The Paralympics can be an economic boon for host cities – and leave a unique legacy
- Written by Kirsten Holmes, Professor, School of Management and Marketing, Curtin University
The mega-event glow continues in Paris, with the 2024 Summer Paralympic Games now well underway. Some 4,400 athletes will take to the world stage to compete across 22 different sports.
The Paris Paralympic Games have attracted a phenomenal level of interest – over two million tickets have now been sold. Some are now speculating the event could make Paralympic history and become the first-ever sellout.
This raises some important questions for host cities. How do the economics of the Paralympics compare to the Olympics? Who gets the broadcast rights?
Above all, what is the legacy of this event on its own – separate from the Olympics – likely to be for Paris? The games will provide an anticipated economic boon, but their real value lies in the ever-brighter spotlight they shine on elite para sports.
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The games are deeply intertwined
The cost of hosting the Olympics can famously blow out to way above initial estimates. Since the early 2000s, host cities have been awarded the rights to stage the Paralympics as well, which means the economics of both – and risk of cost overruns – are closely intertwined.
A recent University of Oxford report suggested the combined cost of the Paris 2024 games – A$12.8 billion – represented a cost overrun of about 115%.
Long-running concerns about cost blowouts spurred the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to create the “New Norm” model, approved in 2018, which featured 118 reforms aimed at reducing the financial burden of hosting the games.
The Paris games have actively adopted several elements of this model. Some of these initiatives – which remain in place for the Paralympics – include using existing infrastructure and attractions where possible and the extensive use of temporary venues.
The Paris Paralympic village has been designed to be 100% accessible, reusing much of the infrastructure from the Olympics.
As the Paralympic games feature sports distinct from the Olympics, a range of venues have been repurposed, such as the volleyball venue at the Eiffel Tower, which will host the blind football.
Read more: Why aren't the Olympics and Paralympics combined into one Games? The reasoning goes beyond logistics
Making Paris more accessible for everyone
Paris has taken a range of steps to make the city more accessible, expecting about 350,000 visitors with disabilities to attend the games.
This has included repairing damaged roads, improving road crossings by lowering sidewalks and installing new warning strips and traffic light sounds.
The city also spent €22 million (A$35.8 million) on making 59 of its 61 bus lines fully accessible.
The cost of making these infrastructure improvements can be heightened by the need to implement them quickly.
But for Paris, they will undoubtedly provide long-term benefits to city users and future visitors as a structural legacy of the 2024 Paralympics.
A tourism boost?
Hosting the Olympic and Paralympic games can quickly thrust a city into the international spotlight. The resulting tourism boom is sold as one of the biggest benefits of hosting the games.
Just how much Paris will benefit from this exposure has been an obvious point of debate, given France is already the world’s most visited country by international tourists.
Working out how the Paralympics’ specific effect on tourism might compare to the Olympics is difficult. But we can look to previous games.
A survey of visitor groups to the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi found a notable difference in average daily tourist spend between visitors to the Olympics (A$381) and visitors to the Paralympics (A$281). This was due to higher ticket and transport costs for Olympic visitors.
But tourists visiting the Paralympics stayed in the destination longer, which meant that total spending was similar for both groups.
Both groups were motivated a little differently as well. Olympic tourists were more focused on the competition, whereas Paralympic tourists were more inclined to seek out the festival atmosphere the games bought to the destination.
What about the broadcast rights?
For the first time in history, the Paris games will offer live coverage of all 22 Paralympic sports through a record number of global media partners. But they aren’t automatically included in the rights to broadcast the Olympics.
In Australia, Channel Nine paid the IOC A$305 million for the exclusive rights to Olympic Games coverage from 2024 through to 2032. Separately, it also negotiated with Paralympics Australia to secure the media rights for the 2024 Paralympic Games.
The dollar figure for this second deal is not publicly available, but is likely lower than the cost of the Olympics coverage, with fewer Paralympic sports to showcase.
Both deals have already proved lucrative for the network. In early August, Nine had secured more than A$140 million in advertising revenue for its Olympic and Paralympic coverage.
Where the real value lies
Beyond economic considerations, many would argue the real value of hosting the Paralympics is in the opportunity to shine a spotlight on elite para sports.
Some past media representation of the Paralympics has been problematic, with a focus on athletes’ disabilities as opposed to their performance.
With the record levels of media coverage for Paris 2024, the International Paralympic Committee has launched a major social media campaign to emphasise that para athletes are not “participating” but “competing” in the games.
We now hope that cities like Brisbane – set to host the games in 2032 – can learn from Paris in improving accessibility city-wide, and avoid some of the historical cost overruns of previous Olympic and Paralympic games.
Authors: Kirsten Holmes, Professor, School of Management and Marketing, Curtin University
