The Cost Of Hosting The Olympics

As the Olympic Games and fervor go on for a few more days, FiveThirtyEight.com published an article early this week, titled “Hosting the Olympics is a Terrible Investment“. The ongoing Rio Olympics had overrun its budget by 50% by the time the Olympic torch was lit at the opening ceremonies.

What sort of investment goes into hosting an Olympics?

The below numbers are from a study led by Bent Flyvbjerg at the University of Oxford.

P.S. The study notes that the numbers from China may look skeptical. There is no direct evidence that the numbers have been manipulated and hence they are included in the study with the caveat that the numbers for China are less reliable than those of other nations.

This inforgraphic was created using Canva. The charts were created in Excel. Data and the Excel visuals for this infographic are available here