The Biggest Losers: The Cities And Countries That Host The Olympics
Our vile little mayor, Eric Garcetti, instead of dealing with the exploding homelessness crisis in LA, spent much of his time in office working to bring the Olympics to Los Angeles: his "boyhood dream."

For those of us who live here, it'll be our adult nightmare: in cost and horrifying traffic (levels more horrifying than LA traffic already is.

At FEE, Josh Adamson notes the burden on local taxpayers when a city hosts the Olympics:

The 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics began on February 9, and the South Korean government has budgeted the event to cost South Korean taxpayers over £9 billion. The unfortunate reality for those taxpayers, however, is shown a recent Oxford University study, which found the average Olympic Games exceeds its budget by an enormous 156 percent.

This figure includes only sport-related expenses -- outlays for general infrastructure, like housing and transportation, were excluded. These expenses are not insignificant either, and often actually exceed spending on sports-related infrastructure. Prior to being "awarded" an Olympic Games, considerable investment also goes into an initial bid to the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Servicing debt can burden taxpayers for decades, and there are no better examples of this than the 2014 Sochi Winter Games and the 1976 Montreal Olympics. Sochi will cost Russians £860 million per year for the foreseeable future, and the public debt from the 1976 Montreal Olympics was only fully repaid by the Canadian government in 2006. One must also consider the opportunity cost of such reckless public expenditures which could be used in areas which provide direct benefits to a nation's citizens.

But what about the economic benefits that hosting an Olympics can yield for a country?

Never as Good as Advertised
Impact analysis studies commissioned by governments in their lead-up to a Games conclude that hosting the Olympics will encourage tourism and employment -- thereby generating a positive economic impact for their city or country.

But the results of such studies are usually mediocre at best, and most of these analyses are commissioned to legitimize a political position rather than to search for economic truths. Independent analysis finds little or no positive net impacts of Olympic Games for host nations.

There is no doubt major sporting events result in considerable expenditure from visiting tourists; however, there is no definite impact on tourism for a city post-Olympic Games. London, Beijing, and Salt Lake City experienced declines in tourist numbers after the Games; whilst Sydney and Vancouver saw only slight increases. One undoubted success story, however, is the city of Barcelona which hosted the 1992 Olympics, yet the Games still went 266 percent over budget.

Gains to employment from the Olympics consistently fall short of predictions, and any jobs created are mostly temporary and typically go to workers already employed. A study of the 2002 Winter Olympics found that, at most, one-quarter of the number of jobs officials had quoted were actually created. This amounted to £216,000 of federal spending per job. Additionally, only around 10 percent of the 48,000 jobs created as a result of the London Olympics were filled by previously unemployed people.

...Governments will then spend hundreds of millions of pounds on their Olympic bids, and politicians in the winning country are often not around when taxpayers foot the bill more than half a decade later.

At their heart, the Olympics exhibit many qualities which are endorsed by free-market capitalism, actively promoting individualism, international cooperation, and excellence through competition. Why, then, do we continue the tradition of outlandish public spending on them?

It seems inevitable that governments will continue their irresponsible Olympic bids which, if successful, begin a spiral of taxpayer-financed wastage. But changes to funding structures can be made by upcoming host cities that embrace a more cost-effective model of financing, such as that employed by Los Angeles Olympic organizers.

Longer term, however, the focus of the IOC should shift from awarding the Olympics to the country that will produce the Games with the greatest grandeur and scale, to those which can be privately funded and generate a legitimate return for the host nation.