The declining appeal of mega-events in entrepreneurial cities: From Los Angeles 1984 to Los Angeles 2028

Entrepreneurial cities and mega-events

The entrepreneurial city concept refers to a model of urban governance in which municipalities act like entrepreneurs in order to cut costs and generate revenue. They do this by speculatively investing public funds (often in real estate ventures), subcontracting program management and service delivery to public-private partnerships, promoting the city through place branding, and competing against other cities for growth-generating capital (see reviews in Hall and Hubbard, 1998; Lauermann, 2018; MacLeod, 2011). The model emerged in Euro-American cities in the 1970s and 80s due to dual political economic shifts: deindustrialization and a retrenchment of the national welfare state. These macro-level shifts forced municipalities to switch from managing resources provided through centralized sources (Williams, 1982), to instead generating their own sources of revenue while simultaneously seeking post-industrial economic development (Harvey, 1989). The model later diffused to cities in other regions including eastern Europe (Golubchikov, 2010), Latin America (Crossa, 2009), India (Datta, 2015), China (Wu, 2018), and other corners of the global south (Rossi and Wang, 2020). The approach has proved remarkably malleable in its travels, as the general tactics of entrepreneurial urbanism have been used to support a variety of governance strategies ranging from conventionally neoliberal to developmental or even progressive agendas (Lauermann, 2018; Phelps and Miao, 2020).

Entrepreneurial urban governance is common in the United States, due to the decentralized nature of local government in the American federal system. Although federal funding for cities has always been scarce relative to other OECD countries (Frieden and Kaplan, 1975), neoliberal reforms starting in the 1980s further decentralized local government (Sbragia, 1996). As federal funding disappeared, American cities turned to “municipal capitalism” (Chapin, 2002), speculatively investing public funds as a way to generate revenue and spur growth in the wake of deindustrialization. Although municipalities may have originally become entrepreneurial out of necessity, they soon discovered that entrepreneurialism provided a way to expand their reach while circumventing the strictures of the democratic process. They created a wide variety of quasi-public institutions like water and sewer commissions, transit authorities, and business improvement districts, effectively establishing “special purpose governments” (Sbragia, 1996: 3) not subject to democratic oversight. They also generated new types of revenue through financial engineering, for example, by expanding municipal bond markets (Weber, 2010), pioneering new instruments like tax increment financing (Ward, 2018), or financializing existing assets like housing (Lake, 2015).

Mega-events have been a common investment for entrepreneurial cities, especially the American version. As the federal state withdrew funding, municipalities began to view mega-events as a necessary supplement. Burbank and colleagues (2002: 182) argue that mega-events became a development tool for a “postfederal” era in American urban politics, in which “the demise of federal funding for urban programs in the 1980s led to…development policies characterized by a greater willingness of local governments to take risk.” Indeed, Harvey’s (1989) original paper introducing the entrepreneurial city concept discusses American Olympic bids and municipal subsidies for sports stadiums as hallmark examples of urban entrepreneurialism. Mega-events are useful policy tools for what he terms “a political economy of place rather than of territory” (7), in the sense that they spatially concentrate and fix capital into geographically discrete interventions (a stadium, a park, an “Olympic Village”) rather than spreading investment across the municipal territory. This spatial imaginary—of growth diffusing outward from intense investment in a single neighborhood or small collection of projects—is fundamental to claims that mega-events act as “catalysts” for urban growth (Essex and Chalkley, 1998).

The Los Angeles 1984 Summer Olympics is widely viewed as a paradigm-shift for mega-event planning, because it was planned on a model aimed to minimize public spending (Horne and Whannel, 2016; Shoval, 2002). Many subsequent American Olympic projects sought to use a lean, entrepreneurial model by delegating responsibility for event planning and delivery to public-private partnerships, while justifying public subsidy as a catalyst for urban regeneration. Analyzing urban policy at the Los Angeles 1984, Atlanta 1996, and Salt Lake City 2002 Olympics, Andranovich and colleagues (2001: 127) term this planning model a “mega-event strategy,” in which “city leaders see the Olympic Games in strategic terms, providing opportunities to gain regional, national, and international media exposure at low cost” and in which mega-events can act as a catalyst for “consumption-based development, which first requires the financing of a tourist-friendly landscape.”

