Hosting The Olympic Games: The Big Owe

Despite we are at the end of May, the memory of the latest Winter Olympics held in Sochi is still fresh and vivid. Olympics is always focus of the whole world. No matter how many times the country has been the host, the entire nation will still be anxious to win the bidding and land the Games. Obviously, Olympics is like a huge parade getting the whole world involved to enjoy those high competitive sports games; meanwhile, it also has a huge and profound influence on the country’s economics for a long time. Olympics have usually been a chance for wealthy countries to show off their prestige and power, landing the grandest Games yet for weeks. Nevertheless, holding Olympics is a huge investment with no guarantee for the expected return. Is it always beneficial for the county to hold such an event with a price tag of billions of dollar? Recently, Vietnam has recently withdrawn from hosting 2019 Asian Games; as the prime minister said that the estimated revenues from hosting Asiad wouldn't begin to cover the costs of organizing the event and building the necessary infrastructure, especially in the duration of the global economic downturn. This announcement recalled the memory of “The Big O”, which is the nickname of the main venue for the 1976 Montreal Olympics as a reference to the doughnut-shape of the stadium's roof, as well as to the astronomical cost of the stadium and the 1976 Olympics as a whole, The Big Owe. Although 1976 Olympics is certainly considered as a disaster to the Quebec economy, Canada later held other two winter Olympics in Calgary and Vancouver which both turned out to give the economy a huge boost even if in the duration of recession. “It has been implied by all Olympic historians that there has been tremendous...

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...hort time. So it’s necessary for government to arrange a reasonable schedule instead of facing long-term strikes under the threat of disqualification. Besides the obvious surplus in revenue, Olympics could also increase the average happiness in the host country. Due to the Olympics, infrastructure will be perfectly completed and lots of unparalleled sports venues will be available for the local community, inspired everyone to get involved in sports while fostering the spirit of athleticism for the whole country. In conclusion, even though running Olympics may have certain economic risks, it will usually give a huge boost to the country’s economy both in short-term increasing revenue and long-term growth in international trade and tourism, as long as the government is conscious enough to deal with the Olympic inflation. So why not Toronto bid for the next Olympics!