Can the 'cheaper' Paris Olympics convince other cities that hosting the Games is worth the cost?

What's happening

There are very few cases where something that costs nearly $9 billion can be called “cheap.” The Paris Olympics is one of them. While the 2024 Summer Games do carry an enormous price tag, it is significantly lower than other recent editions of the event.

The numbers can vary wildly based on what’s counted as an Olympic expense, but the most recent high-quality estimate puts the cost of Tokyo’s 2021 Games at $13.7 billion, Rio in 2016 at $23.6 billion and London in 2012 at $16.8 billion. Recent Winter Olympics have also come with staggering price tags, with estimates for the 2022 Games in Beijing running as high as $35 billion.

So relative to those examples, Paris really can argue that it hosted its Games on the cheap. The primary way the Paris organizing committee kept costs down was by relying on existing venues for the competition, rather than building a series of brand-new arenas as previous hosts have done. Roughly 95% of the competition will take place in venues that already exist or in temporary ones that are much more affordable than the permanent locations that other hosts have built — which often become little-used “white elephants” after the Games are completed.

Paris is the first city to follow this new, more budget-conscious approach to the Games, which the International Olympic Committee (IOC) began to embrace after facing decades of criticism that the benefits of hosting simply weren’t worth the cost. Paris won the rights to host this year’s Games only after several cities — including Boston — abandoned their bids in the face of intense local opposition.

On the same day that the IOC named Paris as the 2024 host, it also awarded Los Angeles hosting rights for the 2028 Summer Games. L.A.’s plan follows the model set by Paris, relying almost exclusively on existing venues to keep costs down. Currently, the budget for LA 2028 is $6.8 billion, though researchers point out that every single modern Olympics has ended up costing more than originally estimated.

Salt Lake City, which was awarded the 2034 Winter Games last month, also plans to rely on existing venues to keep its budget to an estimated $4 billion.

Why there’s debate

Paris has cut billions of dollars off the price tag for the Summer Games. But is it enough? Does this new model rebalance the scales to make the Olympics a positive for its host cities?

The IOC makes the case that its updated approach makes the Olympics “affordable, beneficial and sustainable” by reducing the negatives of hosting while leaving the benefits — income from the Games, a boost in tourism, long-term infrastructure improvements and the prestige that comes from capturing the world’s attention — all intact. Paris may even be on pace to become the first host city in 40 years to make a modest profit. Optimists argue that, under this new model, the era of massive debt, broken promises and expensive venues that immediately become obsolete is over.

But skeptics still believe that the Olympics are a blight that cities should avoid. There’s some research showing that the cities don’t receive significant economic benefits after the Games are over, despite the IOC’s claims. Other critics point out that even Paris, the supposed example of a better way to hold the Olympics, still ran close to a billion dollars over its original budget. “This is not the cheaper Games that were promised,” researchers from Oxford University wrote in a recent paper.

Anti-Olympics groups in cities around the world also contend that it’s not just a matter of money. “The IOC is full of princes and sheikhs and barons and people who do not have the best interests of humanity in mind,” Eric Sheehan, an organizer with NOlympics LA, told Politico. To these critics, Paris is a prime example of the social harms that the Olympics produce, including the displacement of underprivileged residents, an influx of surveillance and security measures and the allocation of funds that would be better spent elsewhere.

Perspectives

The excesses that have defined the Olympics for decades have finally been tamed

“Paris understands that the Games can no longer be an act of national self-indulgence for the host, exiting out of time and hitting pause on real-world issues. And it knows that these are the new standards on which it will be judged.” — Joshua Robinson, Wall Street Journal

The cheaper version of the Olympics still isn’t worth the cost

“You can’t spell Olympics without an L, and Parisians are taking a big L in hosting the Games. … The sad truth is that the modern-day Olympics are both a glorious gala of sport and a massive albatross slung over the neck of the host city.” — Jules Boykoff, Boston Globe

Nothing about the new Olympics model changes the harms it causes to the underprivileged residents of host cities

“Above all, the power and the voice of the marginal, the unhoused and their allies in the anti-Olympic movements that have sprung up over the last few decades, simply cannot compete with the coalition of the powerful … that put on the show. Until that changes, we can expect the staging of future Olympic Games to look the same.” — David Goldblatt, CNN

Paris is a sign of progress, but more needs to be done

“The IOC’s reforms are a welcome start. But more could be done in future to make the games easier to host. One idea is to spread the Olympics out. Different cities in different countries could host different events. For economists this is the surest way to cut costs: more places spending on events would mean a smaller bill for each.” — The Economist

Hosting doesn’t necessarily have to be a huge negative anymore

“I think you can make an argument that it can make sense financially — not in the way that it will transform the city economically. … ‘Maybe we’ll break even’ or ‘Maybe we’ll have a small surplus,’ and ‘Maybe we’ll have a new facility that will be used by the community’ … If the planning is done right, and the city is already very mature and developed, it’s possible that can happen.” — Andrew Zimbalist, author of Circus Maximus: The Economic Gamble Behind Hosting the Olympics and the World Cup, to CNN

The new model only works in wealthy cities

“You are unlikely to consider hosting if you don’t have existing infrastructure. And if we look at the future hosts, they are all from rich countries. I doubt we will see an emerging economy anytime soon.” — Alexander Budzier, researcher at the University of Oxford, to Politico

There really are a lot of benefits to hosting

“Increased infrastructure and updated civil works as a result of the city getting ready for the Olympics provides many lifestyle benefits: a reinvigorated host city can benefit from upgraded transport, accommodation, hospitality, sports facilities and streetscapes. Other significant benefits relate to strengthening the host country’s geographic and cultural brand.” — Steven Greenland and Robert Joseph Gill, Conversation

Only a much more dramatic reimagining of the Olympics can make them worthwhile

“In reality, the Olympics needs a radical rethink. It is a great spectacle of sport, and a test of the limits of human endurance, and achievement. It should be an inspiring spectacle that the whole world can unite around. But the travelling jamboree of staging the event in a different city every four years is becoming more and more untenable.” — Matthew Lynn, Telegraph