Critics balked at the price tag, but it turns out hosting the 2012 Games paid dividends for the city’s wellbeing
The rocketing cost of staging Olympic Games has made it too expensive for many cities to contemplate. In the bidding to host the 2024 Games, three out of the five bidders – Boston, Budapest and Hamburg – withdrew, largely on grounds of cost.
But new research suggests that, for
London at least, hosting the 2012 games was worth the £9.3bn price tag, thanks to the temporary feelgood factor it bestowed on the capital’s residents and, to a lesser extent, on the rest of Britain.