Games Bring In $9.6 Million

The Athens 2004 organizing committee announced a $9.6 million operating profit Thursday for the most expensive Games ever staged, an Olympics that the Greek government spent more than $10 billion readying for, which figures to be a factor on the Greek economy for years.

The Athens committee announced its surplus on revenues of $2.67 billion, saying it had cut costs, converted dollars to euros to take advantage of favorable exchange rates and stuck to “the complete and analytical planning of its activities.”

The International Olympic Committee quickly followed with a statement, saying that each edition of the Games for the last 20 years had resulted either in a balanced budget or a surplus for the local organizing committees. It also said, however, that the IOC was “working hard to help keep the costs of the Olympic Games down.”

The Athens 2004 report, however, underscores the complexities and disparities of Olympic math.

Organizing committee financial statements typically do not account for the capital costs -- roads, subway lines, airports and other infrastructure -- that come with the Games. Those are usually paid for, and accounted for, separately; in the case of the Athens Games, by the Greek government, not the Athens 2004 committee.

The debate rages about whether such costs ought to be allocated to an Olympics, or whether the Games merely serve as a catalyst to fast-track urban improvements that would be built anyway.

For instance, Greek officials rushed to complete subway and light-rail lines by the start of the Games last August. Now the city, long plagued by a lack of mass transit options, has such lines. It also has a new airport and highways.

A full accounting of the Greek government’s outlay remains elusive. Security costs of at least $1.5 billion contributed to the overall figure.

The 2008 Olympics in Beijing figure to dwarf all previous Games in spending, the Chinese estimating capital costs at $30 billion.