The problem, however, is that this was only superficially a lean municipal investment model. Boosters promised that a minimal public funding would catalyze broad economic growth, through a combination of entrepreneurial tactics (e.g., public-private partnerships), cost control (e.g., by using existing venues rather than new construction), and a vaguely defined notion of American exceptionalism. But in practice hosting a mega-event usually requires substantial state intervention to manage the complexity and scale of these mega-projects, involvement that often includes public subsidies to build infrastructure, provide security, and cover the risk of cost overruns. Even though they invoked the LA model, the Atlanta 1996 and Salt Lake City 2002 games had cost overruns of 151% and 24%, respectively, (Flyvbjerg et al., 2021: 240). Those rates are lower than global averages at the Olympics, but nonetheless belie rhetoric about austerity. And after LA 1984, subsequent American Olympic projects almost immediately reverted to offering public subsidies, though now the subsidies were cloaked in a rhetoric of fiscal conservatism. Thus, while mega-events were promoted to the public as a smart entrepreneurial investment—especially by Olympic bidders in the 2000s and 2010s—the reality is often one of under-investment by private partners and expensive taxpayer-funded bailouts. Terming this “celebration capitalism,” Boykoff (2014: 9) argues that discourse like that of the LA model “pushes us toward economics rooted in so-called public-private partnerships. All too often, though, these public-private partnerships are lopsided: the public pays and the private profits.”

Evidence undermining mega-event development promises continued to accumulate, eventually leading taxpayers to grow skeptical and local officials to grow wary of collaboration with event boosters. When considered from the perspective of real estate developers, sports franchises, or the tourism industry, mega-events are indeed an unparalleled opportunity. But when considered from the perspective of a municipality, mega-events are an extremely risky investment that can only be politically legitimated through creative accounting, rhetorical semantics, or other “strategic misrepresentation” (Flyvbjerg et al., 2002). Müller (2015) argues that as the public has gained awareness of these political sleights of hand, they have grown disillusioned with the “mega-event syndrome”: chronic problems seen in mega-event planning like overpromising benefits, underestimating costs, public-sector risk taking, and elite capture of the planning process by the real estate, sports, and tourism industries. There are likewise concerns over the environmental impacts, especially in light of the wide discrepancy between boosters’ lofty promises and the mediocre sustainability outcomes actually observed (Müller et al., 2021). Thus the growth coalitions of local leaders who have traditionally supported mega-events (Surborg et al., 2008) have become increasingly fragile and internally conflicted over whether to pursue them (Lauermann and Vogelpohl, 2017).

Collectively, this means that mega-events are losing their appeal as an investment opportunity for entrepreneurial cities. On the one hand, these projects offer a poor return on investment once hidden risks and subsidies are accounted. On the other hand, while city leaders may extol the benefits of an entrepreneurial approach, they are politicians not entrepreneurs. They can be held accountable for poor investment decisions at the ballot box, and they face a long list of public spending priorities that are more politically popular than the Olympics. Given growing public discontent with mega-events, city leaders may conclude there are other, less politically risky ways to be an entrepreneurial city.

The “LA model” of mega-event planning

Olympic planning has a long history in American cities, and the American version of entrepreneurial urban governance has long influenced mega-event planning around the world. American cities have hosted eight Summer or Winter Games and have bid to host at least 58 times, making the United States the most frequent participant in Olympic planning over the history of the modern Games. ² This frequency reflects macro-scale political economic trends, most notably federal subsidies for elite sport and Olympic hosting during the Cold War as part of the United States’ rivalry with the Soviet Union (Redihan, 2017). It also reflects the local development strategies of American municipalities, which have long invested in mega-events as a strategy for supporting tourism and real estate (Andranovich et al., 2001).

