Published: October 22, 2009

It came as a shock to Chicago residents to hear their city eliminated first at the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) session in Copenhagen, Denmark earlier this month. After all, their bid ranked highly in the IOC’s evaluations over the past few months, much of the infrastructure was already in place and the United States has proven many times that we know how to host the Olympic Games. After Tokyo and Madrid were knocked out in subsequent votes, IOC president Jacques Rogge officially made the surprising announcement: Rio de Janeiro was the winner.

So why Rio?

Rio de Janeiro sends a substantial geopolitical message from the IOC. The Summer 2016 Games will be the first Olympics to be held in South America in 112 years. The global face of sports is changing, with the precedence of North America and Europe diminishing slightly as South America, Africa and Asia become rising stars. Having the Olympics in Rio is a perfect way for the IOC to show that they are on board with this change, just as FIFA (the international governing body for soccer) is sending this same message by hosting the World Cup in South Africa next year. These cities are demonstrating the rising importance of sports like soccer and others outside of their previous hubs in Europe and North America.

But above all, the loss of the games for Chicago may be a good thing for America.

Staging the Olympic Games is an extremely expensive endeavor, especially for a two-week event. The Athens 2004 games cost Greece $11.2 billion, a debt which the country is still paying off as temporary venues decay. The Beijing 2008 games, some of the most extravagant ever, are believed to have cost over $40 billion. The budget for the 2012 games in London is already skyrocketing, with estimates of current costs hovering around $17 billion.

In a time of such widespread economic crisis, the U.S. does not need to spend such extreme amounts of money. Though jobs would have been created if Chicago had hosted the games, they would have been temporary and unlikely to have been significant enough to have boosted the economy to any great degree. And if the precedent of previous games is held up, the games will go over budget.

We don’t need the prestige that the games will give us in America; we’ve already hosted them four times in the summer and four times in the winter. America’s identity and position in the world is already well known. And of all American cities, Chicago especially does not need the Games. The greatest benefit of an Olympics for a city is the opportunity for investment in infrastructure and facilities. The Chicago Transit Authority has an excellent transportation system and the city’s sports facilities are all recently built or renovated and are in good condition; all public systems appear to be in good standing.

Conversely, Rio de Janeiro is a city on the cusp of becoming a major world player. The staging of an Olympics will allow Brazil to justify spending the large sums of money that are necessary to bring it to the next level on the global stage.

The city has an inadequate public transportation system and over 30 percent of the budget for the Games is allotted to fixing it. Rio will also benefit from major expansions in sports facilities, with eight existing venues due to be renovated and nine new ones to be constructed. This, in addition to the benefits the city will get from being partial host to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, will give Rio the boost it needs to become a full player on the world stage within the next decade.

Of course, just as when New York lost the bid for the 2012 Olympics in 2005, it is disappointing to hear that the United States has lost another bid. There’s still something special about hosting the most significant global sporting event on home turf. For the cost, though, perhaps it’s best to pass the torch—literally and metaphorically—to a new country, a new continent and a new future for the Olympics.