Did the Winter Olympics in Sochi really cost $50 billion? A closer look at that figure.

How much did the Winter Olympics in Sochi cost? There's no easy answer to that question, even though the Western news media has tried to simplify it. Or perhaps oversimplify it. The consensus figure is $50 billion, which, give or take a few billion, would easily qualify Sochi as the most expensive Olympics ever, some 25 percent more than the $40 billion spent on the much-larger Summer Olympics in Beijing in 2008.