The 2024 Summer Olympics will start on July 26 in Paris. Fans and athletes from over 200 countries are expected to visit the city. The Olympics will be one of the most expensive ever.
A new study by WalletHub says that hosting the 2024 Olympics will cost about $8.2 billion. This would make them the sixth most expensive Olympic Games ever, whether they are held in the summer or the winter. An Oxford University paper says that the Winter Olympics in Sochi in 2014 cost almost $25 billion, making them the most expensive ever. The next most expensive Olympics will be in Tokyo in 2020, but they had to be moved because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The costs include rebuilding the stadium, holding ceremonies to open and close it, and covering operational costs like food service and wages for workers.
A website called WalletHub says that France spent about $3.2 billion on infrastructure improvements in Paris’s cities before the Games. The organising committee for the Olympics doesn’t think that costs to improve highways, railroads, airports, hotels, and other similar places are related to sports, so they aren’t included in some budgets for the Games.
The last time the Olympics were held in Paris was in 1924.
Some recent Olympic Games were held in countries that lost money because the costs were so high. When the Summer Olympics were held in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, Brazil lost about $2 billion. An ESPN report says that the Summer Olympics in Tokyo lost about $800 million because of rising costs.
“Everyone is aware of every euro that is spent and knows that it is well spent. We should be careful not to waste euros on pointless things.” To be honest, that is a challenge in and of itself’, said Étienne Thobois, CEO of the Paris Olympics organising committee, in May.
Many times, host governments say that even though they might not make as much money as they thought they would, hosting the Olympics can help the local economy by creating jobs, bringing in more tourists, and making much-needed improvements to infrastructure. It’s harder to figure out how these things affect the economy, and some studies have found that claims about job growth and other benefits aren’t always clear.
But, at least in the short term, hosting the Olympics can bring a lot more tourists to the city. WalletHub says that as of July 10, about 2.5 million tickets for the Paris Games had been sent to people living outside of France.
Tourists who go to the Olympics in Paris are expected to spend $2.8 billion, according to an email from Dennis Deninger, a professor of sports communications at Syracuse University.
Deninger said, “The effect on the Paris area is huge and will be felt for a long time to come.”
“Sports economists and other people who study the economic effects of big sporting events always have a lot to say about what the real financial effects of the Olympics were on the Paris economy,” John Grady, a professor of sports and entertainment at the University of South Carolina, told MarketWatch. “What is clear, though, is that hosting the Olympics does make the host city more well-known as a tourist destination. This improves the city’s tourism prospects and image among potential tourists for a long time after the games are over.”
He also said, “It’s not clear how this will affect the French economy and event tourism in general, but it’s likely to be very good.”
