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By Kim Tae-jong
The just-ended Incheon Asian Games have raised a couple of very important questions: Did the country really need to host such an extravagant international sporting event, and should it ever bid for another in the future?
It appears most would say no to both questions, with many thinking such events are little more than a huge waste of money, even though the country is preparing for its first Winter Olympics in 2018 in PyeongChang.
In fact, the Asian Games host city of Incheon, which was battered for its poor handling and management of the quadrennial event from the beginning, is facing harsh criticism in the aftermath about underestimated costs and overestimated benefits for the Games.
This has caused great concerns in some quarters that South Korea may have placed a wrong and risky bet as it desperately wanted to host the Winter Olympics, an event fewer and fewer countries are interested in hosting because of the cost and work involved.
Even before the Asiad began, its costs caused great concerns among officials with the Incheon government, largely due to a lack of financial support from the central government.
Organizers had promised to host a "cost-efficient" Asiad, by staging such an international sporting event with the relatively small budget of 2.5 trillion won.
But the city now faces a double whammy ― looming debts and new stadiums and infrastructure, most of which will become white elephants because there are no specific plans for them.
"We hope that our facilities will be used by the Seoul government, which has only shabby and old sport facilities," an Incheon city official said. "We also believe long-term gains are expected in tourism, which will help offset the costs."
But that sounds like little more than an empty political campaign slogan.
Experts say that such events should not be touted as a chance to show off the nation's economic prosperity and promote its international influence.
"There will be just small gains for Korea to win by hosting an international sporting event like this, as the country is no longer an unknown and under-developed country sandwiched between China and Japan," said Kim Hyun-duck, a professor of sports marketing at Keimyung University. "The 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul were the last chance in which we were able to gain more benefits than what we invested."
Incheon will join other cities which had to suffer from growing debts after the party left town, including Montreal, which needed about 30 years to repay debts for the 1976 Olympics held there.
In this regard, a lot of developed countries have lost their appetite for bidding to host international sporting events.
For example, the Norwegian government has withdrawn its bid to host the 2022 Winter Olympics in Oslo, citing concerns about the cost of hosting the event despite the country's great wealth.
That came months after Ukraine, Switzerland and Germany had decided against going ahead with their bids for the event.
Experts now believe that Korea needs to take a different approach toward hosting international events. Previously, such efforts were largely led by some ambitious politicians who wanted to point to the events as political achievements during their term in office.
"Now, it's time to consider sustainability," Kim from Keimyung University said. "We should be able to carefully estimate what we can achieve and earn from hosting a sporting event. Of course, it will not be only about financial gains, but also other indirect benefits."
