China Reports "Hangzhou AG's Largest Ever Revenue" ... Invested 41 Trillion Won and Earned 1 Trillion Won

Far Behind Investment in Infrastructure Construction
Most Major Sports Events Including Past Olympics Run Deficits

The total revenue of the Hangzhou Asian Games in China nearly reached 1 trillion won. This is the largest scale in the history of the Asian Games. Nevertheless, compared to the amount of money poured in, the profit is reportedly far from sufficient.

According to reports from local Chinese media including Gwangmyeong Ilbo on the 8th, the Hangzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee announced that as of the 5th, the total revenue generated from the Asian Games and the Asian Para Games was 5.316 billion yuan (approximately 980 billion won).

The main income came from sponsorships, with 176 companies sponsoring a total of 4.4178 billion yuan (about 820 billion won). The organizing committee explained, "The number of sponsoring companies and the scale of sponsorship funds are the largest ever among Asian Games." Additionally, sales of licensed products such as mascots brought in 760 million yuan (about 140 billion won).

However, despite the record-high revenue, the profit scale is minimal compared to the amount invested to hold the event.

According to a report by Chinese media Pengpai News in June, Hangzhou City invested 224.8 billion yuan (about 41.5 trillion won) from 2016 to 2020 in direct facilities for the Asian Games such as stadiums and athlete villages, as well as infrastructure development including urban railways.

Hangzhou Asian Games Opening Ceremony
Photo by Yonhap News

Pengpai News analyzed at the time, "Although infrastructure construction is not a direct investment solely for holding the Asian Games, at least 200 billion yuan (about 37 trillion won) was spent on urban infrastructure construction for the Asian Games."

This amount is more than twice the 109 billion yuan (about 20 trillion won) spent by Guangzhou, which hosted the 2010 Asian Games. Some voices criticize, saying, "Isn't this an excessive expenditure for a single sports event?"

Hong Kong political commentator Liu Ruixiao pointed out, "China focused on external propaganda and macroeconomic benefits while hosting sports events, but did not consider the difficulties of ordinary people or financial losses," adding, "Sports events like the Asian Games cannot change the fundamental direction of the Chinese economy."

In the case of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics in Japan, a deficit of at least 7 trillion won occurred due to the postponement of the event and games held without spectators caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, drawing strong criticism domestically. Moreover, most large-scale international sports events in history have suffered huge deficits due to costs of facilities and infrastructure construction.

London, the host of the 2012 Olympics, made efforts to tighten budgets by maximizing the use of existing sports facilities and constructing some venues as temporary structures to be dismantled and recycled after the Olympics. Nevertheless, the cost exceeded the initial budget of about 2.4 billion pounds by several times, reaching 9.298 billion pounds, failing to reduce expenses.

Subsequent Olympics, including Russia's Sochi, Brazil's Rio, and South Korea's Pyeongchang, all incurred deficits regardless of being summer or winter games.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.