Robert Sroka

This paper considers how to consistently cost athletes’ villages across a financially and geographically diverse range of multisport mega-events through a generalizable model. A model is proposed for financially costing athletes’ villages with four core headings intended to be broadly replicable across projects: procurement structure, public and total capital cost, incremental revenues, and net public cost. The model is then applied to two multisport mega-events hosted in the same country within a similar timeframe, but different scale. Materials are synthesized through a document review process. Glasgow and London demonstrate how even within the same country and similar timeframes, there can be significant divergence in the available detail and format of costs. The model provides a first opportunity to account for these differences beyond a simple global line-item or single case study. From this initial work, further refinement and application of the costing model to a broader range of multisport mega-event village iterations can be undertaken. This comes with the objective of more fully understanding costs and public investment outcomes for athletes’ villages, which are often among the most expensive and risky elements of a multisport mega-event. Beyond providing a replicable costing method, the model also highlights how procurement structures, housing mixes, and fiscal frameworks shape the political economy of mega-event legacies.

Keywords: Athletes’ villages; costing; finance; mega-events

APA Citation: Sroka, R. (2025). A financial costing model 
for athletes’ villages: Evaluating 
London 2012 and Glasgow 2014. International Journal of Sport Management, 26(4), 468-488.

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