Hosting a Major Event — During & After (Legacy)
Impacts During the Event
Once a major sporting event begins, its effects on the host city and nation are immediate and highly visible. Some are clearly positive; others are disruptive or costly. Understanding both sides is essential for evaluation questions, which are common on this topic.
During-event positives include increased tourism and spending, short-term employment, improved national morale, raised international profile and media coverage. Negatives include disruption from transport congestion, noise and litter, security costs, terrorism risk, and in some cases displacement of local residents from areas around venues.
Positive Impacts During the Event
Tourism and economic activity peak during a major event. Spectators travelling from overseas spend money on hotels, food, transport and retail. The 2024 Paris Games attracted millions of visitors, delivering a significant boost to the French economy during a competitive summer tourism season. Short-term employment surges: catering staff, security guards, stewards, translators, media crew and volunteers are all needed in large numbers.
National morale and social cohesion are harder to measure but often cited as major positives. A home nation athlete winning a medal, or simply sharing the experience of watching elite sport together, generates a collective sense of pride. The 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony — held along the River Seine — was widely reported as a moment of national celebration. International profile rises sharply: the host nation’s culture, landmarks and people are broadcast to a global audience. This can increase inbound tourism in the months and years that follow.
Not all residents welcome a major event on their doorstep. Transport congestion affects local commuters when roads and public transport are saturated with visitors. Noise, litter, and crowds in residential neighbourhoods disrupt ordinary daily life. Security costs are substantial: the Paris 2024 Games deployed 45,000 security personnel and involved NATO partner support, at a cost running into hundreds of millions of euros. Terrorism risk is a genuine concern for organisers — every modern major event requires detailed counter-terrorism planning. Ironically, the “touristification” effect can drive up local prices, pushing everyday goods and accommodation beyond the reach of residents who live near venues.
What Is Legacy?
Legacy refers to the lasting impact of a major event after the final medal ceremony. Legacy questions are a favourite in extended-response questions because they demand evaluation — candidates must weigh positives against negatives and reach a reasoned judgement. A strong legacy answer will always address both sides and often pivot on a specific case study to ground the argument.
Positive Legacy: London 2012
The 2012 London Olympics is frequently cited as a model of positive legacy. The Olympic Park in Stratford, east London, was built on a heavily polluted former industrial site. After the Games, it was transformed into the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park — a public green space with world-class sporting venues (the London Stadium, Aquatics Centre, Velodrome), new homes, and a revitalised neighbourhood in one of London’s most deprived boroughs. Transport investment including the Docklands Light Railway extension and upgraded rail links served the area long after the event. Participation in cycling notably increased following Team GB’s remarkable haul of medals in the velodrome, which inspired a generation — though critics note that funding cuts to grassroots sport in subsequent years undermined some of these participation gains.
London 2012’s legacy includes the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park (regenerated deprived area of east London), the Aquatics Centre and Velodrome (still in public use), improved transport infrastructure, and a documented increase in cycling participation. However, grassroots sport funding was later cut, limiting long-term participation gains.
Negative Legacy: The “White Elephant” Problem
Not every host city achieves London’s outcomes. White elephants are venues built for events that serve no sustainable purpose once the competition is over. The Athens 2004 Olympics is the most cited cautionary example: within a decade of the Games, most of the venues built specifically for the event had fallen into disrepair or sat empty. Greece’s financial crisis made maintaining expensive facilities impossible, and the sites became symbols of over-investment. The estimated cost of the Athens Games was around £7–9 billion, much of which is judged to have delivered no lasting benefit.
The cost vs revenue question is central to any legacy evaluation. Host cities typically spend far more than they earn from ticket sales, broadcasting rights and tourism. The gap is funded by taxpayers. When the promised regeneration, tourism boost or participation increase fails to materialise, the event is retrospectively judged as a financial burden rather than a national asset. Displacement without return is a related legacy concern: communities uprooted before an event do not always benefit from any regeneration that follows.
Paris 2024 attempted to learn from previous Games by deliberately avoiding purpose-built “white elephant” venues where possible. Many events used existing or temporary structures — beach volleyball at the Trocadéro, equestrian events at Versailles, athletics at the Stade de France. The ambition was that no new permanent venue would be left unused after the Games. The swimming of the marathon open-water race and triathlon in the River Seine was a deliberate legacy signal: the city invested in cleaning the Seine to a standard that would benefit Parisian residents after the Games (the river had been closed to swimming for 100 years). Whether these ambitions translate into real long-term community benefit will take years to assess.
Evaluating Legacy
Evaluating legacy requires looking at multiple dimensions: improved sporting facilities and whether local communities can access them; participation rates in the host nation’s sport; transport infrastructure improvements; international profile and its effect on tourism; and the financial balance between what was spent and what was gained. A high-quality evaluation does not simply list these dimensions — it argues which factors matter most in the specific context of the question, and draws a clear concluding judgement.