Correction: Thinking out of the (Olympic) box: is it time to reconsider permanent hosting for sustainable Olympics? A conceptual review

The modern Olympic Games embody a profound paradox. Conceived by Baron Pierre de Coubertin as a vehicle for international understanding, peace, and athletic excellence, the Games have evolved into what economists describe as a "moneylosing proposition" (1), p. 201, what environmental scientists characterize as exhibiting "declining sustainability performance" (2), p. 340, and what political scientists identify as "repeatedly leading to political disruptions and boycotts" (3), p. 148. The institution created to unite humanity has become inextricably linked with division, sovereign debt, and environmental degradation, threatening its long-term viability. This persistence of challenges across diverse contexts-different nations, political systems, economic conditions, and decades-suggests that the problems stem from structural features of the Olympic model itself rather than from inadequate oversight, raising fundamental questions about whether incremental reforms can ever be sufficient. Empirical evidence reveals patterns suggesting these are not isolated failures but systemic pathologies embedded in the rotational hosting model. Every Olympic Games from 1968 to 2012 exceeded its original budget, with average cost overruns exceeding 150 percent-ranging from 156% to 179% depending on the dataset and time period analyzed (1, 4). Recent Games have reached absolute costs that challenge the economic rationality of hosting: Beijing 2008 spent 40 billion, Sochi 2014 reached 55 billion, and Tokyo 2020 reached 15. 4 billion-with some estimates approaching 20 billion-despite pandemic-related reductions in spectator services (1, (5) (6) (7). The 16 Summer and Winter Games between 1992 and 2020 collectively cost tens of billions of dollars, yet sustainability assessments found declining performance over time rather than improvement (2). Khraiche and Alakshendra (8) document that "in the last 50 years, every Olympics has experienced a major cost overrun" (p. 845), establishing this as a systemic pattern rather than an occasional failure attributable to poor planning in specific host cities. The pattern is remarkably consistent. It spans both pluralistic and centralized governance models, as well as wealthy and developing nations. This consistency demands an explanation beyond individual host city competence. Instead, it points to deep structural features of the rotational model that generate predictable failures regardless of the host's political or economic context. These persistent failures are compounded by structural governance challenges. Organizing committees typically dissolve within months of the Games. In fact, 90% of staff depart within one month and 99% within four months. This elimination of institutional memory occurs precisely when long-term legacy planning becomes critical (9). This pattern extends beyond the Olympics to other megasporting events. For the 2027 Pan-American Games, Barranquilla, Colombia, was initially appointed as host but subsequently withdrew due to financial constraints. In the selection process that followed, Lima, Peru-which had recently hosted the 2019 Pan-American Games-successfully defeated Asunción, Paraguay, a city that had never hosted the event. This recent case demonstrates the implicit preference of selection committees for returning to proven hosts with existing infrastructure, driven by their capacity to deliver successful events at lower cost and risk compared to first-time hosts requiring extensive new construction. Peru's strategic advantage lay in its ability to reuse many venues from the 2019 Games, significantly reducing capital expenditure and environmental impact. This pragmatic turn toward venue reuse and proven hosts in the Pan-American context mirrors broader trends in Olympic hosting that we examine throughout this paper. The consistency of these failures across diverse contexts raises fundamental questions about causation. Zimbalist, Solberg, and Storm (7) pose the existential question that frames this paper: might the Olympic sustainability crisis stem from a structural "principal-agent problem" inherent to the rotational model itself? In this framework, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) functions as the principal, capturing the majority of Olympic revenues through broadcasting and sponsorship rights while transferring financial risks to host cities (the agents). This asymmetric incentive structure creates a fundamental misalignment: the IOC benefits from increasingly spectacular Games regardless of cost, while host cities bear the financial consequences of overspending with uncertain returns. The competitive bidding process exacerbates this dynamic, as cities that present conservative, realistic cost estimates are systematically outbid by competitors promising grander visions. This principal-agent misalignment, combined with the rotational model's requirement for cyclical construction in varying geopolitical contexts, may constitute the structural foundation of Olympic sustainability challenges-suggesting that incremental reforms addressing symptoms may prove insufficient without confronting the underlying architecture of the model itself. This conceptual paper explores the argument that the Olympic sustainability crisis requires transformative structural alternatives rather than incremental reforms. While questioning the rotational model may appear to be a radical departure from established Olympic tradition today, a historical retrospective reveals that geographic rotation was not always considered the only way to host the Games. In fact, it was fiercely debated at the movement's inception and has been repeatedly challenged during past eras of crisis. At the movement's birth in 1896, King George of Greece proposed permanent hosting in Athens. 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