Circus Maximus: The Economic Gamble behind Hosting the Olympics and the World Cup.

• Author: Humphreys, Brad R.
• Position: Book review

* Circus Maximus: The Economic Gamble behind Hosting the Olympics and the World Cup

By Andrew Zimbalist

Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2015.

Pp. xiii, 174. $25 hardcover.

Andrew Zimbalist has written a timely and important book addressing a topic of vital importance for taxpayers, sports fans, and public officials around the world. The May 2015 indictment of a number of Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) executives by the U.S. attorney general for corruption related to the awarding of the 2010 Copa America soccer tournament and the subsequent resignation of newly reelected FIFA president Sepp Blatter highlight the seedy underside of the process of allocating sports mega-events, which Zimbalist examines in detail. The increasingly vocal opposition to Boston's bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympic Games also provides a rich br.cK.drop for this book. Circus Maximus is required reading for anyone interested in a thorough, no-holds-barred account of how sports mega-events are awarded and what impact these events have on host communities.

The book contains a narrative account of the awarding and hosting of the Olympic Games and FIFA World Cup since their inceptions and an analysis of the short-run and long-run economic consequences of these mega-events. It also discusses in detail the financing, economic impact, legacy effects, and existing scholarly research on sports mega-events. Zimbalist has done a thorough, well-organized job of marshalling both primary evidence and existing research to paint a comprehensive and disturbing picture of the Olympic Games, the World Cup, and the opaque, Byzantine organizations that control the awarding of these events.

The book will be eye-opening for readers familiar only with the citius, altius, fortius pageantry, the feel good fellowship, the international spectacle associated with the staging of the Olympic Games and World Cup, and the mythic Olympic Movement ideals that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) touts as its guiding principles. Zimbalist thoroughly debunks the ideas that the IOC and to a lesser extent FIFA primarily champion human rights, celebrate athletic performance, and provide important economic and social benefits to host countries. For example, Zimbalist points out that the IOC's principle of nondiscrimination, clearly articulated in the Olympic Charter, was violated from the get-go. The IOC excluded women athletes from participating in the...