'Skyrocketing' costs put permanent home for Olympics back on agenda: IMF blog

The IMF Financial & Development blog recommends a permanent home for the games prevent cities being left with redundant stadiums

The costs of hosting the Olympics have been out of kilter with the revenues the games generate for some time, the IMF blog said. 

Rocketing costs facing cities hosting the Olympics is ratcheting up the risks for the future of the games and requires a radical overhaul or a permanent home, leading experts have warned in an IMF blog.

Professor Victor Matheson from the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts, and Professor Rob Baade of Lake Forest College in Illinois, who is a former president of the International Association of Sports Economists, said a permanent home would help prevent cities being left with redundant stadiums and "white elephants" while "a permanent location would also allow the Olympic host site to retain the human infrastructure of skilled event managers" and curtail costs.