The 2024 Paris Olympics will be a spectacle watched live and on television by billions of sports enthusiasts across the globe. The games have sold a record 8.6 million tickets and will host nearly 10,000 athletes in Paris from July 26th to August 11th, 2024.
The Olympics Games represent the pinnacle of sportsmanship and endurance. But the games are not merely a show of the world’s finest athletic talent. It is also a display of innovation and design as the host country gears up to set an international stage for champions. This endeavor, however, is not cheap and often results in the hefty bids by nations that wrestle to host this historic mega-event. According to a study conducted by Oxford University, every country hosting the Olympics has exceeded its initial budget by huge margins since the 1960s. The most expensive Summer Olympics to host to date was the 2016 Rio Olympics, which cost $23.6 billion and exceeded its original budgetary blueprint by 350%.
In the case of Paris, the city has only surpassed its initial budget by 25%, with a spending total just shy of $10 billion, according to an S&P Global Ratings report. The French capital was able to drastically cut its Olympic costs due to the existing infrastructure that has sprawled the city since the 1924 Olympic Games. A hundred years later, Paris only developed three Olympic venues in addition to its pre-existing structures. These include the $1.6 billion Olympic Village, the $190 million Aquatics Center, and a $150 million gymnastics and badminton venue.
