The Mega-Event Syndrome: Why So Much Goes Wrong in Mega-Event Planning and What to Do About It

Abstract

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Mega-events such as the Olympic Games and the Football World Cup have become complex and transformative undertakings over the last 30 years, with costs often exceeding USD $10 billion. These events are currently planned and governed in ways that produce adverse effects for cities, regions, and residents. This study identifies a mega-event syndrome, a group of symptoms that occur together and afflict mega-event planning, including overpromising benefits, underestimating costs, rewriting urban planning priorities to fit the event, using public resources for private interest, and suspending the regular rule of law. I describe each of these symptoms, providing empirical examples from different countries and mega-events, examining the underlying causes. The research is based on material from field visits to mega-event sites in 11 countries as well as 51 interviews with planners, managers, politicians, and consultants involved in mega-event planning.

Takeaway for practice: To curb the mega-event syndrome, I propose both radical and incremental policy suggestions. The most crucial radical change that an event host could make is to not tie mega-events to large-scale urban development, avoiding higher risks that create cost overruns, substandard construction quality, and oversized infrastructure not suitable for post-event demands. Further, event hosts should bargain with event-governing bodies for better conditions, earmark and cap public sector contributions, and seek independent advice on the costs and benefits of mega-events. Event-governing bodies, for their part, should reduce the size and requirements of the events.

Keywords:

• mega-events
• impacts
• sport
• Olympic Games
• Football World Cup

Acknowledgments

Thanks are due to audiences in Brussels, Kazan, Rio de Janeiro, and Zurich for critical feedback on earlier versions, and to Christopher Gaffney and Daniel Wolfe for commenting on this manuscript. The three anonymous reviewers helped shape this article into what it is now: Thank you for your time and effort. Part of this article was completed while on a visiting fellowship with the Brussels Centre for Urban Studies at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel: Thank you for your hospitality.

Notes

1 Event-governing bodies argue that the use of public funds for non-sports-related infrastructure, such as for transport or communications, should be seen as investment and thus not counted as costs of a mega-event. This line of argument, however, is only partly correct. The problem is that, as seen before, mega-events may change what infrastructure is built—what is required for the event and not what has the greatest public utility—and its size. In addition, mega-events inflate the price tag for infrastructure through the mechanisms discussed in Symptom 2. As such, the public still risks paying for overpriced but underused infrastructure.

2 The displacement of 700,000 residents in the run-up to the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul and more than a million residents for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, however, must also be seen as situations where events were part and parcel of a larger redevelopment strategy and thus not the only driver and cause of displacement (Davis, 2011).

3 However, as mentioned earlier, some elites profit from this inefficient allocation of resources, so there is an incentive for them to overbuild. Some policy changes discussed later in this study can reduce this incentive.

4 In 2003, the IOC published a report condemning the growing size of the Olympic Games and issued more than 100 mostly operational recommendations to counteract this trend (Olympic Games Study Commission, 2003). The IOC also asks for bid books to detail how Olympic planning fits into the long-term development plans of the host, and IOC members are asked to take this into account when voting for a host. Beginning in 2001, it standardized the organization of the event and introduced a knowledge transfer system to make organizational processes more efficient. Despite past reforms, however, the IOC has been unable to reverse, stop, or even noticeably slow the growth of the Olympics (Chappelet, 2014). The Olympic Agenda 2020, passed in December 2014, steps up efforts to enhance transparency, reducing the cost and size and maximizing the use of existing or temporary infrastructure. It yet has to show whether it can be more effective than its predecessors.

5 As an adverse effect, this implication may encourage investments into infrastructure in anticipation of increasing chances to win an event, but these investments would then occur without the fixed deadline of the event, the state of legal exception, and a number of other symptoms, and it would be harder to justify event-specific expenditure vis-à-vis citizens if an event has not been awarded.

6 The IOC has recognized the need for keeping the terms of the hosting agreement stable and for decentralization in its Agenda 2020, adopted in December 2014 (Recommendation 1).