Massive events like Olympics ‘not worth it’ for host cities, Manitoba economics prof says

Winnipeg has hosted a number of notable events over the years, but nothing comes close to the size and scope of the Olympic Games.

According to a local economics professor, that’s a very good thing.

The University of Manitoba’s Ian Hudson says hosting a massive event like the Olympics — currently underway in Paris — is a losing proposition for most cities, despite the international attention.

“The cold, hard dollars and cents of hosting an event like this, the short answer is no — there’s no way it’s worth it,” Hudson told 680 CJOB’s Connecting Winnipeg.

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“The costs are astronomical, even though Paris actually is a very, very — relatively speaking — budget-friendly Olympics.

“The Rio (de Janeiro) Olympics in 2016 cost $23 billion. Pairs is estimated to come in around $9-10 billion.”

Hudson said there are intangible benefits to hosting the Olympics, outside of the financial impacts.

“It provides a massive sense of excitement and community for the city and even nation that’s hosting the Games itself. You look at the people in Paris supporting the French athletes and they’re going absolutely bananas.

“That is a sort of non-quantifiable, intangible, but super real benefit of hosting the Olympics. It’s possible that that intangible sense of nation and community and enjoyment … might compensate for the massive costs that you’re about to incur.”

On a smaller scale, he said, Winnipeg has been able to successfully host major sporting events like the 1999 Pan Am Games, the world junior hockey tournament, and multiple Grey Cup final games — with another scheduled for 2025.

These events, as well as recent locally hosted competitions like the World Police and Fire Games last summer, can make a lot more sense for a city of Winnipeg’s size.

“Those are more manageable, to put it mildly.

“For a city like Winnipeg, if you put on the Pan Am Games, there’s already a fair amount of infrastructure in place where we can actually have those events, so the cost isn’t that massive,” Hudson said.

“We also, when we hosted the Pan Am Games, relied a massive amount on volunteer labour, which Winnipeggers were amazing at providing.”

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