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The preparations for the 2016 Olympic Games led to a series of major urban interventions in Rio de Janeiro. This process created a conflict in the narrative associated with this sporting mega-event, with very different views about its consequences for the people of the host city. This article presents the results of an ethnographic study analyzing the collective mobilizations triggered by the hosting of the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. It focuses in particular on the actions of the Popular Committee for the World Cup and the Rio Olympics against human rights violations linked to housing expropriations by the municipal government, under the pretense of a supposed “public interest.”