Quote:
Originally Posted by mhays
And here's a big one: Would it have given the city a new level of world attention, both before, during, and after the event? This can be a big effect for a second-tier city.
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I don't think a single host city has a worse image for hosting the Games, so the attention from the Games is, historically, either neutral or positive. For already globally well-known cities like London, Paris,
maybe Rio de Janeiro, potentially NYC, etc., I don't think hosting a Games really does anything. In some regards, when cities like that host the Games, it drags tourism down because would be visitors decide to avoid the city. That is
exactly what happened this year in Paris.
There's some good historical evidence that hosting a Summer Games does have a big effect for lower-tier cities, though. Los Angeles was the fifth largest U.S. city when it first hosted the Summer Games in 1932. Atlanta was the
36th largest city when it first hosted in 1996, and is the smallest municipality to ever host a Summer Games. Atlanta is also the only city ever to host a Summer Games when it was not in the top 5 most populous cities in the host country. And, although it was and is Spain's second city, Barcelona had virtually no global notoriety when it hosted the Games in 1992, but today it is one of the most visited places in the world.
Of the 23 cities to host a Summer Olympics only eight were not the host country's largest and capital. Three of those 8 are U.S. cities. Those three U.S. cities are also the only cities that were not even the host country's second largest at the time of the Games.
City (first hosted Olympics)
St. Louis (1904)
Los Angeles (1932)
Melbourne (1956)
Munich (1972)
Montreal (1976)
Barcelona (1992)
Atlanta (1996)
Rio de Janeiro (2016)