It’s a debate that springs up every four years, led by a heated discussion and ultimately, is left alone for another three years and 11 months: the status of the Olympic Games.

The Olympics, as we know them, have been an international staple for over 100 years. Every four years the summer games are held for countries to showcase their best athletes and compete to see who is truly the best.

A feature of the modern games is the fact that it’s held in a different location around the world for each competition year.This gives different countries the opportunity to showcase their history and culture on a worldwide stage.

The location is decided upon using a process of bidding. First cities within a country put in bids to represent the country, and then when that has been narrowed down the countries themselves place bids to host the games.

This bidding process starts about ten years prior to the games being held, and once a city and country have put in the highest bid and promise to have fitting accommodations, building soon begins.

Since the Olympic Games are a worldwide event, the city must be prepared to handle the over 11,000 athletes, the spectators, and most importantly, the games themselves. However, this does not happen overnight and it most certainly doesn’t come without a hefty price tag.

The 2012 London games came to a total cost of $10.4 billion USD, and if you think that’s expensive, the 2008 Beijing games came to at least a whopping $42 billion USD.

Multiple stadiums must be constructed to meet the standards of hosting all the sports that will be played during the run of the competitions. Not only do stadiums have to be built, but entire villages for all the athletes and spectators to take residence in must also exist.

Surely the city and country make all this money back, and more, due to the increase of tourism and people there spending money! Well, not exactly, it would be a dream to breakeven when all is said and done, and sadly, only one quarter of the time has there been a profit.

Then there’s the matter of land and building space. These multibillion dollar investments don’t just create new earth for all this, land must be freed up and cleared to build all these stadiums that mostly go unused after the games are over. In the past 20 years it is estimated that 20 million people have been displaced due to building of structures for the Olympic Games.

With all these costs to not only the country’s economy but also its people, it’s amazing that this process happens at all.

There have been multiple solutions thrown around, yet none of them have ever really stuck. There was the idea to have thd Olympics in one set international location, without moving it around. This way, the stadiums and housing could be built once and maintained and used for every Olympic Games instead of always building new ones.

With this solution there could even still be a sponsoring country, one that pays for all the maintenance, entertainment, and other costs. Much like the current system, this would be rotated between countries, therefore keeping the unique feel of the games every four years.

There is another popular solution which would be to not have a single location, but to reuse locations or use the same location two or even three times in a row. This way it would feel as if the locations are getting more use out of their investments.

Then of course, we could opt to say the same. We’ve used this system for the past hundred years, and it seems to still be working, right? As they say, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

The problem however comes from the the simple fact that the current system is creating more harm than good.

The future of the Olympic Games is sure to be one that changes, and if they don’t, they will be forced to. The 2022 winter games are being held in Beijing simply because nobody else wanted to take on the burden.

Something is bound to change, but as to which solution will take the gold is really anyone’s guess at this point.