The Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games could close with a deficit of around 290 million euros, according to information published by Il Fatto Quotidiano and reported by Calcio e Finanza, a figure that has brought a recurring question in winter Olympism back to the forefront: whether the problem lies only in the event budget or in everything that comes afterwards, when venues have to be sustained, investments justified and the legacy tested to see whether it truly finds a long-term purpose.

The debate does not concern only the organising committee’s accounts. In the Winter Games, the balance sheet almost always splits in two: on one side, the operational result; on the other, the later bill for highly specific infrastructure, maintenance costs and insufficient local demand. Can the Games really be described as profitable if the competition goes ahead, but part of the legacy gradually turns into a public burden or into facilities with no clear long-term use? That is the question Milano Cortina has revived before the cauldron has even been extinguished.

What the precedents of the Winter Games show

The precedents do not point in a single direction. Some host cities did manage to turn the Games into lasting sports infrastructure. Lillehammer and Salt Lake City remain among the strongest examples of continuity: the Olympic movement still presents both as models of long-term use, and in Utah that sustained maintenance has been one of the foundations for the region to host the Games again in 2034. Salt Lake City stands out as one of the clearest examples of continuity, and the preservation of its 2002 legacy, with 10 of the 13 competition venues set to be reused for Utah 2034, has been one of the main strengths behind its return to the Olympic calendar, a point that the International Olympic Committee -IOC- itself has highlighted as central to the new bid.

Calgary is also often cited as a success story, but its relevance lies in a different nuance: not in preserving the entire legacy intact, but in adapting it. WinSport chose to dismantle the ski jumps and sliding track at Canada Olympic Park in order to focus on “growth sports” and on more sustainable and inclusive programming. In other words, Calgary offers a useful lesson of its own: WinSport redirected resources towards a more sustainable vision and towards sports and programmes with greater real use, a decision that makes its legacy an example of adaptation rather than simple preservation.

Where the problem begins: debt, maintenance and overly specific venues

The most problematic cases tend to share recognisable traits. Nagano carried the weight of debt and the maintenance of expensive facilities for years. Turin left visible improvements in transport and urban image, but also a much more uncomfortable legacy in the mountains: an estimate reported by Reuters placed the cost at 3.3 billion euros, with 2.5 billion in long-term benefits and a net loss of 1.3 billion, while the bobsleigh track in Cesana was closed from 2011 and the ski jumps in Pragelato were eventually abandoned. Sochi took that logic to an extreme scale, with multibillion investment and enormous later pressure linked to maintenance and the repurposing of several venues.

The bobsleigh, luge and skeleton track captures the core of the problem well: it is expensive to build, expensive to maintain and useful for a very limited number of events and users. The same is true of some ski jumps and alpine complexes developed outside ecosystems with real demand. When a territory does not have competitive tradition, a sustained calendar and enough critical mass, the legacy starts to look less like a useful investment and more like a budgetary obligation. Does it make sense to keep building infrastructure with such limited use for an event that lasts only two weeks? The question keeps returning because the pattern keeps repeating itself.

The future of the model: less snow, more climate pressure and the need to remain relevant

That economic dilemma is now intersecting with a deeper one. A study published in Current Issues in Tourism examined 93 potential locations for snow sports in the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games and warned of a reduction in climatically reliable venues under different warming scenarios. At the same time, the IOC increasingly acknowledges the role of artificial snow and is steering future host selection processes towards climatically reliable venues, the use of existing or temporary infrastructure and regional models. If there will be fewer naturally suitable places, does it still make sense to keep expanding the host map, or will the Games have to be concentrated in a smaller group of prepared territories?

In that context, the viability of the Winter Games no longer depends only on cutting costs, but also on remaining a relevant sports product. Milano Cortina 2026 added ski mountaineering as a new Olympic discipline, while the return of National Hockey League -NHL- players to Olympic hockey gives the tournament back some of the global pull that major stars can generate. At the same time, curling is exploring another path to growth, not only through the Olympic route but also through calendar expansion and commercial development. The Rock League, launched by The Curling Group, proposes a mixed and global professional franchise league, with events in different markets, a season that stretches beyond the Olympic peak and a model less dependent on countries and federations. The deeper question is no longer just how much it costs to stage a Winter Games, but what move the IOC needs to make for them to keep making sense: less new construction, more venues with a credible post-Games use, more stars, more visibility across more months and a model capable of surviving in a world with less natural snow and greater scrutiny over every euro invested.