used by these experts was one of 4.26, a ridiculous figure, when most studies reckon somewhere between 1.0 and 2.0 is appropriate, but one grasped upon by the Brazilian political hierarchy to justify the bid (Zimbalist, 2017, p. 221).

Few, if any, economists, believe that the costs were offset by possible longer-term economic benefits. Much of the improved transport infrastructure was geared towards the Olympic venues instead of where it might be needed post-games. Plans for regenerating the favelas (slum areas around Rio) and for modernizing Rio were mostly abandoned when economic recession hit the nation prior to the Games ((Zimbalist, 2017, p. 221-231). By the time of the 2016 Olympics the economy was in dire straits: in 2015 GDP had fallen by nearly 4% and unemployment had risen to over 8% (Barbassa, 2016, p. 31). Inflation increased from 3-4% in the period of 2000-2010 to around 6% in 2011-2013 and 8% in 2014-2016 (Zimbalist, 2017, p. 106). This hampered the fund-raising efforts of the organizing committee whose intention had been to use partnerships with the private sector to fund the modernization and infrastructure programme: indeed their plans envisaged one of the largest privatization projects in the Americas (Gaffney, 2016, p. 37). The state and federal governments had eventually to step in to bail out the programme but many of its elements were abandoned (Barbassa, 2016, p. 32).

The creation of a positive image of the host city could have led to increases in tourism, but, at the time of the Games, Rio’s image was tarnished by street violence, political instability and protest, justifying claims of widespread corruption among Olympic officials, infrastructure contractors, and politicians (Barbassa, 2016, p. 33). One detailed study of Brazil’s international travel receipts both for the Olympics and the preceding FIFA World Cup demonstrates that the impact was immediate but short-lived. In the two months of the World Cup such receipts rose by 50% and in the month of the Olympics by 28%; then they fell back and there was no discernible positive change after the events. The detected rise in income from foreign tourists failed to cover the expenditure required to make the events possible (Meurer & Lins, 2018).

As has been indicated, Brazil had already hosted a giga event, the FIFA World Cup in 2014. This had proved an economic disaster and perhaps the two year gap between that event and the next was too brief for any lessons to be learned; though it is debateable if the organizers or the government were going to heed them at all.

Too many projects associated with the FIFA event slipped behind schedule, so much so that 57 out of 93 major construction works were not completed on time, including almost 80% of the planned public transport (Müller & Gaffney, 2018, p. 259). Those that were finished were often way above their planned costs: in 2009 the Brazilian Football Federation estimated that the overall cost of building the new stadiums and refurbishing the older ones for the tournament would be $1.1 billion, but the eventual cost was over $4.7 billion. The organizers, with political backing, had over-reached themselves, offering twelve modern stadia (when only eight were mandatory) in a bid to show more of its cities to the world, even though there was no possibility of a post-tournament demand for their intended use. Later, some would house lower division teams with no chance of even quarter filling them, others were left to host hospitality gatherings and serve as parking lots (Müller and Gaffney, 2018, p. 261) — and they still cost millions of dollars to operate and maintain. Fraud was indeed massive: one third ($300 million) of the cost of one stadium was due to fraudulent billing. So was political corruption, with companies gaining lucrative contracts at inflated prices in return for campaign donations (Zimbalist, 2017, p. 101-106). The Brazilian president had promised that private funds would participate in financing the stadiums, but private investors had no incentives to do this as they were more realistic than the politicians about the post-tournament demand. Hence nearly all the stadiums were paid for with public funds (Zimbalist, 2017, p. 111).

Yet, Brazil had no need to spend as much as it did. It was FIFA’s decision to award the tournament to South America and, as Brazil was the only candidate to come forward, it could have hosted the event at much lower expense: there was no opponent to be outbid in grandiosity. However, Brazil’s politicians wanted to impress the world, not only FIFA.

Holding the Winter Olympics in Sochi was an attempt to revitalize a Russian city by turning it into a year-round holiday resort. At the same time, it was to demonstrate that Russia could be a world leader in the development of infrastructure, technology and leisure facilities (Müller, 2014, p. 629).

This (overly) ambitious project had a great many chronic problems, in particular the transport, grossly inadequate for an area that stretches for 162 kilometres (Trubine, 2014, p. 619). The initial estimated cost was $12 billion but this rose to $55 billion, of which about $16 billion was directly sport-related, mainly for venues, all of which had to be constructed from scratch (Müller, 2014, p. 628). The bulk of the overall spending was on infrastructure which could have a longer-term use after the games and thus there was a possibility that the Sochi region might benefit from this. Indeed, Sochi gained bypass roads, a fast rail-road connection from the coast to the mountains, and several new power stations which provided a more regular energy supply. Yet, the question remains: didn’t this come at too great a cost to the Russian economy as a whole?

