Lessons From Sochi: How South Korea Managed To Keep Its Olympics Costs So Low

Lessons From Sochi: How South Korea Managed To Keep Its Olympics Costs So Low

August Rick 

Forbes, Feb 14, 2018

The 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics were the most expensive in history, costing an estimated $50 billion. This time around, South Korea has managed to keep the price down to $12.9 billion, which still overshot the budget proposed in their bid. Even so, how did South Korea's Olympic games cost so much less than those staged four years ago in Russia?

From the outset, the local Olympic organizing committees from Sochi and Pyeongchang took opposite approaches. Sochi's grand plans for the "most extravagant Olympics ever" resulted in ballooning costs from day one. The conversation leading up to Pyeongchang 2018, on the other hand, was modest, and that may have been key to keeping down the cost.

Recent Olympics have been consistently outspending their proposed budgets. For decades costs have spiraled out of control, and the upcoming summer games in Tokyo look set to follow suit.

Given the scale of each games, the real cost is hard to calculate. Even the $50 billion figure eternally tacked to Sochi 2014 isn't a hard number. Leading up to the games, a Russian Olympic official said the country was willing to spend $51.08 billion, but it's not like he published an expense report. No one does. Taxpayers quietly cover over-expenditures for decades after the games have left.

After hosting the 1968 Winter Olympics, taxpayers in Grenoble, France, were still paying the bill into the early 1990s. The 1976 Montreal Games were finally paid off in 2006. With little transparency in the country's economy, it is unclear how long the Russian people will continue to pay for Sochi. With increasing awareness of the pitfalls of hosting an Olympics, however, South Korea was subject to more scrutiny.