The Olympic Games will be held in Paris, France, until 11 August. Photo Credit: Adobe Stock/Delphotostock
Held every four years, the Olympic Games are not only a celebration
of athletic prowess and international unity but also a notorious budget
buster. Despite Paris’s ambitious promise to rein in expenses for this
year's Summer Olympics, the city is facing substantial cost overruns.
According to a study conducted and published by the Oxford Saïd
Business School, Paris is racking up a bill of at least US$8.78 billion
for this year’s Summer Olympics despite also being the first city to
fully test cost-cutting reforms that the International Olympic Committee
(IOC) introduced in 2019.
The study notes that this is still over US$1 billion more than the
historical median cost of hosting the Games, and 115% over what the
Paris 2024 organisers have estimated the cost to come to.
“This is not the cheap Games that were promised,” the report
admonishes, further stating that Olympic costs have been statistically
significantly increasing, and cost overruns have been found to be on the
rise since Beijing hosted the Games in 2008 – “a step in the wrong
direction”, the report declares.
Although efforts have been made to repurpose buildings and reuse
existing sporting facilities for this year’s Games – as opposed to
building entirely new buildings and facilities specifically for this
period – the refurbishment of existing monuments such as the
125-year-old Grand Palais has come at a price that has not yet been
revealed.
Cost-saving suggestions
To alleviate the astronomical cost of preparing for and hosting the
Games, the report’s authors have stressed the need for better planning
on the back of more transparent data-sharing.
“To truly improve, complete costs must be shared… This is
particularly important given the potential cost savings from venue
reuse/retrofit and the use of temporary venues, which the IOC recommends
but which have yet to be quantified and monitored,” it states.
Another suggestion made has been to allow for more preparation time
for the Games, with accommodation for projected inflation rates included
as a mandatory component to future Games budgets.
“An exciting challenge is how to make each edition of the Games
iconic at significantly lower cost and cost overrun than we have seen to
date,” concludes the report. “This can be done, but for it to happen
the IOC and hosts need to change their tack and become more innovative
in their approach to delivering the Games.”