While hosting major competitions usually brings significant additional income to the host country, Zurich, which hosted the World Road Cycling Championships last year, had to accept a hefty loss.
The association set up to organise the championships announced that they had a deficit of €4.66 million and are asking the Zurich city council and canton for additional support. The World Championships were overshadowed by the death of local rider Muriel Furrer in the women's junior race, but this was not the main reason for the budget deficit. Heavy rain during the World Championships is said to have led to unforeseen costs.
Hosting a major event at a loss is more of an exception, as happened in the cycling world at the Ponferrada World Championships in Spain in 2014, when a loss of several million euros had to be accepted. For comparison, the Glasgow World Championships (2023) brought in £205 million in revenue on a £60 million budget.
According to Ernst & Young's analysis, the Yorkshire World Championships (2019) were profitable by 28.2 million euros, the Wollongong World Championships (2022) boosted the local economy by 35.6 million Australian dollars, and the Innsbruck World Championships (2018) were profitable by 40 million euros.
The US Open tennis tournament is estimated to bring in 200-450 million US dollars and the Superbowl around half a billion dollars.