As a consequence of this intertwined history, the peculiarities of American urban governance have influenced mega-event planning internationally. American cities developed a distinctive approach first articulated by the organizers of the Los Angeles 1984 Games, an “LA model” of mega-event planning. This event is viewed as an exemplar among mega-event planning circles because it left minimal adverse financial consequences for the host city (Shoval, 2002). Other American cities subsequently emulated the model, operating from the premise that there will be limited federal funding for mega-events, and thus funds must be raised either from the private sector or from municipal investment. Like most mobile policy models, the LA model is loosely defined and mutates as it travels from one place to the next (Peck and Theodore, 2012; Ward, 2018). Its core feature, however, is a fiscally conservative approach to infrastructure investment, based on techniques like use of pre-existing stadiums rather than new construction, choosing venue locations to capitalize on already-funded transit projects, experimentation with cost-saving architecture like temporary venues, and leveraging various entrepreneurial techniques to mitigate risk (e.g., public-private partnerships and insurance policies). It is often accompanied by political rhetoric about the need for municipalities to be assertive in their negotiations with global institutions like the IOC (e.g., over revenue distributions or cost overruns).

The LA model draws political legitimacy from arguments about mega-events as a catalyst for economic development. A small infusion of public funds will supposedly trigger a much larger wave of private investment and thereby unleash local growth. Catalyst effects can occur when an event becomes an opportunity to invest in infrastructure (Essex and Chalkley, 1998), build expertise within municipal bureaucracy (Benneworth and Dauncey, 2010), or push through zoning changes (Oliver and Lauermann, 2017). In a best case scenario, a small investment of municipal funds can clear the way for a much larger wave of growth. Yet as cities have learned through painful experience, the catalyst may be more of an alluring myth than an empirical certainty. More common outcomes are that mega-events will be far more expensive than originally planned (Flyvbjerg et al., 2021), will generate relatively small economic gains (Baade and Matheson, 2016; Zimbalist, 2015), and will lead to political backlash if voters conclude that city leaders over-promised and under-delivered (Boykoff, 2020; Dempsey and Zimbalist, 2017).

The 1984 Los Angeles Games emerged from a unique political context. After unsuccessfully bidding for the 1976 and 1980 Games, Los Angeles became the sole bidder for the 1984 Games when its only competitor (Tehran) withdrew from the competition. This meant that the City of Los Angeles was able to extract significant concessions from the IOC during contract negotiations. In 1978 voters passed a referendum prohibiting the city from making real estate investments that would not be later reimbursed by the Olympic corporation (Sisney and Chu, 2016: 6). In a post-Games report, the Olympic corporation explained that this funding restriction required them to adopt “a straightforward business approach to dealings with the government,” a transactional approach in which public subsidies could not be assumed and revenue was instead raised through private sources like the sale of broadcast rights (generating US$286.8 million), ticket sales (US$155.9 million), and most importantly, corporate sponsorships (67 companies met the US$96.7 million minimum contribution) (LAOOC, 1985: volume 1, 312). This ultimately made Los Angeles an outlier in mega-event history: one of the only cities to turn a profit on hosting the Olympics. The same post-Games report boasts that this entrepreneurial model marked a turning point for the global Olympic movement:

The Los Angeles Olympic Games were financially successful beyond the dreams of its original advocates. A $215 million surplus was realized by the Organizing Committee. The surplus was greater than that of all prior Olympic organizing committees combined… The [organizing corporation] also had a vast impact on the Olympic movement. In the late 1970s, when Los Angeles made its successful bid, it accepted a challenge to host the Games in an Olympic world rocked by terrorism, enormous cost overruns and resulting debt and an about-to-occur boycott of the 1980 Games. With these burdens, Los Angeles faced enormous challenges; the future of the Olympic movement was at stake. And Los Angeles succeeded in every area (LAOOC, 1985: vol.1, 25).

