The 2018 Winter Olympic Games will be held in Pyeongchang. The Republic of Korea (RoK) sees this as an honor and opportunity to boost its economy via tourism, the latter which can be seen as potential rents for their economy.
Stakes were high in 2009. By then, the RoK had already lost bids to host the 2010 and 2014 Winter games. The resources it had taken to submit appealing bids to the IOC could not be recovered. Thus, before the bidding process to host the 2018 Winter Olympics had begun, the RoK President pardoned former Samsung chairman, Lee Kun-hee, who had been convicted of tax evasion and breach of trust, and accused of bribery. This was so Lee Kun-hee could resume his activities at the IOC and "boost the country's chances of hosting the 2018 Winter Olympics". In the end, Pyeongchang won 63 of the 95 first round votes securing the bid. Since Samsung had sponsored the IOC since 1997, Lee Kun-hee's role as a lobbyist was undoubtedly essential in securing the bid.
Rent-seeking has resulted in the expenditure of resources to (1) convince IOC voters to vote for Pyeongchang, and (2) restore the damaged perception of RoK's rule of law after pardoning Mr. Lee. Both are significant costs to society. Now, we can only hope that the rent value will exceed the costs of rent-seeking that have already been incurred.
Food for thought: Research has shown that "Hosting the Olympics is a terrible investment". In past Olympics, host countries have well exceeded their budgets in preparing to host the games. This calculation likely does not consider the rent-seeking costs that have been incurred by businesses to win contracts to build Olympic stadiums.
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