As part of Russia’s transformation into a market economy, over 60% of the funding was expected to come from the private sector. In reality, however, 96.5 % emanated from public funds (Müller, 2014, p. 629). Private investors saw money in hotels but not sports venues or transport facilities. To bring them in, the Russian government forced them to attach funding for the latter to any profit-oriented tourist projects and offered them generous credit from a state-owned bank. Unfortunately, 70% of these loans proved toxic (Müller, 2014, p. 638). Overall too much money was wasted or, to put it differently, if regional development had been slower and not linked to the Olympics it would have been cheaper, possibly by 50%, because suppliers and constructors exploited deadlines to raise their prices (Müller, 2014, p. 635). Additionally, there was substantial nepotism and corruption with a significant amount of money going missing (Boycoff & Mascarenhas, 2016, p. 1). Moreover, both licit and illicit money flowed out to offshore financial markets, possibly fueling the depreciation of the rouble, another factor pushing up the Sochi costs (Trubine, 2014, p. 619). Müller (2014, p. 639-40) reckons that the cost of the Games was out of proportion to any potential income. Even those who invested in hotels lost out as the IOC requirements on quantity and quality led to an oversupply of rooms and the earnings fell short of expectations (Müller, 2014, p. 640). Moreover, the government was left with an annual cost of over a billion dollars for the operation and maintenance of venues as well as tourist and transport infrastructure (Müller, 2014, p. 649). The road-rail link from the sea to the mountains cost over $10 million but post-games ran only six trains a day in each direction (Müller & Gaffney, 2018, p. 261).

Again, the four years between the Sochi Olympics and the 2018 FIFA World Cup may have been too short for effective learning from the Sochi experience. However, unlike South Africa and Brazil, Russia had considered the future use of the new stadiums even before they were built and construction was undertaken with multifunctionality and the downsizing of capacity in mind (Smolyanov & Suslova, 2020, p. 17-18). Russia planned to spend $11 billion on hosting FIFA 2018 but ultimately spent $3 billion more than that, not a major overspend in the history of sporting mega events (Sivakumar, Ruthramathi & Quronfleh, 2021, p. 124). With this, they built nine new stadiums and refurbished three others, constructed eleven new airport terminals and nearly 200 kilometres of roads, together with renovating thirteen hospitals, twelve power stations and twenty-nine other utility facilities. Overall, some 315,000 jobs were created and unemployment fell to its lowest level in twenty years (Subathra et al., p. 86-87). There was more private investment than in the Sochi Olympics, though 70% of the funding was governmental (Wiśniewska & Rogoźa, 2018, p. 2). Yet the consensus is that the level of investment was such that Russian economy benefited only to the extent of a rise in GDP of 0.1-0.2% with the less affluent areas perhaps gaining ten times this amount (Wiśniewska & Rogoźa, 2018, p. 3). Moreover, as with Sochi, companies controlled by allies of President Putin won the major tenders for construction of sports and transport facilities (Wiśniewska & Rogoźa, 2018, p. 1).

When India bid for the 2010 Commonwealth Games, sport seemed almost an afterthought in its vision statement which emphasised the promotion of New Delhi ‘as a global city of an emerging economic power … [with the Games acting] as a medium for the development of the country’ (Metah & Majumdar, 2012, p. 505). The Games were to ‘enhance the image and stature of India, project Delhi as a global destination, act as a catalyst for sustained development of infrastructure and create opportunities for trade, business and investment for Delhi and India’.

Although the sporting events of the Games were taking place without serious disruption, the outside world had witnessed a chaotic rush to get the venues and the athletes’ village ready in time. Delays in construction of the village, the result of shoddy organization and poor planning with a labyrinth of overlapping committees, led to a cost overrun of around $25 million (Metah & Majumdar, 2012, p. 504). Indeed, the financial story of the Delhi Games is one of ‘waste, corruption, tremendous cost overruns and bad planning’ (Metah & Majumdar, 2012, p. 506) with enormous financial losses for governments at all levels. The Organizing Committee did not present a budget until four years after the bid when the estimated cost was 18.95 billion rupees. The official final cost came to 706.08 billion ruppees, much of it related to infrastructure spending (Metah & Majumdar, 2012, p. 506-7), though some critics calculate the aggregate expenditure of the most expensive Commonwealth Games ever to be at least three times as much (Sengupta, 2017, p. 332). Some of this was part of a ‘feast of fraud and malfeasance’ with the Auditor General of India claiming that billions of dollars went missing (Sengupta, 2017, p. 334).

