The Olympics are widely known as one of the biggest sporting events in the world, but when it comes to investing money, the games become much more serious. Countries hosting the Olympics can invest up to $50 million in the building of stadiums, aquatic centers, opening and closing ceremonies, and velodromes, or cycling tracks. However, the International Olympics Committee (IOC) has become famous for accepting bribes from countries around the world that are interested in hosting the Olympics. There is a multitude of money that goes into hosting the Olympics, and much of it is for building structures that will only be used once to pay off corruption.

The most famous of these corruption cases occurred at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah. This city had previously attempted to secure rights to host the Olympics four times and during the bidding process for the 2002 games, the IOC was accused of accepting bribes, tuition payments for their children, and land purchase agreements from the Salt Lake Organizing Committee (SLOC). Soon after the accusation, most of the members of the SLOC resigned, and ten members of the IOC were expelled.

Before that, in 2000, officials in Sydney, Australia admitted to treating several IOC members with gifts, expensive hotel stays, and up to $50,000 in bribes during the bidding process for the 2000 Olympic Games. And previously, for the 1998 games in Nagano, Japan, a report released in 2006 indicated that during the bidding process, Nagano had spent millions of dollars towards the hospitality of the IOC. In addition, they had spent $4.4 million on entertainment alone and recently there are rumors circulating that the 2014 Olympics held in Russia were a result of officials stealing up to $30,000 out of the national banks. These cases are only a few of the numerous examples that demonstrate the amount of fraud that occurs within the IOC.

Besides bribery, all of the money invested for the Olympics goes into these massive stadiums and other sporting venues that have no use whatsoever after the games are over. The term ‘white elephant’ describes this process effectively. A white elephant refers to an expensive object in which the owner cannot get rid of and is basically useless. This applies to a whole legacy of massive stadiums that are only used once for about three weeks and then are either demolished or end up collecting dust. According to Fox News, the athletes’ village in London, built for the 2012 games, is being renovated into a neighborhood, but in Atlanta, the stadium used for the 1996 games is headed towards demolition. The stadium in Beijing that was used for the 2008 games, ‘The Bird’s Nest,’ was once an area for tourists to visit, but less and less visitors are coming each year. Instead of using it for the 2020 Olympics, Beijing is instead designing a whole new stadium. Greece, who spent millions of dollars for their 2004 games in Athens now has an abundance of beautifully made structures created specifically for the games that now lie abandoned. Between bribery, white elephants, economic crashes, and massive spending amounts, it is evident that if the Olympics are going to reform, then it will have to make major changes if it wants to continue the carefree legacy it once had in the past.

But between bribery, white elephants, economic crashes, and massive spending amounts, it is evident that if the Olympics are going to reform then it will have to make major changes if it wants to continue the carefree legacy it once had in the past.