How Paris Pulled Off One Of The Cheapest Olympics

While the Olympics is one of the biggest sporting events in the world, it comes with a hefty price tag for the cities hosting the games. Since 1960, every Olympics has overspent its budget by building new venues, Olympic villages, and public infrastructure. For the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics, it aims to become one of the cheapest modern Olympics. The total budget for the 2024 Olympics is an estimated $9.7 billion, with 95 percent of the venues needed already built.

Chapters:
01:34 Title card - How Paris pulled off one of the cheapest Olympics
01:37 Chapter 1 - The Paris Olympics
03:56 Chapter 2 - Why some failed
06:02 Chapter 3 - New IOC guidelines
08:00 Chapter 4 - The future of hosting

Producer: Daren Geeter
Animation: Jason Reginato, Emily Rabbideau
Senior Managing Producer: Tala Hadavi
Additional footage: Getty Images, International Olympic Committee

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How Paris Pulled Off One Of The Cheapest Olympics

[wishiknewaname]

Imagine being Tokyo in 2020 and COVID came and delayed the games by a year and still people couldn’t travel so you couldn’t make up those costs in revenue.

[zaynet]

I think it's a good idea to have ALL the previous host cities do the rotation for the Olympics that way all the permanent structures can be reused and the host cities already know what they're doing

[Fools_Requiem]

Watching the Olympics, you can tell how they managed to save so much money. They didnt build a bunch of permanent stadiums and venues. They turned the city into the venue. All of the locations were either already in place or are well constructed temporary venues. Famous landmarks became arenas. Its amazing. France knows exactly what they're doing.

[navarisnich]

I was in Paris for the games and everything was perfect, really. i don't think any city can do better

[Malik_Sylvus]

Paris reinvented the Olympics games (in the spirit of the Baron Coubertin) by bringing the games within the city and making the city a huge playground for the games. It was perfect: the organisation, security, competitions, shows, ... we saw great athletes in great arenas and stadiums. Happy and joyfull people from all the world were gathered for the sport, and that was the essential and successful AIM of the games. Of course, there will be bitter or jealous people who will say that it was not good, for those there is nothing we can do, as for those who continue to believe that the earth is flat.

[marvinmarcos]

I work in a restaurant in paris and today we drop sales to 20% because there are no tourist as prices of hotels and accomodation skyrocketed high.

[bscoggs]

LA is gonna be a nightmare for transportation to events. Lol

[mounirgherbi]

they all downgrade the cost at first to avoid angering the citizens, and then after the games you hear about the true cost

[CiaoBello]

Paris is perfect for hosting the olympics because they already have what some host cities don’t all have:
1) EXISTING Infrastructure.
2) A well connected public transport system.
3) Tourism
4) Money
5) More than 100 years to study other hosts’ failures in hosting the olympics 😂

[jefreyjiro]

Paris olympics deserves more credit than they get. They pulled off the cheapest olympics ever WITHOUT any problems hosting the games. Sure there might be a little inconvenience for a few athletes but those are far and few in between. The point of the olympics are executing the games and Paris olympics has done so well. I'd rather give a little inconvenience to some athletes to lower the cost of olympics than having my nation go into debt crisis just to save face

[bobbylong]

I don't think metro saturation will be an issue Paris was absolutely empty of locals 3 days before the Olympics, everyone who could leave has left! The only people in Paris right now are tourists and people who have to work.

[heleencramer]

To hold the Olympics always in Paris? Oh YES, please! It can’t ever be greater than the recent games. They were so superb!

[waltsous]

BRAVOOOO a la France pour l'organisation des Jeux Olympique, un succès qui ne laissera pas de dette ou d'échec comme Rio de Janeiro par exemple.

[Sacto]

Paris was already spending a fortune improving its transportation infrastructure when they won the bid anyway. Reason: Paris is heavily investing in improving Paris Metro and RER regional rail and building out a tram system to reduce the city's over-dependence on automobiles (a problem that existed in the city even _before_ World War II!). That plus plentiful existing facilities meant the costs was low.

[RandomStuff-zwuh]

Paris is already a tourist hot spot, and they have tons of existing stadiums. So... not very surprising that they can handle it reasonably well.

[priyas]

We were in Paris three weeks ago! The Eiffel Tower with the Olympic logo was simply stunning!

[Mar-enfrance]

Overall the Paris Olympics were a great sucess, thanks to the unrelenting efforts of all the tireless workers from top to down, the cheerful welcome and the immense feel of fun and pleasure of the Games! Bravo!

[geforex]

We can say whatever we want, these Olympics were a success

[CiaoBello]

Whenever a city builds new stadiums instead of renovating what they already have, they are doomed to go in debt for generations. The Parisians did what others couldnt, renovate. Simplicity at its finest.

[lindentree]

What they are saying is not completely accurate. L.A. in 1984 actually made a decent profit on the Olympics. And by its success was able to encourage other city's to play host, as before that time just like today no one wanted to host because of the cost.