Major sporting events: the 179% cost overrun nobody could replicate, the 3 or 4 points in the event year, and Sochi’s $55 billion

There are two figures in circulation about the Olympic Games and both deserve examination. The first is the cost overrun: a frequently cited University of Oxford study put the average deviation from Olympic budgets between 1960 and 2012 at 179% in real terms and 324% in nominal terms. The second is the benefit: the economic boost that justifies the bid.

What makes this case interesting is that both have been challenged with data. A re-analysis published in 2022 could not replicate the Oxford study’s results for the period 2000-2016 and obtained cost overruns of 13% to 178% on direct investments, noting as well that the cost of the Games represents less than 0.28% of the host country’s GDP. And the benefit, when measured against the appropriate counterfactual — the cities that bid for the Games and lost — turns out to be 3 to 4 percentage points of regional GDP in the event year and the year before, with long-run effects that are not statistically robust.

And one specific case no discussion should omit: Sochi 2014 cost $55 billion, 4.5 times the bid budget, with 96.5% public funding and a subsequent annual burden of around $1.2 billion.

Summary

It is worth checking in each row whether the event year or the long run is being measured, and whether the subject is Summer or Winter Games. Those are four distinct cases and the results do not coincide.

What you will find here

• The world’s most-cited cost overrun figure and why a re-analysis could not reproduce it.

• What happens when the host city is compared against the city that lost the vote.

• Why the Summer and Winter Games produce opposite results.

• What is left of the tourism legacy when it is measured with air passenger data.

• The Sochi case, complete with all its figures.

• Despite what the literature suggests, municipalities continue to submit bids.

Disputing the cost overrun amount

Start with the one everybody cites. Sascha Schmidt summarised it in 2017 — in a book chapter, not a peer-reviewed article — with what has become the standard formulation: between 1960 and 2012, the Olympic Games consistently overran budgets, on average by 179% in real and by 324% in nominal terms, as researchers from the University of Oxford found out.

His complementary observation describes the state of the debate well: although politicians and interest groups continually justify the overarching costs by promising future economic benefits, economists have a hard time finding any economic impact from hosting the Games when engaging in ex post analysis of indicators like GDP, employment rate and trade volume.

Back in 2022, Holger Preuss from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz re-evaluated that figure within the pages of the International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics. It is important to be clear regarding the exact nature of this piece: a commentary and methodological dispute, rather than an independent measurement, while his extensive background working inside the Olympic realm forms part of the background to his stance.

That said, his objections are concrete and checkable. He starts from the fact that the so-called Oxford study shows cost overruns of 170% to 750% with a substantial risk of further overruns in future, and sets out to re-analyse them using a method in accordance with the international convention of comparing across time and geographies, with a dataset containing abundantly more governmental data.

His results: he could not replicate the Oxford study’s results for the period 2000-2016. His own calculation yields, for the Games from 2000 to 2014 and for direct non-organising-committee investments, cost overruns in the range of 13% to 178%. And he adds the figure that sets the discussion in macroeconomic scale: the costs of the Olympic Games represent less than 0.28% of GDP; hence it is clear that the Games cannot cause a severe national economic crisis.

Preuss also identifies six typical «misperceptions» in this debate and disputes the assumption that host cities give a blank cheque to the International Olympic Committee, arguing that the demands are fixed in the Host City Contract. That the two estimates differ so widely — 170-750% against 13-178% — does not mean one is false and the other true: it means the answer depends on which line items are counted as a cost of the event. And that accounting decision is, in practice, the heart of the controversy.

Comparing against whoever lost the vote

The core methodological flaw within this research field becomes apparent immediately upon identification: the municipalities chosen to stage Olympic Games are far from typical. They submit bids precisely because they possess high ambitions, robust growth, strong financial standing, and solid political backing, factors that independently shape their economic landscapes. Pitting an Olympic host city against national averages wrongly attributes inherent municipal traits to the event itself.

The elegant solution exists and two studies have used it: comparing against the cities that also bid and lost. They are cities with the same ambition and the same profile, minus the event.

Matthias Firgo applied it in Regional Science and Urban Economics in 2021 to study the short- and long-run effects on the regional economy, using runners-up in the Olympic bidding process to construct the counterfactual for Olympic host regions.