Once established, the notion of an LA model became a powerful rhetorical tool for leaders in other American cities. It was often paired with political arguments promoting broader entrepreneurial city principles like the value of public-private partnerships, the importance of place branding, or the need for cities to compete against others. Organizers of the Atlanta 1996 Games were so confident in the model that they promised to generate a profit and donate it back to the IOC. The Atlanta bid proposal, for instance, claims

we expect that an Atlanta Olympiad will generate a substantial surplus. Only a small portion of this surplus will be retained by Atlanta…The majority of this surplus, which Atlanta and the [organizing corporation] is legally entitled to retain under the Host City Contract, will instead be distributed to the Olympic Family through the IOC…It is Atlanta’s desire to make the international sports community the beneficiary of our financial success. (Atlanta Organizing Committee, 1990: section 10, unpaginated)

This was too ambitious. Seven years later the final report of the Atlanta Organizing Committee showed only a US$6.5 million surplus in the US$1.7 billion operations budget. Post hoc analysis of the full budget (operations and capital investments) suggests the games experienced a 151% cost overrun (Flyvbjerg et al., 2021). Either way, a post-Games report from the corporation makes no mention of the previously-touted surplus, tersely noting instead that

Progress in raising sufficient funds to stage the Games had to be addressed regularly…When progress seemed slow, reporters questioned whether taxpayers would have to pay for the Games; when reports were more promising, questions about the use of a surplus arose. (Atlanta Organizing Committee, 1997: vol. 1, 93)

One economic impact study widely promoted by the organizers estimated that the Games catalyzed a US$5.1 billion impact on the local economy (Humphreys and Plummer, 1995). But that study was published before the Games and post hoc analysis was more skeptical (Feddersen and Maennig, 2013; Porter and Fletcher, 2008). Interviewed 13 years after the event, city officials involved in the project expressed regret that they had relied too heavily on public-private partnerships and thus missed an opportunity to fund investment in the public interest. The former mayor noted that “we were afraid to spend too much money” while the Olympic-era head of Atlanta’s Downtown Development Authority noted that

We got a baseball stadium and a very nice public park in the heart of the city. It’s tough to say there were a whole lot of results other than that. The business community believes it got what it wanted. But not everyone is sure we got enough. (Andrew Young and Richard Padgett quoted in Glanton, 2009)

The LA model continued to be promoted in subsequent projects, but Olympic planners never recreated the fiscal austerity of the original. The bid for the Salt Lake City 2002 Games promised “complete and total support by the city government.” In an ironic contrast to the Los Angeles story, the municipality of Salt Lake City even lobbied for 1989 legislation to allow spending public funds on Olympic construction (Salt Lake City 2002, 1995: vol. 1, 36). With this authorization the State of Utah went so far as to speculatively build US$59 million skiing facilities before the bid was finalized (Keahey, 1994). But public discontent was growing. A small group of critics called Utahans for Responsible Spending showed up to protest Olympic events. One prominent local businessman—who had strongly supported the city’s earlier bid for the 1998 Games—reluctantly admitted a sense of skepticism among city leaders:

Then we needed jobs. We needed exposure. But now we should focus on developing our infrastructure…What I am saying is not popular. But I believe it is the right thing to say. This conversation also is the last time I will address this issue. It is now up to political leaders, the media and the public to further analyze the issue. But somebody had to break the ice. (Jon Huntsman quoted in Rolly, 1994)

These local concerns eventually grew to national prominence. In the lead up to the event, US Senator John McCain (quoted in Campbell, 2002) requested a federal analysis on the escalating cost of Olympic hosting, arguing “I think it’s a disgrace. But this is a logical extension of what you get when you start pork-barrel spending.” That report found that the amount of public spending on the Olympics had increased since Los Angeles 1984, and the bulk of the increase came from municipalities while the federal share of Olympic costs had actually decreased (General Accounting Office, 2001: 5).

