New Study Disputes Economic Benefits of Hosting WC

We're back from a short hiatus, and as the bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups heat up, a new IMF study has been released which disputes the frequently-touted line that major sporting events bring major benefits to host nations. The Age newspaper in Australia has the story:

AS AUSTRALIA finalises its bid to stage soccer's World Cup, the International Monetary Fund has published an article arguing that the economic benefits of big sports events are negligible, while the costs tend to be far heavier and long-lasting.

Drawing on evidence from the Sydney Olympics, among other events, US economist Andrew Zimbalist concluded that the economic gains from staging big sporting events are ''modest to non-existent''.

While economic studies financed by host governments report net benefits in hosting big sporting events, the studies are not objective and suffer from many flaws, he warned.

The author is a Professor at Smith College, and he warns that countries should conduct careful cost-benefit analyses before bidding on major sporting events, as costs often wildly surpass what was predicted.


It's no secret that studies commissioned by bid committees are hopelessly biased. While it does not reveal anything new, this study simply reinforces what many skeptics have long been saying: That while national pride and other factors motivate countries to bid on expensive sporting events, the host nations are generally worse off financially than they were before the events began.