Forget tourism: Pyeongchang's legacy probably debt and anger

That is exactly what Tokyo is facing as well. Future cities looking to host the olympics take notice. The tradeoff is not worth it

Japan has better mountains and snow.

It’s unfortunate, the ski culture is just not there in SK. Plus Japan has far more and better resorts so they won’t be luring any foreign skiers and boarders either

In brief, in its current form, the Olympics are unacceptable. The IOC, knowingly and deliberately is leaving organisers with huge debts. They exploit the fact that the city and country officials are not at all versed in professional sports , marketing, logistics, organisation, sales.. and they like it that way.  Nothing would be easier but to form a group of 20 seasoned professionals and to send them 6 to 7 years before the Olympics in support of the local LOC to optimize preparations and to stop unnecessary overspending.  That, and reducing the size of the Olympics by 50 %, would make it possible to organize with a budget of 15 to 25 % of now. 

Tennis, golf, have no need for the Olympics but the Olympic broadcasters have a need of them, to shore up falling ratings.  Football does not need the Olympics and vice versa. The core of the Olympics is a first week with swimming and a second with track and field.

Many sports, historically needed the Olympic attention but not anymore, equestrian sports now has global GP's and world championships with global reach. And it is very expensive to organize for the olympics. 

Amateur boxing, rowing, canoe, archery, those are the sports that still need the olympic exposure and deserve it because of worldwide, if mostly amateur or semi professional levels, participation.  Judo, Karate, can do without but we can also keep them in..etc... 

And no first level city, or capital, not London, Tokyo, Paris, need the Olympics, they cost money, do not bring even 20 % of the promised benefits and often the cities are worse off during the Olympics then during a " normal year "

Mayor 2nd tier cities can profit, such as Los Angeles,  Osaka or Fukuoka,  Munich, ......   but only for image and marketing reasons, certainly not for financial benefits although once again LA might be an exception.

Don't worry about the debts SK - America is about to push a giant reset button in your neck of the woods that will wipe the slate clean.

Bit pre-emptive init? I think South Korea have put on a great games and they will stay have those facilities. The fact that its not a thriving metropolis but has great natural assets appeals to some people, especially your adventuring young Westerner. As long as there is beer available and quickish wifi its all good. There requirements are modest. The problem is the cost of getting them there...as has been highlighted elsewhere on this site recently.

Olympia and the IOC need to change. The current state gets less and less popular.

My hometown of Hamburg, Germany wanted to apply for the 2024 games. But a lot of people didn't wanted to host the games for various reason. So there was a vote and guess what? A majority voted against hosting so the city withdraw their application.

I'm no fan of the Olympics, but Beijing is up next for the winter games and there may (I don't know) be more interest coming from Chinese. Chinese have started coming to Japanese ski resorts in growing numbers, and it might be possible to get them to go to Pyeonchang too. Pyeonchang doesn't get much snow, but is fantastically cold so that huge amounts of manmade snow can be made in little time. It's easy to forget with the cold winter we're having in Japan, but climate change is a genuine threat to many ski resorts. The cold temperatures at Pyeonchang at least make it futureproof on that score. Its also only 100km from Seoul, if the locals want to try skiing. Lotte have spent a fortune getting Arai in Niigata going again, so some Koreans must be optimistic about skiing.

An Olympic Stadium that is knocked down straight away is the perfect symbol of the games in their modern format. Many facilities at the Greece, Beijing, and Rio summer games are well on the way to disrepair, but building something just to knock down after two weeks is obscene.

hmm even Nagano prefecture is still paying off its debt and the high cost of maintenance is really choking the economy. Ban olympics, Somebody should just make an olympc venue to be used for every olympic. This insanity should end.

This sort of thing isn't new: nobody wanted to pay for the 1984 and 1996 Olympics with public money so Los Angeles and Atlanta took another route and both of those cities' Olympics are still paying dividends today.