This year’s Olympics has cost a lot less than other recent Games

The busy summer of sport will kick into another gear today, as the opening ceremony for the Paris Olympics gets underway — starting with a parade of more than 90 boats carrying ~10,500 athletes down the city’s iconic Seine river.

The French capital last hosted the quadrennial sporting event exactly 100 years ago, when it introduced the first Olympic Village to the world… though the small commune of temporary log cabins built back then bears little resemblance to this year’s contemporary 53-hectare village. 

Pay to play (or host)

That ~$1.85 billion accommodation is just one example of the outgoings that host nations usually shell out for in organizing a modern Olympics, but Paris seems to have done a (relatively) good job at keeping costs down.

According to estimates from an Oxford University study, as reported by Politico, the Paris Games will cost $8.7 billion, excluding wider infrastructure costs such as road, rail, hotel, and airport construction. While a spokesperson for the competition refuted the Oxford figures — they reportedly come in above-budget for the “cheaper Games” that was promised — the estimate actually seems fairly reasonable, especially when compared to Rio 2016’s $23.6 billion budget, for instance. 

While Paris may boast the lowest estimated outlay for the summer contest since 2008, the host city still faces some hurdles, even this late in the game. Earlier today, for example, a spate of arson attacks hit Paris’s railways lines, with Eurostar urging passengers to postpone travel.