Billions Kenya Will Need to Host Nairobi 2029 World Athletics Championships

Nairobi finally won the bid to host the 2029 World Athletics Championships but as the country looks forward to early preparations, staging the event will not come cheap.

Having missed out on the 2025 event, Nairobi was awarded the 2029 edition, beating bids from London, Munich and Rome, and Sports Cabinet Secretary Salim Mvurya has stated that preparations start now.

By the time they were submitting their bid, Kenya included financial guarantees to prove their capabilities to host the global event and based on what has been spent by previous hosts of the championships, Kenya will fork out billions.

It is not known exactly how much Kanya plans to put into the 2029 World Championships but looking at what was spent by London in 2017, Eugene in 2022, Budapest in 2023, Tokyo last year and what Beijing plans to splash next year gives a clear indication of the massive cost.

In 2017, the United Kingdom put in £45 million (Ksh7.8 billion) to stage the World Championships in London and as per the BBC, they had committed a similar amount for their failed 2029 bid, while in 2023, Budapest spent around 70 million euros (Ksh10 billion), according to SportsIn.

In the 2025 edition staged in Tokyo, Japan, 17.4 billion yen, equivalent to $112 million (Ksh14.5 billion) was spent, as per SportsIn, while Beijing, which will stage the 2027 World Athletics Championships is projecting a budget of between $70 million (Ksh9 billion) and $80 million (Ksh10 billion) as reported by Plus500.

While awarding Nairobi the bid, World Athletics stated that the country’s experience in hosting previous events, which were a huge success, played a part in getting the hosting rights.

One of those was the 2017 World U18 Championships and Mwangi Muthee, who was the event’s Local Organising Committee chairman, admits Kenya has its work cut out.

“The World Championships is like hosting a World Cup, you are hosting more than 2,000 athletes and 200 countries and it is a huge thing for Kenya and Africa,” Muthee told Pulse Sports.

“Time flies so the organisation must start now. The organising committee must be assembled now. If you wait one year, it will be too late because you need to get the venues up to speed, the track itself and other venues are critical and they need to be world class standards and some of these venues cannot be prepared in two months, you need a minimum two to three years.”

With Kenya set to spend upwards of Ksh10 billion, given what other host cities have put in, Muthee says it is important that no stone is unturned to avoid last-minute problems.

“You need five or up to 10 training venues because you need to give a team enough time to train,” he said. “The number of athletes will determine the number of venues and those venues need to have a replica of the competition venue or thereabouts."

“It is not cheap because everything is priced based on the current market value but it will run to the tune of billions. The good thing is that right now, we are not starting from ground zero. When we were doing the U18 World championships, Kasarani had not been refurbished so we had to sweep up everything and it was a lot of work," he further stated.

However, the investment will not go in vain as Kenya can look forward to great returns as host cities typically retain full control of revenue generated from ticket sales, hospitality services, food and beverage offerings, merchandise and exhibition space rentals.

These multiple income streams help offset costs and support economic growth at the local level. For example, the 2017 World Championships delivered a direct economic benefit of $104.1 million (Ksh13.4 billion) to the UK economy while the 2022 edition in Eugene, Oregon, generated an estimated $153.4 million (Ksh19.8 billion) in direct economic gains after putting in $75 million (Ksh9.7 billion).