Economic Impacts on Sports: The Olympic Games

Economic Impacts on Sports Name Institutional Affiliation Economic Impacts on Sports Introduction Hosting Olympic Games has often been regarded as having a positive economic impact on the host country, including social prestige, economic prosperity, and a variety of long-term benefits that influence cities to aggressively bid for the hosting role. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has sponsored numerous studies to determine the economic benefits and costs of hosting the Olympic Games (Edds, 2012). Studies have shown that the incentives to host the Olympic Games are usually unclear. This is because although the cost of hosting such games has increased significantly, the economic benefits have become unpredictable. For instance, studies have shown that 30% of revenues that is enjoyed by cities that successfully bid to host the Olympic Games, tend to be shared by nations that fail to secure the hosting role (Stewart, 2009). Furthermore, most of the benefiting countries do not have to spend billions of dollars upgrading their velodromes, athletics, and field tracks. Positive Impacts Cities that get the opportunity of hosting the Olympic Games tend to reap substantial economic benefits. Both the local and foreign tourists who visit the city spend millions of dollars in terms of entry fees into stadiums, money spent in hotels and restaurants, and the resources that are spent in local businesses. Furthermore, studies have revealed that Olympic Games tend to create employment opportunities, both directly and indirectly. For instance, the hospitality industry tends to add more hotels that will host the visitors, thus creating additional employment opportunities for the locals. Wills (2019) says that in Rio de Janeiro, the city had to build or upgrade an additional 40,000 hotel rooms in the Olympic village to house the athletes. Additionally, cities that win the hoisting bid enjoy additional economic impacts such as the construction of roads, upgrading of airports, development of railway lines, and upgrading of communication systems in order to accommodate the massive influx of individuals. Apart from job creation, hosting Olympic Games usually results in massive improvement of infrastructures which lead to positive economic impacts in the host cities. For instance, Sochi Olympics in 2014 influenced authorities to spend over $42.5 billion in the construction of infrastructures that were not directly related to sports (Wills, 2019). In Rio de Janeiro, more than 15,000 additional hotel rooms were constructed to host the tourists. In Beijing, authorities spent more than $22.5 billion to build transportation networks, which also included an addition $11.25 billion on cleaning up the environment. Thousands of visitors, including athletes, sponsors, spectators, and media personalities, spent an extended amount of time, both prior and after the games, which enabled the host cities to earn additional income. The aim of creating the Olympics was to unify all nations into a single tournament, with all nationalities required to respect the regulations and compete fairly (Johnson, 2012). From this perspective, the Olympics unite nations by promoting multiculturalism and diversity. Negative Impacts Despite the positive impacts of the Olympics,...