Interesting take here, arguing that usually, you actually depress tourism with these events. That makes these sound even worse than what I had thought before - worth it if you use existing facilities, not worth it if you build new ones.

If you like looking at decrepit buildings, find some pics of the soccer stadiums built for Brazil 2014. It's crazy that even in a soccer-crazy country they couldn't plan better/find use for all of those massively expensive state-of-the-art stadiums.

Qatar will probably not use their stadiums for much, but at least they knew they were spending on a massive tourism ad and will be one of few countries benefitting from hosting.