Undeniably, there was significant incompetence in the organization of the Games; but were the power elites of the city, provincial and central government ,all based in New Delhi, actually being Machiavellian in paying for the modernization of the city under the pretext of preparing for the Commonwealth Games? In order to showcase a city that never slept, a power station was fast-tracked so that for the first time in its history Delhi had power twenty-four hours a day (Metah & Majumdar, 2012, p. 506-7). New roads were built, the city subway was extended, and a new airport terminal was constructed (Sengupta, 340). Yet the modernization of Delhi was of little benefit to the millions of Indians who lived below the poverty line, an estimated 28.3% of the population. The opportunity cost was huge. Commonwealth Games-related expenditure was over four times the annual budget of the National Rural Health Mission (Metah & Majumdar, 2012, p. 514). Moreover, most of the sports facilities built for the Games became Indian white elephants, used neither by local residents nor elite sportspersons. Those most badly built crumbled in the monsoon rains. The athletes’ village was converted into flats, many of which failed to sell.

At the time of their success in gaining the Commonwealth Games, Indian politicians were also talking of bidding to host the 2020 Olympics in New Delhi. In the aftermath of the Commonwealth Games debacle, this idea seems to have been forgotten (Majumdar, 2014). Indeed, the few minor mega-events hosted by Indian cities since then have had no connection with Delhi. The nation’s capital hosted matches in the Cricket T20 World Cup in 2016 (but only four of the 35 games played) and in the 2023 Cricket World Cup (but it was only one of thirteen venues). Cricket is India’s national sport and the authorities realized that it would be politically wise to share the matches around, as they did in the Cricket World Cup of 1996 where 17 matches were played in 17 different venues. Such a spread of locations significantly reduced the chance of economic development emanating from a mega event. In fact, one can suggest that India’s sporting focus has shifted from hosting mega events (other than cricket) and the country’s organizational efforts have concentrated on the private sector and the development of the Indian Premier League, one of the most successful commercial sporting ventures of the twenty-first century.

It is generally accepted that 2008 Summer Olympic Games led to Beijing becoming a modern capital city which was a major objective when the hosting bid was made (Jinxia, 2010). The city was positively impacted by construction of underground railways, light railways, express motorways and a new airport that encompassed the world’s largest terminal. More generally, the games facilitated modernization in industry, communications, transportation and management. During the preparation period, Beijing’s GDP tripled, its construction sector added 795,000 jobs and the hospitality industry ultimately expanded by nearly two million workers (Ge, 2021, p. 540). The economic advance of China, Beijing in particular, was seen by a global Olympic audience of a claimed 4.7 billion television viewers (Jinxia, 2010, p. 2798); international tourist spending was boosted from $2.95 billion in 2001 to $5.42 billion in 2011 (Ge, 2021, p. 541). However, there is some dispute as to the role that the Olympics played in this expansion. Even China’s official statistics show a decline in international tourist numbers and expenditure in 2008, partly attributable to the weather crisis early in the year and the financial turbulence that hit the world later, although Li et al. (2011) also blame the increased stringency of visa restrictions imposed for Olympic security.

The Beijing Games came at enormous economic cost. The overall expenditure associated with the games was over $40 billion, allegedly more than the aggregated total of all the Olympics since 1900 (Ge, 2021, p. 540). The games themselves paid their way with a declared profit of $146.4 million, thanks partly to that date the largest licensing programme which generated $163 million, but the much larger bill for the modernizing programme essentially rested with the government (Ge, 2021, p. 541).

After apartheid was abandoned, South Africa embarked on an aggressive international political rehabilitation programme in the sporting world, including failed bids to host the 2004 Olympics and the 2006 FIFA World Cup (Cornelissen, 2004, p. 42-43). The government argued that it was ‘Africa’s turn’ to host a SME and, among African nations, South Africa was well-placed in terms of resources to provide for a large-scale event (Cornelissen, 2004, p. 50). The country served its apprenticeship with the Rugby World Cup, the Africa Cup of Nations and the African Games in the 1990s, followed by the Cricket World Cup (the largest sports event to that date to be hosted in Africa) and the T20 World Cup in the next decade.

