Hosting the Summer Olympic Games: Impact on Global Cites and International Business

Abstract

Given that the primary intent of the modern era Summer Olympic Games is to provide an outstanding forum for international athletic competition, hosting the Games has been an alluring idea for many cities since they began in 1896. From their inception, however, the impact of hosting the Games has extended beyond athletics and in some cases led to results that were quite different from what was initially expected. Here, a political economy perspective is used to explore why the hoped for impact on a city as well as an associated increase in international business, may or may not have materialized.