RICHMOND, Va. (WTVR) - Richmond could be home to some Olympic events. This is because Washington D.C. plans to make an Olympic bid for the 2024 Summer Games.
Olympian and Executive Director at Richmond Sports Backers Jon Lugbill said hosting Olympic events would was be great for the area, but we wanted to know if other cities actually benefited from hosting the games.
It's not cheap to be a host city.
Lugbill said there's a tremendous amount of building that goes into housing the Olympics. Cities build new stadiums, swimming pools and housing for the athletes.
An economics professor at College of the Holy Cross said there is not much evidence that said hosting the Olympics provided much of an economic benefit.
Experts said the 2004 Olympics in Athens were an economic disaster. Greece, they said, built too many hotel rooms in hopes of the games boosting tourism.
But Lugbill said the Games can work both ways if cities make sure the newly-built facilities are used in the future.
"The Olympic Games itself is a really expensive proposition. Between the games itself and all the infrastructure costs. In America, we are very much in the mindset that the games itself should pay for all that and that's how it was done in Atlanta and that's pretty much the way it's worked out," he said.