His results, by type of Games:

The final row corresponds to Stephen Billings and Scott Holladay, who published in Economic Inquiry in 2012 the toughest study in this group. Their design: matching Olympic host cities with cities that were finalists for the Games but were not selected by the International Olympic Committee, and applying a difference-in-differences estimator to examine post-Olympic impacts between 1950 and 2005.

Their outcome, literally: regression results provide no long-term impacts of hosting an Olympics on two measures of population, real gross domestic product per capita and trade openness.

It is crucial to carefully examine both what that implies and what it excludes. The text does not claim the Games lack any impact: rather, it points out that two or five decades down the road, the winning host metropolis bears a striking resemblance to the runner-up that missed out on the bid across those four specific metrics. Viewed through that lens, any lasting economic footprint simply fails to materialize.

What the most recent measurement does find

David Boto-García and María Santana-Gallego published in Tourism Management in 2025 the analysis with the most modern econometric apparatus: a panel from 1991 to 2023 with dynamic difference-in-differences estimators that distinguish anticipation from legacy effects, account for staggered treatment timing and accommodate heterogeneous effects.

Their outcomes outshine previous ones and ought to be documented: moderate anticipatory effects on tourism and notable impacts on employment and GDP per capita, with the Summer Games exhibiting a stronger impact.

The authors frame their contribution by flagging precisely the field’s problem: empirical evidence on the overall impact remains inconclusive, largely due to methodological challenges, and they highlight the limitations of standard approaches. That a better method yields a more positive result is relevant and has to await replication.

The tourism legacy

The tourism narrative forms the second pillar of any bid: global audiences witness the city on screen and subsequently travel there. In 2019, Steven Moss, Kathleen Gruben alongside Janet Moss examined this premise within the Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events utilizing the most direct metrics available: monthly international air passenger arrivals for nine Olympic host cities, deploying a time series methodology that accounted for issues highlighted in earlier research—such as preexisting trends, external shocks, seasonality and displacement effects.

Their result: the results show little evidence to support the legacy effect in the short run.

Two studies focusing on Brazil alongside major events in general moderate that conclusion more favourably. In 2018, Roberto Meurer and Hoyêdo Nunes Lins examined the impacts of the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Games on Brazilian international tourism receipts within Tourism Economics, whereas Christian Vierhaus estimated the international tourism outcome of staging Olympic Games and FIFA World Cups in the exact same journal that year. Measurable tourism impacts are highlighted by their findings, which remain entirely compatible with a lack of legacy reflected in airport statistics, given that an outcome can manifest in revenue rather than passenger numbers, or simply concentrate during the event itself.

Eleni Kasimati and Peter Dawson supplied for Athens 2004 the temporal pattern that sums up this entire literature, with an aggregate macroeconometric model published in Economic Modelling in 2008. They find evidence that the Games can successfully boost the host city’s economy by generating benefits that outweigh the preparation cost. And they add the coda: whilst the impact effects are quite strong during the preparation phase and the year the Games took place, the long-term economic legacy effects appear to be quite modest.

Strong during preparation and the event, modest afterwards: that is exactly the profile Firgo finds using finalists as the counterfactual, and it is compatible with Billings and Holladay’s long-run zero. Three studies, three methods, the same curve.

Sochi, complete with all its data

Martin Müller published in Eurasian Geography and Economics in 2014 the accounts of the Sochi Winter Games, and it is the most thoroughly documented case in the whole literature. The figures are worth listing without ornament:

And the outcome equation: the rewards brought by such a steep price remain constrained. Massive building sprees triggered excessive hotel availability, financial backers failed on government-guaranteed debt, and a cohesive strategy for repurposing the facilities alongside several major infrastructure works is missing.

The yearly load calculated by Müller encompasses upkeep, operational costs, alongside missed interest and tax income. Furthermore, the pair of non-financial consequences typically brought up are absent as well: the occasion likewise failed to boost Russia’s global reputation, while domestic backing declined throughout the seven-year rollout, particularly among residents in the area.

That final remark warrants emphasis. Backing dropped steepest among residents of the host city. The alleged civic enthusiasm, typically deployed as a fallback justification when financial rationales collapse, actually produced the opposite effect.

What the literature says as a whole

Two reviews allow everything above to be placed. The most cited is by Robert Baade and Victor Matheson in Journal of Economic Perspectives in 2016, and it sorts costs and benefits into three categories each. The costs: general infrastructure such as transportation and housing, specific sports infrastructure required for competition venues, and operational costs including general administration as well as the opening and closing ceremony and security. The benefits: the short-run benefits of tourist spending during the Games, the long-run «Olympic legacy» — infrastructure improvements and increased trade, foreign investment or subsequent tourism — and intangible benefits such as the «feel-good effect» or civic pride.

