Boston’s lofty Olympic dream could turn into a multibillion-dollar money pit rivalling the Big Dig, given the Games’ history of blown-out budgets and breathtaking but debt-ridden, oversized construction marvels — lessons both backers and critics say the Hub should heed before embracing a potential 2024 bid.

“I don’t think it’s anything to be excited about economically. It’s something to be very careful about,” said Andrew Zimbalist, a Smith College economics professor and consultant on major sporting events worldwide.

“Boston might generate $2 billion in revenue. They’re going to spend upwards of $15 billion in hosting the games. It’s very hard to imagine this thing paying off.”

Proponents for a potential Boston bid say a pursuit of the Summer Games would kick-start long-needed transportation and housing prospects, benefits the city and state would continue to reap long after. But critics fear a project too big for the cramped Hub to handle and a Big Dig-sized bill littered with cost overruns.

“I think you would see the same thing you saw on the Big Dig, a feeding frenzy of people looking to enrich themselves from the process,” said state Sen. Robert Hedlund (R-Weymouth), referencing the $2 billion-turned-?$22 billion highway and tunnel project.

“And in this state we never seem to be able to control that.”

Boston’s Olympic bid would require massive investments, including:

• An Olympic Stadium seating 80,000 people to host opening and closing ceremonies, and track and field events. Beijing reportedly spent upwards of $480 million on an arena that largely sits empty now, aside from an occasional opera or soccer game. Tokyo announced this week it’s paring its centerpiece venue plans, once totaling $3 billion, to ?$1.3 billion because of costs concerns.

• An aquatics center. London’s famed indoor complex cost $360 million, more than three times its initial estimated cost.

• The Olympic application process. State Rep. Cory Atkins (D-Concord), a member of the state’s Olympic feasibility commission, estimated that at $10 million. But Chicago, in its embarrassing failed bid for the 2016 Summer Games, spent $100 million. New York ponied up $35 million when it went for the 2012 Games.

Overall, Beijing spent more than $40 billion on the 2008 Olympics. Sochi, in Russia, is on track to spend an estimated ?$50 billion for the 2014 Winter Games. On the cheaper side, London still shelled out $14 billion on the 2012 Olympics, including $3 billion in operating costs. In 2004, Athens spent $16 billion — racking up crippling debt experts say was a catalyst for Greece’s economic crisis.

The U.S. Olympic Committee has not determined if it will even pitch a 2024 bid, said spokesman Patrick Sandusky.

Those helping lay the groundwork in Boston, too, preached caution. John Fish, the CEO of Suffolk Construction and member of the 11-person state-?created Olympic panel, said approaching the “monstrous” task is like answering: “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time?”

The committee has pointed to a 1994 Boston feasibility study for the 2008 Games as a model for its work. But the 20-year-old study capped Boston’s “cost profile” at $1.4 billion, estimating stadium construction at $130 million and the Olympic Village tab at $65 million — costs dwarfed by new economic realities.

Zimbalist questioned the commission’s ability to give a fair answer on the economic impact given its make-up, which he derided as “ ‘yes’ people who are representing construction interests and other interests that privately might gain from going ahead with the bid.”

“They need to have their feet put to the fire for it, or otherwise they’re going to waste everybody’s money,” Zimbalist said.

Fish shot back that the last thing on his mind is his “backlog 10 years from now.”

“If anybody thinks that I’m here solely to benefit my company and to build a building, they shouldn’t be wasting their breath on this,” Fish said.

“The last thing you want to do is something that’s a financial fiasco,” said state Sen. Eileen Donoghue (D-Lowell), another commission member.

“I think we need to know what the price tag is. That’s one of the first levels of investigations, and then the next level is, how would it be paid for? I firmly believe, until we have all that information, it’s very difficult to ask people to buy in, to support it, to embrace it.”