This paper attempts to identify and clarify two important issues: how should we estimate the costs and benefits of major events; and the relevance of the experience of other cities’ Commonwealth and Olympic games experiences.

Pan American Games. Rio 2007.

'Game Plan' a joint Department of Culture, Media and Sport and Strategy Unit Report published in December 2002 which examined policy on Sport while the government was thinking about bidding for the Olympics in 2012. It was signed off by Tony Blair who wrote the foreword.

Two presidents, two prime ministers and a monarch cavorted in front of the unelected, unaccountable members of the IOC begging to be allowed to spend billions on their three week circus. In the end it was Rio, the poorest of the four cities but the one which had promised to spend the most with a budget of $14.4bn (£9.90bn) for construction and $2.8bn (£1.92bn) for operating costs - all of which will be underwritten by the government, that was rolled over. That may well not be the end of it. In 2007 Brazil’s Pan American Games was four times over budget, just like London’s Olympic budget. Similar concerns exist about a likely overspend on Brazil's hosting of the 2014 World Cup. Even a Brazilian sports paper, Lance, has said the 2014 bid was a confidence trick and the money should have gone on health and education.

Matthew J. Burbank, Gregory Andranovich, Charles H. Heying,
Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2001, ISBN: 978-1-55587-991-4, pb

Although the Commonwealth Games are just under three years away, India's capital is being reshaped as the city prepares for the biggest sporting event in its history. The Delhi government has begun putting up posters saying the capital will be transformed into a "world-class city" by the 2010 deadline.

The current obsession with winning the right to host sporting events has resulted in the 2014 Commonwealth Games being awarded to Glasgow. The news was greeted by the media with unalloyed joy. Politicians from all sides hugged one another, athletes proclaimed this as yet another opportunity for aspiring sporting types to win medals, the site of the proposed athletes’ village was declared to be an industrial wasteland and the project was described by one politician (does it matter which?) as ‘irresistible’. The watching media failed to debate the issues or provide any detailed information

Common Wealth or Kiss of Death? by Amita Baviskar

I am sitting across the desk from Shiela Dikshit in a room that is alive with irony. We are talking about the Commonwealth Games to be held in Delhi in 2010. The Chief Minister’s office is located in what used to be the Players’ Building, a hostel meant for Asiad’82. Asiad’82 came and went, but the Players’ Building wasn’t ready on time. For fifteen years, it remained a concrete shell looming over the west bank of the Yamuna off Vikas Marg till the Dikshit government came to its rescue. So does the ghost of games past haunt the Chief Minister? Does the spectre of prestigious projects overrunning their deadline give Ms Dikshit sleepless nights?