Their conclusion is the most-quoted sentence in the field: the overwhelming conclusion is that in most cases the Olympics are a money-losing proposition for host cities; they result in positive net benefits only under very specific and unusual circumstances. And they add a relevant asymmetry: the cost-benefit proposition is worse for cities in developing countries than for those in the industrialised world.

The review by Pasquale Scandizzo and Maria Rita Pierleoni in Journal of Economic Surveys in 2018 widens the frame to the Games as cultural assets and opportunities for endogenous growth, surveying approaches, concepts and methodologies. Their general findings are, in their words, controversial, with some hints of positive overall effects, but also with a well-documented tendency to exaggerate the benefits and underestimate the costs in the ex ante versus the ex post studies.

And one observation that opens a door: ex post cross-country econometric studies tend to catch sizeable differential and persistent benefits ignored by individual studies. That is to say, the method of measurement partly determines the result, just as it did with the cost overrun.

Sorted by type of question, the literature turns out to be considerably less contradictory than it looks at first glance.

What that table shows is that the real disagreement concentrates in a single cell — the magnitude of the cost overrun — and in the exception of the 2025 measurement. On everything else, twenty years of work using different methods point to the same curve: a peak in the event year and little or nothing afterwards.

Why cities keep bidding

If the definitive verdict points toward a financial failure, the natural inquiry is why municipalities vie for the opportunity. Baade and Matheson raise this exact point at the conclusion of their analysis: they examine why what appears to be an increasingly unwise investment choice by urban centers continues to attract intense competitive bidding, and whether reforms to the International Olympic Committee bidding procedure will yield better results for prospective host cities.

Schmidt aligns with this perspective by observing that politicians and special interest groups often excuse spiraling expenses with pledges of future gains. Meanwhile, Müller introduces the detail that shifts the political dynamics of the issue: in Sochi, public support fell over the seven years of implementation, and more sharply among local residents. Preuss, in his 2018 article in the same journal, had proposed a legacy measurement framework precisely because, in his terms, while the sport organisations gain large revenues, cities lose, and the referendums held in the preceding years returned negative results consistently.

Put differently: the economic literature and the electorate of candidate cities have been in agreement for a decade, and bids are decided somewhere else.

To be fair to the tender files, the literature does not claim the Games have zero impact. Rather, it notes that the event generates a substantial, brief, and intense surge of activity before steering the host city back to its prior path. For a municipality that desires a specific piece of infrastructure anyway—such as a subway line, a regenerated waterfront, or a transit hub—an Olympic deadline serves as a mechanism to complete construction in seven years rather than two decades. This tangible advantage is overlooked by these studies because it stems from an acceleration phenomenon rather than a direct Olympic consequence.

The candid formulation of the bid, therefore, is not «the Games will pay for themselves». It is «we are buying a deadline, and here is what the deadline will deliver», with the budget overrun factored in at whatever end of the 13-to-178 per cent spectrum the municipality can absorb. Such an argument is justifiable. It is likewise far more difficult to present to a public vote, a factor that perhaps explains why the referendums consistently collapsed.

What to do with this, in practice

• Always ask which line items are in the cost. The difference between a 170-750% overrun and a 13-178% one is largely an accounting decision about what gets attributed to the event.

• Demand comparison against the finalist cities. It is the only honest counterfactual, and with it the long-run effect disappears in population, GDP per capita and trade openness.

• Do not treat summer and winter as the same case. The Summer Games give +3 to +4 points in the event year; the Winter Games, no positive impact and possibly a temporary decline.

• Discount the tourism legacy. Air passenger data from nine host cities show little evidence supporting the short-run effect.

• Budget for subsequent maintenance, not just construction. Sochi carries around $1.2 billion a year in operation, maintenance and foregone revenue.

• Distrust pre-event studies. The 2018 review documents a tendency to exaggerate benefits and underestimate costs in ex ante studies relative to ex post ones.

Frequently asked questions

Do the Olympic Games yield a profit?

According to the most-cited review, no: in the majority of instances, they represent a financial drain for host municipalities, generating positive net gains exclusively under highly specific and exceptional conditions. Furthermore, this endeavor tends to yield even poorer outcomes within developing nations.

