Tokyo closes books on costly, pandemic-delayed Olympics

TOKYO: Organizers of last year’s COVID-delayed Tokyo Olympics were expected to place the final cost of the Games at 1.42 trillion yen, about twice what was forecast when the IOC awarded them in 2013.

Tokyo Olympic officials, meeting Tuesday before the body dissolves at the end of the month, were to detail final numbers, which were increased by the pandemic, but were in record range long before that.

Calculating the costs is challenging because of recent fluctuations in the exchange rate between the dollar and the Japanese yen. When the Olympics opened a year ago, $1 bought 110 yen. On Monday, $1 bought 135 yen, the dollar’s highest level against the yen in about 25 years.

The fall in the yen’s value means the cost of the Olympics quoted in dollars is now about $10.5 billion. A year ago, the price was about $13 billion.

Victor Matheson, a sports economist at the College of the Holy Cross who has written extensively on the Olympics, suggested by email to AP that most of “the expenses and revenues are in yen, so the exchange rate changing the dollar amounts doesn’t affect how the event ‘feels’ to the organizers.”

In the runup to the Tokyo Games, organizers often used the exchange rate of 107. At that rate, the equivalent of 1.42 trillion yen would be $13.33 billion as final price tag.

Matheson and fellow American Robert Baade researched Olympic costs and benefits in a study called “Going for Gold: The Economics of the Olympics.”

They write “the overwhelming conclusion is that in most cases the Olympics are a money-losing proposition for host cities; they result in positive net benefits only under very specific and unusual circumstances.”

Accurately tracking Olympic costs — who pays, who benefits, and what are and