The rugby event led to a rise of 6.3% in tourism between 1995 and 2000 (Cornelissen, 2004, p. 45) and the 2003 cricket tournament was generally regarded as successful (Cornelissen, 2004, p. 48-9), with tourist officials claiming that the cricket event generated at least $200 million for the South African economy, though hard evidence of its impact on the South African economy is difficult to find (Matheson and Baade, 2004, p. 1088). As with India, the proliferation of venues, 12 in all, for the Cricket World Cup dissipated any redevelopment plans and one-day events had little economic impact on rural venues (Saayman, Saayman & du Plessis, 2005, p. 220).

South Africa lost the opportunity to host the 2006 FIFA World Cup in controversial circumstances and, possibly in recompense or sympathy, they gained the 2010 tournament when FIFA determined that it should go to an African nation as that continent had never hosted the event before even though the African Football Federation had the largest regional membership globally. South African politicians saw this as an opportunity to attract wealthy foreign tourists to kick-start the major economic sector. In the run-up to the FIFA event, South Africa hosted two major sporting events in 2009, the British Lions rugby union tour and, at only three weeks’ notice, the Indian Premier League cricket tournament which shifted location because of security fears. Both proved positive in tourist terms with any displacement swamped by visitors from the participating countries (Fourie, Siebrits & Spronk, 2011).

This, and other past experiences, led to high expectations of the FIFA World Cup. The consultants for South Africa’s bid had initially claimed that 483,000 visitors would be attracted, though they later reduced the figure to 373,000. Even this was unduly optimistic as was demonstrated by Peeters et al. (2014). Using country by country data over a ten year period and allowing for visitors who would have come anyway but timed their trip to coincide with the football and for potential tourists who were deterred by the event, they found that the World Cup attracted around 220,000 additional visitors during the tournament period and perhaps 300,000 over the whole year. Ironically, the over-optimistic tourist projections led to fears of high transport and accommodation costs which may have reduced visitor numbers (Du Plessis & Maennig, 2011) and undermined the early hopes of a 2% boost to GDP, the creation of 129,000 jobs (60% of them to be permanent), and additional tax revenues of US$ 550m (Cornelissen, 2004, p. 44). The World Cup demonstrated that South Africa could organize a mega-event but at what cost? Stadium building alone — which rose to ten times the initial estimate (Müller and Gaffney, 2018, p. 255) — equated to $4,400 per visitor and this rises to $13,000 a head when all costs are included, suggesting that this was an expensive strategy for economic development (Peeters et al., 2014). Nor did it contribute anything but a modest impact on poverty and inequality (Du Plessis and Maennig, 2011, p. 359). Hosting had been tied into a ‘promise’ of redistribution through economic growth, but ultimately the spread of privatisation in the host cities drained resources from programmes designed to redress the legacies of apartheid (Müller & Gaffney, 2018, p. 254). There were no lasting positive effects on the host cities (Punniyamoorthy & Subramanian, 2021, p. 118).

Taking advantage of the newly created and refurbished infrastructure, South Africa was chosen in 2010 to host the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations but that was the end of the nation’s ventures into sporting mega-events. All other elite world championships held in the country have been for minor sports (in terms of drawing power) and several of the stadiums have fallen into disuse and disrepair: African white elephants, costing their municipalities money (Davis, 2019). As with India, plans for Olympic bids did not proceed. Durban had intended to bid for the 2020 games but the national government took a decision in 2011 not to support the endeavour, noting that the potential gains from the FIFA World Cup had not yet been consolidated and that efforts should be focused on basic service delivery (Tomlinson & Bass, 2012, p. 306).

Since then to 2023 only one significant sports mega event has been granted to South Africa, the 2022 Commonwealth Games, the first to be awarded to an African nation. These were to be hosted in Durban, the sole contender after Edmonton in Canada withdrew its bid, but in 2017 the city was stripped of its hosting rights after a trail of missed deadlines and a government announcement that the projected costs were more than the country’s flagging economy could afford, and that negotiations to cut the budget had stalled (Gleeson 2017). Eventually South Africa was welcomed back into the hosting fold and in 2023 they hosted two women’s world cup events, those for T20 cricket and netball, though the latter was marred by poor organization and ticketing chaos (ABC News, 2023). Hopefully things will have improved by 2027 when South Africa is scheduled to host the Cricket World Cup in partnership with Namibia and Zimbabwe.