How far do budgets overrun?

It depends what is counted. The Oxford study puts the 1960-2012 average at 179% real and 324% nominal; a re-analysis with more governmental data could not replicate it for 2000-2016 and obtained 13% to 178% on direct investments.

Does it provide a genuine economic stimulus?

Yes, and a bounded one. Compared against finalist cities, the Summer Games raise regional GDP per capita by 3 to 4 percentage points above the national level in the event year and the one before. The long-run effect is positive but not statistically robust.

And two decades later?

The study matching hosts with finalists between 1950 and 2005 finds no long-term impact on two measures of population, real GDP per capita or trade openness.

Do more tourists come afterwards?

Monthly international air passenger arrival data for nine host cities show little evidence to support the short-run legacy effect. Other studies detect effects on travel receipts, which is not the same variable.

What happened in Sochi?

It cost $55 billion against the bid’s $12 billion, with 96.5% public money, left hotel overcapacity, defaults on state-backed loans and no coherent after-use plan, and carries around $1.2 billion a year in burden.

What about civic pride?

It serves as the ultimate recourse, and within the most thoroughly recorded instance, the dynamic unfolded inversely: support dropped over the seven years of implementation, most notably among the local population.

What remains unknown

• What the correct cost overrun is. The two estimates differ by an order of magnitude and the discrepancy is an accounting one: which general infrastructure items are attributed to the event.

• Why the more recent methods give more positive results. The 1991-2023 panel finds notable impacts on employment and GDP per capita where the finalist-based designs see none in the long run.

• Whether there is a city-size threshold below which it never pays. The asymmetry between developed and developing countries is documented; the threshold is not.

• What the intangible benefit is worth. Baade and Matheson include it as a category and nobody has quantified it comparably against the costs.

• Whether changes in the International Olympic Committee’s bidding process improve the outcome. That is the question closing the 2016 review and it remains empirically unanswered.

References

1. Baade, R. A. and Matheson, V. A. «Going for the Gold: The Economics of the Olympics». Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2016. 10.1257/jep.30.2.201

2. Scandizzo, P. L. and Pierleoni, M. R. «Assessing the Olympic Games: The Economic Impact and Beyond». Journal of Economic Surveys, 2018. 10.1111/joes.12213

3. Firgo, M. «The causal economic effects of Olympic Games on host regions». Regional Science and Urban Economics, 2021. 10.2139/ssrn.3500856

4. Billings, S. B. and Holladay, J. S. «Should Cities Go for the Gold? The Long-Term Impacts of Hosting the Olympics». Economic Inquiry, 2012. 10.1111/j.1465-7295.2011.00373.x

5. Preuss, H. «Re-analysis, measurement and misperceptions of cost overruns at Olympic Games». International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, 2022. Commentary article. 10.1080/19406940.2022.2037685

6. Schmidt, S. L. «Hosting the Olympic Games». 2017. Book chapter. 10.1007/978-3-319-47458-8_51

7. Müller, M. «After Sochi 2014: costs and impacts of Russia’s Olympic Games». Eurasian Geography and Economics, 2014. 10.1080/15387216.2015.1040432

8. Boto-García, D. and Santana-Gallego, M. «Old questions, new methods: Revisiting the economic effects of hosting mega-sport events». Tourism Management, 2025. 10.1016/j.tourman.2025.105324

9. Moss, S. E., Gruben, K. H. and Moss, J. «An empirical test of the Olympic tourism legacy». Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events, 2019. 10.1080/19407963.2017.1418750

10. Kasimati, E. and Dawson, P. «Assessing the impact of the 2004 Olympic Games on the Greek economy: A small macroeconometric model». Economic Modelling, 2008. 10.1016/j.econmod.2008.06.006

11. Vierhaus, C. “The international tourism effect of hosting the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup”. Tourism Economics, 2018. 10.1177/1354816618814329

12. Meurer, R. and Lins, H. N. «The effects of the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games on Brazilian international travel receipts». Tourism Economics, 2018. 10.1177/1354816617746261

This article summarises peer-reviewed scientific literature on the economic impact of major sporting events, flagging in the text the book chapter and the commentary article included. The figures correspond to the editions and periods studied and are not extrapolable to any event. It is not public policy advice, nor an evaluation of any specific bid.