Municipal subsidies—again ironically wrapped in the rhetoric of austerity—were promoted as a strength in subsequent bids placed by New York and Chicago. The New York bid for the 2012 Games emphasized that its municipal financing model would operate on a more realistic cost-benefit calculation, with “a conservative budget that reflects actual Olympic conditions,” and highlighted the catalyst potential of municipal investment (NYC 2012, 2004: vol. 1, 7). The bidders promised that a “conservative” investment would “advance New York’s long term vision for its future, accelerating projects that will impact the city for generations” (vol. 1, 15). This catalyst narrative even continued after the city lost its bid, as Olympic boosters claimed that the exercise of bidding had catalyzed urban regeneration even though the bid failed. Six years after the bid, the mayor noted the many real estate investments that had been planned for the Olympics yet went forward anyway: “We thought the Olympics would be a good catalyst to get a lot of things that many people thought the city needed. In fact, many got done.” (Michael Bloomberg quoted in Bagli, 2011). A New York University research center even published a report on “How New York City won the Olympics” (Moss, 2011) by gaining a catalyst effect without actually having to go through the trouble of hosting the Games.

However, the financial burden on municipalities became a source of recurring political tension. Proponents of Chicago’s 2016 Olympic bid continued to promote an entrepreneurial approach based on the LA model. The Illinois governor was one of the first to support the bid, pledging US$150 million of public investment with an explicitly entrepreneurial rhetoric: “Why wouldn’t the state back the city and private investors for the Olympics? You gotta think big, man. California’s doing it. And that’s who we’re competing against.” (Rod Blagojevich quoted in Aguilar, 2007). A spokesperson for Chicago’s mayor argued that in addition to pushing the city to invest in new transit lines, “hosting the Olympic Games will also serve as a catalyst to attract more federal dollars to assist with the city’s long-term transportation plans” (Kate Sansone quoted in Hilkevitch, 2007). The bid chairman linked the catalyst to growth in the tourism economy, noting for instance that “The Olympics would be a great catalyst…There’s a ripple effect. It’s going to have a long-lasting, generations-to-come impact on Chicago” (Patrick Ryan quoted in Downey, 2007). Real estate developers similarly seized on the bid as a way to gentrify low income neighborhoods in south Chicago, in particular through a stadium and high end real estate project in the Washington Park neighborhood.

By this time, promises of LA model fiscal restraint were no longer able to placate community opposition. Notably, a group called No Games Chicago formed to protest the bid. Although there is a long history of anti-Olympic protests in host cities, including some American cities (Burbank et al., 2000), this type of early bid-stage activism was relatively novel (Lauermann and Vogelpohl, 2019) in part because it was able to capitalize on emerging forms of new media (McGillivray et al., 2021). One of the founders of the group explained that the protests originally started with community groups concerned about impacts on public parks, but quickly scaled up to a city-wide coalition of several hundred “who’s who of Chicago activists” which developed a campaign challenging municipal subsidies for the Games. ³ City leaders attempted to ameliorate concerns over the risk of cost overruns by offering to purchase an insurance policy against them (LEK Consulting, 2009). Yet this move generated conflict among city leaders because it required the city to publicly acknowledge that taxpayers would bear the responsibility for cost overruns. It was also unclear whether any insurer would be willing to issue such a policy, given the likelihood of cost overruns on Olympic projects. Nonetheless, the notion of an insurance policy against cost overruns would become an important part of the LA model narrative, later repeated by Olympic planners in several other cities.

