Book description
The numbers are staggering: China spent $40 billion to host the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing and Russia spent $50 billion for the 2014 Sochi Winter Games. Brazil's total expenditures are thought to have been as much as $20 billion for the World Cup this summer and Qatar, which…
Why read it?
2 authors picked Circus Maximus as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Zimbalist has a masterful way of story-telling, and Circus Maximus is his best book to date. Yes, his 2015 book exposes two of the most powerful authorities governing international sports, the IOC and FIFA, but it is such a wonderful read. I found this book full of data and facts that build compelling arguments and challenged my conventional wisdom about the leaders and organizations involved in producing the Olympics and World Cup.
I began viewing the IOC and FIFA from a different lens after reading this thorough and insightful book about the economic realities, politics, and dark side of hosting…
From Bonnie's list on power structures and politics in sports.
Olympics organizers love to produce economic impact assessments claiming that hosting this mega-event will boost the local economy by astronomical amounts.
Andrew Zimbalist is an economist who painstakingly illustrates why this is never the case. Circus Maximus is written for a lay audience, rather than an academic one, and is easily read even by us non-economists.
He clearly and methodically demonstrates how and why the Olympics and World Cup have never made money for their host cities, and likely never will.
From Jacqueline's list on the Olympics that the IOC doesn’t want you to know.
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German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
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