This is what the IOC has to say about the process:
"The IOC elects host cities following a two-stage process. Cities wishing to stage the Games in question become 'Applicant Cities'; the IOC Executive Board then selects a number of applicants to be considered 'Candidate Cities', from which one is chosen by a vote of the IOC session."
Obviously, a lot goes into this selection. There is no one factor that determines who gets to host the Olympics. Often, a city may be very well-qualified to host the games, but because several games have been hosted in the region recently, they will be rejected.
But if everything else was considered equal, is there something that can be considered a deciding factor?
I explored five independent factors: Population, Population Density, Size (Area), Human Development Index, and Gross Domestic Product (Total GDP). (Did I miss something? Let me know in the comments).
I searched each of these based on today's totals, not at the time the IOC awarded the Olympics. This might change the data slightly, but a good amount of countries (Belgium, Sweden) had relatively large development but not anymore, and a good amount of countries (Mexico, South Korea) had relatively small development but now are well-developed.
Based on today's statistics, here are the results:
Population, Area, Population Density
When the Olympics began around the turn of the century, many- but not all- the countries that hosted had high populations. The United States, France, Great Britain, Germany- all have large populations. And when you look at the data, it appears that a great amount of countries have high population, size, and area. However, there are many countries that also have a large size that have not hosted the games. India, Indonesia, and Brazil all have large populations and areas yet have not hosted an Olympics (Brazil, of course, will host 2016's summer games). Many African countries also have the same problem. Does it have to do with security? Or perhaps the lack of good facilities for athletes? Or maybe it's a matter of human development.
Human Development
It's understandable that the IOC would not want to shine a spotlight on countries that are not well-developed. An unstable country, such as Syria, over the seven-year period between a selection and the actual games, could spell disaster for the Olympics. While we can identify a more solid trend relating HDI to the Olympics, it's still not a very strong link. Mexico, Russia, and the countries making up the former country of Yugoslavia are not in the top tier of the HDI listing like most other Olympic hosts, and China does not even make the top 100. While many of the countries that host the Olympics do have very high Human Development Indices, it's not at all a solid trend (An r^2 value of 0.1). This leaves just one category:
Gross Domestic Product
The GDP of a country has the strongest identifiable link to hosting the Olympics. It's still not perfect, but it's much stronger than any other trend. What helps this variable the most is the United States. By far, the U.S. has the highest total GDP of any country and the U.S. has also hosted the most Olympic games. The trend isn't perfect, but it's much, much better than any other factor I can identify.
In the end, no one variable determines which country is awarded the Olympic games. But countries with a higher GDP have a much stronger chance. This is something to keep in mind, when, in 2013, the IOC makes their decision between Istanbul, Turkey; Madrid, Spain; and Tokyo, Japan, for the 2020 Summer Olympics.
Apologies for the late post tonight; tomorrow we'll look at how the Olympics affect politics.
My data and graphs:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnZrkjWWJajQdFlxT3J5QW9vdmJsbFc5UkFnT0N2M3c
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