The mayor set off a political backlash when he traveled to IOC headquarters in Switzerland and promised to sign a standard host city contract, a contract which requires municipalities to cover certain cost overruns. Cities are typically required to sign this document before submitting a bid, with the understanding that it will later take effect if the IOC selects the city. Back in Chicago, the bid chairman held a series of meetings with angry city aldermen, meeting them 13 at a time to avoid open meeting laws that require public access at meetings of 14 or more (Heinzmann and Dardick, 2009). A war of words between the mayor and the IOC ensued, with the mayor insisting that “I just said I would sign an agreement. I didn’t say which one.” In contrast, the IOC president insisted that “The mayor said he would sign the host city contract. We have only one host city contract. There is no amendment to the host city contract whatsoever.” (Richard Daley and Jacques Rogge quoted in Heinzmann and Blake, 2009) This set off a wave of criticism from local leaders, calling for transparency in contract negotiations and expressing outrage at the mayor’s perceived deference to the IOC. The city’s Inspector General, for instance, accused the mayor of intentionally submitting Olympic proposals to his office late in order to avoid oversight. He called for “much more transparency, much earlier in the process” because “The question for us, I think, with regards to the Olympics, will be what will we be showcasing? Cost overruns? Clout? Corruption? Or a model to ensure that corruption does not creep in?” (David Hoffman quoted in Mihalopoulos and Heinzmann, 2009). The mayor eventually did sign the contract, committing the city to cover cost overruns, yet Chicago’s bid was later rejected by the IOC anyway.

Contesting the LA model

The Chicago incident created an opening for contestation: a nascent network of activists prepared to mobilize against mega-events, and a political precedent for skeptical city leaders to criticize mega-event investment. The tension between municipalities and the mega-event industry finally erupted during Boston’s bid for the 2024 Games. Again, city leaders promoted Olympic investment with narratives about catalysts and fiscal restraint. The bid book claimed that preparations for the Games would unleash “a catalyst for growth and advancement” (Boston 2024, 2015: 33), in particular by starting the process for the city’s 2030 master plan with “a communitywide conversation about our future vision for our city…the bid is a catalyst for much of the investment and innovation that will be required to achieve that vision” (ibid, 20). The mayor likewise noted that the master plan would fall into line with the proposals developed through the Olympic bid, such that the master plan “fits with what we could be doing with the Olympics. What do want our city to look like in 2030? … It lines up with what we’re doing. If we are chosen [to host the Olympics], it would speed up by 6 years some of the plans we have” (Marty Walsh quoted in Grillo, 2014). Coupled with this catalyst narrative was, as in Chicago, a plan to purchase an insurance policy protecting the city against cost overruns—though again, it was unclear whether any insurer would be willing to issue such a policy.

However, activists challenged the assumptions of the LA model. No Boston Olympics was founded by a group of self-described “establishment” figures with experience in government and the corporate sector and who adopted a politically centrist approach (Dempsey and Zimbalist, 2017), while No Boston 2024 assembled a coalition from pre-existing leftist movements in the city and adopted a more confrontational approach. ⁴ This coalition focused on deconstructing the promises made by Olympic boosters, and the mythology of the LA model on which they relied. One of the founders of No Boston Olympics linked his critique directly back to this mythology, arguing:

There’s no such thing as American Olympic exceptionalism. The US is not different from other countries when it comes to hosting the Game…This idea that there’s some sort of different model in the US, or some way that the US does it differently, that we don’t have overruns, or we don’t have deficits – it’s just not true. ⁵

This was, of course, the perspective of an activist pre-disposed to question boosterism. Yet that talking point would go on to circulate widely at public hearings and on both legacy and social media platforms (McGillivray, et al., 2021).

