When the cost of olympic games started increasing?
Until the 20th century, it was not very difficult for cities to host Olympic Games. These games were mostly held in rich countries like europe and America. There was no tv at that time, so there was no hope of earning money from these games. Governments used to give money for these games because these countries were richer.
A big change came in the 1970s. The number of players doubled and the games also increased a lot. But before the games held in mexico City in 1968, protesters were killed and during the games held in Munich in 1972, Israeli players were attacked. Due to these incidents, the image of the olympic games got tarnished. people felt that the government should not spend so much money on these games.
In 1972, Denver became the first and only city that refused to host the Olympic Games. people decided by voting that not much money would be spent on these games. According to a report, the amount of money spent on hosting the olympic games since 1960 was three times more than the budget quoted at the time of bidding.
The only city that benefited from hosting the Olympics
According to the website of the Council of Foreign Relations, the olympic games held in Montreal, canada in 1976 resulted in a debt of $1.5 billion, which took them almost 30 years to repay. Actually, it was initially decided that $124 million would be spent on these games, but later it was found that the cost was many times more than this. The reason for this was that there was a lot of delay in building the stadium and a lot of money was spent. But Los Angeles was the only city that bid to host the 1984 Olympic Games. Los Angeles already had stadiums. There was no need to build new stadiums. It also earned about $287 million from TV. Because of this, Los Angeles became the only city that made a profit from the Olympic Games. It had a profit of $215 million then. Seeing this, many countries started bidding to host the games. In 1988, only two countries bid, but in 2004, 12 cities bid.