Publics may finally be getting wise to the fact that the long-term economic benefits of hosting mega-events like the Olympics or the World Cup are usually

. This is going to mean that fewer democratic countries will make bids for them and the ones that do, like Brazil, will do so in the face of

. For the Winter Olympics, where thanks to weather and geography, the number of potential hosts is small (and thanks to climate change

), the problem will be more acute. Increasingly, the only governments excited about hosting these events are the ones that don’t have to worry about public opinion.