Do international sporting events unite countries or waste money?

Write my answer and get scored

Every few years a nation spends billions hosting the world's athletes, and the same argument follows: unity and prestige on one side, waste and rivalry on the other. I believe both descriptions are accurate, because they describe two different things: the games themselves, and the buildings underneath them. The unity is real but belongs to the event, not the venue. A World Cup measurably lifts shared mood; strangers in one jersey talk on trains that usually carry silence. Athletes from hostile states compete under agreed rules, which is diplomacy in its most watchable form. The waste is equally real and belongs to the construction. Stadiums built for a single month rot famously in Athens and Rio, and the billions they consumed were taken from schools and clinics whose absence lasts decades. Worse, authoritarian governments have learned to buy legitimacy through hosting, converting global goodwill into domestic propaganda. The sensible conclusion is not to abolish the festivals but to separate them from the concrete. Events rotated among cities that already own the infrastructure keep every benefit of the gathering while cancelling most of its cost. Permanent or shared hosting arrangements achieve exactly this. In short, international sport unites people and wastes money simultaneously; the uniting comes from the games and the waste from the vanity around them. Keep the first, and the second is optional.