The Summer Olympics has evolved into a mega international event widely regarded by many as the largest global event. The growth of the event has taken on monumental significance to the extent that bidding for the games in its present format requires a truly coordinated national effort involving, central government, local government, the national Olympic Committee, the athletes of the prospective host, the business community and the general population. The meteoric growth of the Olympic Games if allowed to continue unchecked may very well result in the games being staged only in Europe or Asia and even within those regions there is a distinct possibility of further limitation in that the games may only be hosted by cities that have previously hosted them.

Recent economic trend suggests that countries that were previously considered to boast strong economies are now considered to have fragile economies, for example Italy, France, Greece, Spain, United States of America and therefore are unlikely to bid any time soon to host the Olympic Games, that is a major contributing factor influencing the reduced pool of countries capable of hosting the games.

The combination of income from broadcast rights, advances made in communication gadgets, and the consistent and systematic increase in access to the internet allow for less dependence on live audiences and gate receipts as a major contributor to income.

While large facilities may be very impressive and undoubtedly allow large numbers of spectators, the reality is that after the event is over many local communities are very unlikely to regularly host any events that may fully utilize the maximum seating capacity of the venue. In addition to being unable to fully utilize the seating capacity, rental is quite often unaffordable for the local community and the managers of the facilities are faced with offering significantly reduced rental or not renting the facilities.

London 1948 Games starting blocks were deployed for sprint races, and a volunteer programme was created to help run the Games.  The Empire Pool was the first covered Olympic pool in history, although its length exceeded the regulatory 50 metres it had to be shortened with a wooden platform. The competition was also shown on home television for the first time, although few people actually owned television sets at the time. (London 2012 Olympic Heritage)

The city of London has a history of innovativeness and creativity as a host of Olympic Games. In an effort to  ensure affordability and profitability of future Olympic Games an undeclared legacy of the London 2012 games maybe the start of a lobby to cap the games in the near future.

Anthony Davis
Postgraduate Researcher
University of Glasgow