having the olympics costs a country X amount, and earns a country Y amount.
for some reason I think most people put Y at 0, and say that the country has wasted X (talking only about the 'price tag' of hosting). I can't tell whether people doing that are being dishonest to support a narrative, or whether they actually think that hosting an olympics earns a country nothing.
you can argue that Y is often or always less than X, but I rarely see Y even acknowledged.
I think in this case the author is well-aware of Y:
"Though Olympic boosters say the Summer Games allow a city to showcase itself to a global audience, only two Games, both in Los Angeles, have ever made a real profit"
I'm sure you could construct a list that shows no profits ever, and a list that shows massive profits every time (using the same level of evidence for both sides).
the primary issue is that it's extremely difficult to measure costs/profits for something as massive as an olympics. the secondary issue is that people tend to support their 'sides' narrative (keynesian or otherwise).
Actually that's probably based on lists of Olympic budgets, and actual costs which gets cited pretty often. Very often olympic cities spend more than they budgeted for, and that's considered a loss.
That however has everything to do with X (how much is budgeted, and how much was spent. i.e. what was the cost), and still absolutely nothing with Y (actual revenues/benefits). That was his entire point.
We have to remember that the budgets aren't necessarily meaningful because politicians have to sell their own taxpayers the idea of applying for an olympic bid with a budget. Obviously that budget will be severely underestimated to create as little resistance as possible, despite the possibility that the true budget which is higher, would still be worth it. This isn't always the case but my point here is that the politics are set up such that there are good reasons to underestimate the true budget even when the true budget is worthwhile for the city, and thereby end up registering a net loss because you ended up going over budget.
For example, Brazil could very well benefit from these olympics (although it's too early to tell). Yet their projected budget was less than $2.5 billion, despite the fact last two olympics averaging $25 billion in one country richer and one country poorer than Brazil. Obviously budgeting $2.5 billion is a complete and utter joke, and everyone knows, everyone, that it'd be way higher. But it doesn't mean it's a loss to the city.
Meanwhile when China spent close to $50 billion, but early reports showed it was a tiny bit cheaper than its budget, it didn't mean that this in and of itself constituted a profit, either.
for some reason I think most people put Y at 0, and say that the country has wasted X (talking only about the 'price tag' of hosting). I can't tell whether people doing that are being dishonest to support a narrative, or whether they actually think that hosting an olympics earns a country nothing.
you can argue that Y is often or always less than X, but I rarely see Y even acknowledged.