The protest coalition was joined by an ideologically diverse range of supporters including skeptical elected officials and locally prominent academics and businesspeople (Lauermann and Vogelpohl, 2019). As a result there was significant disagreement among city leaders over whether the Olympics were worth the political risk. Initially, elected officials expressed cautious support. Yet as public hostility toward subsidies became clearer, many embraced the role of Olympic critics—or at least acknowledged that the activists may have a point. Tito Jackson, a city council member who would eventually go on to challenge the mayor in a 2017 election, is indicative of this switch. When the bid was first announced he supported it, arguing that “this is a great opportunity for the international community to see the great things the city of Boston has to offer” (quoted in Irons and Tempera, 2015). But less than 6 months later he was a leading critic of the bid, for instance taking the unusual step of hosting a press conference to announce subpoenas against the bid corporation—while standing at a city hall podium typically reserved for mayoral announcements (Ryan, 2015). He went on to support another city council member’s effort to hold a referendum against the Boston bid, and, after the bid ended, was one of a handful of politicians to receive endorsements from No Boston Olympics. ⁶ Sensing slipping support, Olympic authorities demanded that the mayor end the discussion over municipal subsidies by signing the standard IOC hosting contract. The mayor refused to sign, effectively ending Boston’s bid.

Officials in Los Angeles quickly provided an alternative American bid. As Budapest, Hamburg, Krakow, and Rome canceled their bids under mounting local opposition, only Paris and Los Angeles remained in the running. The 2024 bidding process ended with an unprecedented concession by the IOC to host cities. Rather than face another weak round of bidding for future Games, it negotiated with both remaining cities, awarding the 2024 Games to Paris and the 2028 Games to Los Angeles. Under circumstances resembling those of the 1984 bid, Los Angeles organizers were able to extract significant concessions from the IOC, for example, a US$1.3 billion share in broadcast and sponsorship revenues (KPMG, 2016: 11). The debate over public subsidies continued, however, because the City of Los Angeles and the State of California each pledged US$250 million to cover future cost overruns (Dillon, 2017).

The Los Angeles organizers once again adopted a narrative about a fiscally conservative model and its purported ability to act as a catalyst. The original bid (LA2024, 2017) claimed the event would be a catalyst for “new community green spaces” (vol. 1, 1), “public infrastructure projects already in progress” (20), “sports education and participation” (48), “citywide change” (22), and “the evolution of LA” (54). Key to this narrative was a recommitment to the entrepreneurial ethos of the LA model, claiming for instance that “no additional infrastructure required” (vol. 3, 39) and that “97 percent of the planned competition and non-competition venues exist, are already planned as permanent venues by private investors, or will be temporary venues” (vol.1, 54). The mayor expanded on that narrative, arguing that “When people say costs could run over, I say, ‘For what?’ For a stadium we don’t own? For arenas that are already built and used every day?” (Eric Garcetti, quoted in Wharton, 2017).

However, two inconsistencies emerged and shaped political discontent after the hosting contract was awarded. These themes again motivated political opposition (McGillivray et al., 2021), most notably NOlympics LA, a protest coalition led by the local chapter of Democratic Socialists of America (Boykoff, 2020). First, it is unclear why the city needs a mega-event catalyst, given that so much of the plan rests on already-existing infrastructure or projects that would happen regardless of whether the event occurs. Although the use of existing facilities to reduce costs is good planning practice, this approach does not in itself contain a political rationale for why the mega-event benefits the municipality. At best, the organizing corporation will generate a profit, with no clear path for the City of Los Angeles to do the same—aside from a temporary bump in sales and hotel taxes, though a large body of economic research questions the scale of that effect (Baade and Matheson, 2016; Porter and Fletcher, 2008; Zimbalist, 2015).

Second, the organizers did not present the public with a full and transparent budget. They did not mention the federal funding required for security costs, costs that have run into multiple billions of dollars in recent Olympics. Likewise, they broke with long-established mega-event planning practices by failing to release a capital budget. If the organizers had published a capital budget, they would have been required to note that the Olympics will depend on large public investments including the construction of 108 km of new rail lines by metropolitan transit agencies and the construction of a housing complex by the University of California (both of which are discussed extensively—but are not budgeted—in the bidding documents and other reports). There is already mounting concern over the multi-billion dollar cost overruns and lack of federal funding available for many of the subway lines (Nelson, 2019).