Why Cape Town should host the 2040 Olympic Games

To build faster, higher and stronger

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It is almost impossible to imagine that between the eighth century BC and the fourth century AD – for more than a thousand years – men would gather every four years at a hilly outpost in Greece. There they would partake in running, wrestling, boxing, and chariot races, competitions that formed part of a festival honouring Zeus. Today, you can still walk under the vaulted archway, the Krypte, built in the third century BC, into the ancient stadium at Olympia, and run the length of the field. And given the large numbers of tourists who visit and feel the need to run with the ancients, as I did on a pilgrimage last year, there is also a frequent need for medical attention, as the poor American next to me who thought he could outsprint this South African found out.¹

After almost 300 olympiads, by the end of the fourth century AD, the Games were in decline. It would only revive in the nineteenth century, with the first modern Olympic Games held in Athens in 1896. Paris hosted the second one, in 1900, and the eight, in 1924. On 26 July, the Games will return to Paris after exactly a century, now for the Thirty-Third Olympiad.

Hosting the Olympics today, though, is a different ballgame than a century ago. In 1924, the Olympic programme comprised 126 events in 17 sports. The 2024 Summer Olympics will feature 329 events in 32 sports. In 1924, 3089 athletes from 44 countries competed; in 2024, it will be more than 10,500 from 209 countries. Today, host cities are responsible for creating state-of-the-art infrastructure, ensuring sustainability, and managing complex logistics, making the modern Games a far more demanding – and expensive – endeavour.

Why, then, would any city volunteer to host such an event?

Scholars have identified four main reasons why cities want to host the Games. The first, and the one most punted by politicians, is the economic benefits. Hosting the Olympics, it is claimed, can stimulate economic growth through increased tourism, job creation, and investments in infrastructure. The influx of visitors and global attention can boost local businesses and create long-term economic benefits. Two related but more precise reasons are global recognition and urban renewal. Hosting the Olympics elevates a city’s international profile, showcasing it as a global destination. This increased visibility can attract future tourism, business investments and international events. In preparation for the Games, cities also have to invest in new sports facilities, transportation networks and housing projects, which can revitalise neglected areas and improve the quality of life for residents. Finally, there may also be non-economic benefits: hosting the Olympics can foster a sense of national pride and unity, serving as a symbol of national achievement.

There is little evidence to support these claims. Because of my interest in the Olympics, I’ve followed the literature on mega-events for the last two decades. The truth is that mega-events are largely underwhelming: they are mostly just a good night out that often leaves cities with a headache rather than a heritage. There are several reasons for this. The most obvious is that hosting the modern Olympic Games, with its 32 sports categories, including such diverse sports as athletics, yachting, equestrian and football, is expensive. Although the Paris Olympic website claims the budget to be 4.4 billion euros, ‘100% of which is privately financed’, its 2023 budget documents reveal that the public contribution is already 2.4 billion euros. Earlier this year the President of the Audit Court increased his estimate to ‘three, four or five billion euros’. To put that in rand terms: that is roughly the same as South Africa spends on its entire police force annually.

Another reason for its poorer-than-expected performance is tourist displacement. Consultants are quick to predict large inflows of tourists during and after mega-events, but in a 2011 paper with María Santana-Gallego, we found that these effects to be unimpressive; while the Summer Olympics had a positive impact on tourism, other mega-events, like the Rugby World Cup, could even have adverse tourism effects. That is because many tourists choose not to visit a country in the expectation that others will be there because of the event. In a more recent paper, now with an updated series, we find even smaller average effects. The Summer Olympics, though, still comes out on top, with an average tourism increase of 18%. What is interesting, though, is our finding that developing countries benefit far more than developed ones. We conclude that that does not bode well for mega-events in the near future, all scheduled to be hosted by developed countries.

So if it is not for a flood of new tourists, why would politicians want to host such expensive events with little to show for it? Well, politics. Compare the Olympics to the FIFA World Cup, for example. The Olympic Games is a one-city event, whereas a football, rugby or cricket world cup has matches across an entire country. That means that local politicians – the mayor of Cape Town or the Premier of the Western Cape – could strategically use the Olympic Games to ensure greater resources for the city and region. Think of it this way: if Cape Town were to win the right to host the 2040 Olympic Games, they would be required to invest in substantial infrastructure improvements, over and above the (perhaps temporary) sports infrastructure that will need to be constructed. That won’t only come from Capetonian’s pockets; National Government, too, will have to pay up. And while it might be tricky to convince the Minister of Finance to reallocate a greater share of resources to a city and province run by an opposition political party, hosting an Olympic Games might tip the scales. The fear is that this might result in a classic case of pork-barrel politics, where large public investments are used to curry favour with local voters and secure political capital. But the opposite is also true: hosting an Olympic Games could be a unifying force, bringing together different political factions to pursue a common goal.

Which is why, despite the evidence that mega-events often underdeliver, I would argue that Cape Town has a strong case for hosting the Games of the XXXVII Olympiad. First, we would need to spend as little as possible on permanent sports infrastructure. A new research report released by Cape Town 2040, a think-tank and research group dedicated to exploring the potential of Cape Town and the Western Cape as hosts for the 2040 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games, finds that 84% of the required sports venues either exist or could be built temporarily. Most of these venues are located within Cape Town’s metropolitan area and the Winelands regions of Stellenbosch and Paarl, supporting a compact and efficient Games concept.

Winning the bid, though, would force local, provincial and national politicians towards a shared infrastructure plan. Get the local government to manage the local trains. And then invest: just like the Gautrain was for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, a high-speed train connecting Cape Town to the Winelands would be a massive boon for the region. (Have it run in three directions from the city centre, a Malmesbury line, a Paarl/Worcester line, and an airport/Somerset West line, and then connect Malmesbury to Somerset West through Wellington, Paarl and Stellenbosch.) Cape Town is already getting a second (private) airport, so put a train stop there too.

Cape Town’s passenger terminals could be expanded significantly too – also in Hermanus and on the West Coast – to accommodate thousands of visiting fans during the Games. An Olympic village could help fill the demand for much-needed housing; again, collaboration between local and national governments, now difficult, will be required to make land available. By 2040, Cape Town could be a world-class city, if local and national governments – and the private sector – work towards a common goal.

The Ancient Olympics persisted through revolutions and societal upheavals; sport has that ability to unify people around a long-term vision. In the era of coalition politics, an Olympic Games might just be what we need to build faster, higher and stronger.

An edited version of this article was published on News24. Support more such writing by signing up for a paid subscription. The images were created with Midjourney v6.

1. This is a half-truth: I jogged the field length with my one-and-a-half-year-old son. And an American did sprint, tripping over a rock, falling hard, and requiring medical attention. But the two were not related.