What a fiasco. The Olympic Games shoud have NEVER been awarded to this city.

[alarimer]

98. The olympics are always a fiasco

For everyone. Only the 1984 games made money for LA. For everybody else, it comes at a great cost. People are moved out of their homes against their will. Cities try to get rid of all of the problems or sweep them under the rug, just to provide a sanitized version of themselves. Brazil is not paying its police officers and other public service workers and has many other serious problems, including a lot of public corruption. To say nothing of the IOC's corruption. They make FIFA look like amateurs.

http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21645114-hosting-olympics-and-world-cup-bad-citys-health-just-say-no

But even appropriately jaded readers are likely to be shocked by the evidence in “Circus Maximus”, a brief polemic by Andrew Zimbalist, an American sports economist, which reveals the magnitude of the deception that precedes these events and the disappointment that follows. The book’s misleading subtitle calls hosting the competitions an “economic gamble”, implying it is a risky bet with a potentially high return. In fact, “Circus Maximus” leaves little doubt that under current conditions, prudent city governments should avoid the contests at all costs.

In principle, there is no reason why hosting such events needs to be an economic own-goal. Between television rights, ticket sales, licensing and sponsorships, the most recent summer Olympics, in London, generated $5.2 billion in revenue. In a city with sufficient existing athletic, hotel and transport infrastructure, it would be easy to stage the competition for less than that figure and come away with a healthy profit—as Los Angeles did in the highly successful 1984 summer games. But over the past few decades, the IOC, in particular, has appropriated an ever-greater share of the proceeds for itself: the most recent public data reveal that it now pockets more than 70% of Olympic television revenue, compared with less than 4% between 1960 and 1980 (see chart). And there is little evidence to support the projections that hosting will bring a surge in tourism: Beijing and London both attracted fewer visitors during their summer Olympics in 2008 and 2012 respectively than they had in the same period a year earlier.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/hosting-the-olympics-is-a-terrible-investment/

When Rio de Janeiro won its bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics back in 2009, the Brazilian government estimated that costs directly related to hosting the games would run just shy of $3 billion. But by the time Vanderlei de Lima lit the Olympic torch at last week’s opening ceremonies, the country had already spent some $4.6 billion on venues, administration, transportation and the like, putting the games roughly 50 percent over budget. By the time the games close on Aug. 21, the tally for the games will likely be higher still.