No Way to Play. Olympic Games in Budapest Inaffordable

Budapest has the qualities necessary to win the right to host the Olympics, but the city - and the country - could not hold the Games due to poor financial condition, says a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC).
The idea of hosting first Olympic Games in Budapest first arose in 2002. A study was then done, but in 2003 that idea was abandoned. The Budapest Olympic Movement has not given up, though and updated the study in 2006 persuading that Budapest had the wherewithal to host the Olympic Games.
PwC calculated in 2006 that, assuming average annual GDP growth of 4 per cent until 2020, preparing for and hosting the Games would cost Ft4,156bn ($26bn). Although this sum might look like a huge burden for Hungary, the study did not conclude that this would be an obstacle.
Since then, certain factors have arisen that would make it harder to host the Games. For one thing, the global and domestic economic environments have changed drastically: growth perspectives have declined, and inflation risks have risen. For another, the costs of the infrastructural, security and technological provisions needed to host the Olympics have risen dramatically.
Although the Olympics have become among the most lucrative sporting events in the world - with the exception of Athens, all events since the 1976 Montreal Olympics have been profitable. China spent more - up to $60bn - on the Olympics than any country before it. The Bird's Nest stadium alone cost almost $500m. This is around four times the sum spent on the 2004 Athens Olympics and about 1.5 - 2 times more than the budget PwC envisaged for a Budapest Olympics. Spending on this scale is impossible for a small country, according to the sport economist Ferenc Denes.