When the
1972 Winter Olympics were awarded to the city of Sapporo, the efforts put in to bring those Games to fruition were part of a broader suite of public works and infrastructure projects (such as the construction of the
Namboku Line of the Sapporo Subway network) which were intended to provide long-term benefits to the city and its inhabitants at large. Since then, eight of the Games' venues have been in near-continuous use ever since (COVID-19 lockdowns notwithstanding) - indeed, should Sapporo's bid to host the
2030 Winter Olympics succeed, many of those same venues are expected to be used once again.
That said, the 2030 bid
is currently on ice - but more due to the fallout from a corruption scandal which erupted in the wake of the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics, rather than any perceived shortcomings of the bid in and of itself. (Well, that, and the IOC taking a pause on their end, in order to review the very concept of the Winter Olympics as an ongoing event, in the face of pressing climate change concerns.)
But in this instance, the use of public funds to construct sports facilities was successful in large part due to it being part of a broader long-term project with clear goals, well executed, at multiple levels of government.
That said, Japan is by no means immune to the kind of corporate tactics employed all too often on this side of the Pacific. Much as I am impressed with the design and construction of the Fighters' new ballpark noted
over in the 2023 NPB thread, part of
the reason it exists is due to the municipality of Kitahiroshima successfully undercutting offers to keep the Fighters playing within the City of Sapporo.
Although, since one of those offers was reportedly to lock the Sapporo Dome permanently in its baseball configuration, that would not have been good news for the J.League club Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo...