[PaulHoule]

The model of "go to a new place every four years, build an Olympic village and a bunch of athletic facilities" doesn't work economically. It doesn't make enough money in the short term, and the facilities don't get enough use in the long term to justify it either.

That makes it hard for a city in a free society to want to be the host. The costs are very real but the benefits are elusive. Probably the last time the Olympics were profitable to the host city was the 1984 Los Angeles games and that was because Los Angeles was able to drive a hard bargain because nobody wanted to host the Olympics after the terrorism at the 1972 games.

Some people have suggested we might be better off if the Olympics were held in the same place(s) every year, maybe in Greece.

[lokar]

It seems like there was this crazy escalation of spending promises to win the bid. At some point responsible democracies dropped out, the irresponsible democracies, so all that was left were authoritarian nations looking to improve their image without changing.

Now it seems like even the authoritarian nations are deciding it's to expensive and you see responsible democracies getting back in with more realistic bids.

[lokar]

And of course the IOC is somehow more corrupt then FIFA, which is a real accomplishment.

[dotBen]

Except that the next Olympics are due to be held in France, Italy, USA, Australia - and only one of those is partly an authoritarian nation.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Olympic_Games_host_cit...

[greatgib]

If you follow a little bit France on news or Twitter, you will see that Paris is kind of an authoritarian city with a mayor that created in a few years a debt that no one had seen before.

Now, most normal people in France would have like the thing to be cancelled instead of having their taxes being wasted with that

[lokar]

AIUI, these new bids are pretty modest, without much new spending/infra

[voakbasda]

Only one? Love your optimism.

[echelon]

The Atlanta Olympics made money.

The event had commercial sponsors such as Coke and McDonald's plastered everywhere, which was derided at the time. The opening ceremony even prominently featured Chevy pickup trucks [1].

Nearly all of the newly built facilities were then reused as Georgia Tech dormitories, professional sporting stadiums, local high school facilities, etc.

It was a huge inflection point for the city's growth.

[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=26m16s&v=4n0a-yNO8fE up to the "How Y'all Doin'!" at 30:04

[sys_64738]

All except the Olympic stadium which was torn down.

[echelon]

It wasn't torn down, just modified for new uses.

It was used as the Atlanta Braves stadium from 1997 to 2016, then converted into Georgia State University's football stadium when the Braves moved outside the city to Cobb County to follow the tax incentives.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Olympic_Stadium

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turner_Field

Each conversion took lots of money, but the original structure is still there.

[thatwasunusual]

> Probably the last time the Olympics were profitable to the host city was the 1984 Los Angeles games

The 1994 winter olympics in Norway did make a profit.[0]

[0] https://www.nrk.no/ytring/mytene-og-sannheten-om-ol-1.111989...

[Ekaros]

I don't see any reasons why Olympics should be held in single place or small area. Have for example larger regions or continents to share bids and allow them to bid for sports that are locally popular, thus having venue reuse. Also maybe scale down size for venues and number of events.

[mucholove]

Barcelona 92 was the Olympics that most benefited a city.

What a wonderful city! And amazing port / beach transformation.

[telesilla]

Depends on who you talk to! Infrastructure yes, but came with it waves of unsustainable tourism.

[bufferoverflow]

And that Freddy Mercury song...

[polack]

You are disregarding the fact that there is a competition to get the Olympics, where perfectly normal democracies also participate each time. There have certainly been offers from competitors to arrange Olympics on tighter budgets too.

The question is why those locations don't win? I'm sure it's due to corruption within the Olympic organization, but who am I to judge. I just stop watching the crap.

[mFixman]

The last 7 Olympics were in China, South Korea, Japan, Brazil, Russia, Britain, and Canada. 5/7 are democracies, which is a much higher ratio than there are in the world.

I think this is first worlders thinking "democracy = the West".

[johannes1234321]

> The question is why those locations don't win?

Partially it is corruption, partially it is that most democratic places want to limit IOC's powers and then many areas try, but are held back by the population by large campaigns against it.

[distribot]

But if democracies put together modest bids that their citizens can accept and authoritarians promise to make it spectacular + offer larger bribes, who will win?

[gitfan86]

Atlanta was a net positive in 1996 because they used a lot of the money on buildings that were used for decades after the Olympics were done.