A study from Oxford University has found that Brazil’s Olympic Games are running 51% "over budget with an expected cost blowout" of $1.6B, even as the country "is sinking under its second year of recession," according to Joe Leahy of the FINANCIAL TIMES. The study "warned that even with its expected massive overspend," the total cost of Brazil’s Games at $4.6B was "still modest compared with the outlay of some previous hosts, such as London and Barcelona, making the Olympics one of the riskiest investments a city could make." Oxford Saïd Business School Professor Bent Flyvbjerg, who led the study, said, "When Rio decided to bid for the Olympics, the Brazilian economy was doing well. Now, almost a decade later, costs were escalating and the country was in its worst economic crisis since the 1930s with negative growth and a lack of funds to cover costs." The Oxford study "looked at 15 editions of the summer Olympics," since Rome in '60, and 15 of the Winter Games. It concluded that hosting the event was the most costly and financially risky “megaproject” a city could undertake. It found an average cost overrun of 156% in real terms, the "highest of any type of megaproject in the world, with no edition of the Olympics during the study period having met its budget and nearly half exceeding it" by more than 100%. The most expensive Summer Games were London 2012 at $15B and Winter Games Sochi 2014 at $22B. The average cost of hosting the Summer Games was $5.2B and the Winter Games $3.1B. The study said, "Host governments and the International Olympic Committee have not been transparent about the true cost and cost overrun of the games. For example, the UK government claimed that the London Games came in under budget, but the real cost overrun for London was 76 per cent, or $6.5bn" (FT, 7/7).
