The 1992 Games received universal acclaim, with the organisation, volunteers, sportsmanship, and Spanish public being lauded in the international media.

The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was banned due to UN sanctions, but individual Yugoslav athletes were allowed to take part as Independent Olympic Participants.

Four then-existing National Olympic Committees did not send any athletes to compete: Afghanistan, Brunei, Liberia and Somalia.

[24] RTO'92 managed the staff and the production and technical resources hired to Radiotelevisión Española (RTVE), the Corporació Catalana de Ràdio i Televisió (CCRTV) and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

With a workforce of 3,083 people, a permanent radio and television installation at the Olympic Stadium and Palau Sant Jordi, and over 50 mobile units for other venues, RTO'92 provided live coverage of all Summer Olympic sports for the first time ever –except for a few preliminary events–, some 2,800 hours of live television footage, to its international rights-holders.

The International Broadcast Centre (IBC) was located at the exhibition halls of Fira de Barcelona in Montjuïc.

A total of 225 hours and 45 minutes was broadcast in analog HD-MAC standard in 1,250 lines and 16:9 aspect ratio, with commentary in five languages –Spanish, English, French, German and Italian– in addition to the non-commentary sound track, of eighteen different sports at seventeen venues, as well as the opening and closing ceremonies.

[28] As the time of the Games approached,[29] ETA committed attacks in Barcelona and the Catalonia region as a whole, including the deadly 1991 Vic bombing.

[30][31] On 10 July 1992, the group offered a two-month truce covering the Olympics in exchange for negotiations, which the Spanish government rejected.

[35][36] Barcelona's nomination for the 1992 Summer Olympics sparked the implementation of an ambitious plan for urban transformation that had already been developed previously.

The construction of ring roads around the city helped to reduce traffic density, and El Prat airport was modernized and expanded with the opening of two new terminals.

This includes only sports-related costs, that is: (i) operational costs incurred by the organizing committee for the purpose of staging the Games, e.g., expenditures for technology, direct transportation, workforce, administration, security, catering, ceremonies, and medical services; and (ii) direct capital costs incurred by the host city and country or private investors to build the competition venues, the Olympic village, international broadcast center, media and press center, and similar structures required to host the Games.

Due to Mercury's death eight months earlier, the duo was unable to perform the song together during the opening ceremony.

A recording of the song instead played over a travelogue of the city at the start of the opening ceremony, seconds before the official countdown.

It was written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Don Black, and sung by Sarah Brightman and José Carreras during the closing ceremonies.