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  Sports Economic Analysis

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Sports Economic Analysis

The main strategy employed in Rio was in the building and development sector in order

to gain marketability. New facilities to accommodate the Olympic Games and associated

formalities were put up. As the city had hosted the Pan-American Games in 2007, this was not

such a huge task since it already had some facilities in operation that only needed to be renovated

and adjusted to fit the upcoming Olympics scale. Nonetheless, the city still had quite some

construction to do to catch up with the Olympic Games capacity it was to host in 2016. Ten new

competition sites were built around the Olympic Park in Barra. The Olympic Training Centre

was the most significant of these projects. It included the Rio Olympic Velodrome, the Olympic

Aquatic Stadium, the Olympic Hockey Centre, the Olympic Tennis Centre, and a temporary

weight-lifting pavilion.

To deal with the forecasted influx of road users, Rio upgraded the transport

infrastructure by constructing a new subway extension connecting the city with the Olympic

Village in Barra. Volunteers from their population were used together with local sponsors to

fund the various projects. Although Brazil's economy was undoubtedly in a calamity at the time,

they did not spare any expense in trying to make the games look fantastic and luxurious as there

would be global exposure. A lot of sponsorships were sold as a tactic to bring in funding as well

as the much-needed exposure (Brownill et al., 2013)

Big-dollar sponsors include Nike, Coca-Cola, and McDonald's, Samsung, Panasonic, and

Nissan, to mention but a few. These global brands played a huge role from advertisement to

global exposure and contributions to the construction of relevant facilities needed. The strategies

employed in Rio were efficient but only for a shorter time than expected. This is because of the
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financial crisis that Brazil was going through that minimized the effect of the Olympic funds

(Osorio et al., 2014).

Sponsorships and partnerships played out in the Olympics by bringing the Games to life

through worldwide promotional campaigns with well-known showcasing venues around Rio and

social media activation. The partnerships also reinforced education, community, infrastructural

development projects, and sustainability in Rio. Moreover, the partners provided essential

financial support to the Rio 2016 organizers together with all the National Olympic Committee.

It can be noted that partnerships and sponsorships played out rather nicely during Rio 2016.

Rio created job opportunities for the masses in several industries, from construction to hotel

to the tourism industries. For instance, hotel construction was projected to require a supply of

16000 employees hence creating employment opportunities. Job creation also accounted for 82%

of the growth of the economy. There is also the ripple effect of each BLR (Brazilian Real) that

had been invested: for every 1BLR invested, another 5BLR has been invested in legacy projects,

and this has improved the quality of life of the locals even after the Olympics (Bremer, 2016).

The tourism sector achieved record figures. Tourists increased by 4.8%, and tourism-related

revenue increased by 6.2%.

Though Rio 2016 was a success in terms of having o major incident, all is not well when

looked at in financial terms (Zimbalist, 2017). Regarding a cost analysis report (Flyvbjerg et al.,

2016), the Olympics cost 13 billion dollars, and there is currently little to no use for the costly

venues constructed. Although the Olympic Park hosts some local and national events, the city is

still in a dilemma about what significant purpose such venues should serve. Many venues have

fallen apart since the Olympics were concluded: the Maracana stadium soon became a ghost

town and even had its power cut off due to the piling unpaid bills. The subway, which was
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constructed at 2.9 billion dollars, was overbilled by 25%. All this only proves right to the

economists who have for a long time confuted the fact that hosting the Games comes hand in

hand with great economic benefits.

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References

Bremer, A. (2016). A cost-benefit analysis: The economic and social effects of

the Rio 2016 Olympics (Doctoral dissertation).

Brownill, S., Keivani, R., & Pereira, G. (2013). Olympic legacies and city

development strategies in London and Rio; beyond the carnival mask?. International

Journal of Urban Sustainable Development, 5(2), 111-131.

Flyvbjerg, B., Stewart, A., & Budzier, A. (2016). The Oxford Olympics Study 2016: Cost

and cost overrun at the games. arXiv preprint arXiv:1607.04484.

Osorio, M., & Versiani, M. H. (2014). Rio de Janeiro and the 2016 Olympics–a

lasting legacy?. International Journal of Urban sustainable development, 6(2), 254-258.

Zimbalist, A. (2017). Rio 2016: Olympic myths, hard realities. Brookings Institution Press.