The Olympic Minister of Japan, Tamayo Marukawa, announced this Thursday that the Tokyo Olympic Games will be held without spectators in the stands, not even of local origin, due to the spike in infections in the capital, and reversing the measure announced ago two weeks of having up to 10,000 spectators in the stadiums.
The organizers, who also decided months ago to veto the entry of foreign visitors to the country during the Games, had planned to enter about 670 million euros from the sale of tickets for the Games. Specifically, 9 million entries that would have meant a true record.
“Ticket sales were expected to generate € 670 million in revenue for the Tokyo 2020 OCOG (Organizing Committees for the Olympic Games), which would make it the third largest source of revenue for the OCOG and also help fund the 12% of the general budget, “as Liam Fox tells MarketWatch , an analyst at the analysis company GlobalData.
In addition to this loss, the absence of an audience could lead the sponsors to re-evaluate some of the agreements of these Olympic Games. “The investments of national sponsors had broken all the previous records of the Olympic Games with an investment of 2,778 million euros . However, without an audience in the stands, these forecasts have been drastically reduced”, predicts Fox.
Maximum caution
Tokyo metropolitan authorities reported 920 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, an unprecedented figure since mid-May. The data of the last week place the Japanese capital above the threshold of cases that the Government considers of maximum concern, at a key moment in light of the fear that the sporting event represents an expansion of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Asian country.
The head of the organizing committee, Seiko Hashimoto, said during the meeting that to prevent an expansion of infections “it is necessary to send a strong and clear message,” and pointed out that those responsible for the event had to “make a difficult decision.”
IOC President Thomas Bach said that the organizers “have shown responsibility since the day the Games were postponed,” and said he would support “whatever measures are necessary to hold a safe Olympic and Paralympic Games for the future. Japanese people and all participants. ”
Investment of 12,680 million
Regarding the economic aspect, the investment made for Tokyo 2020 is 12,680 million euros, according to the latest version of the budget announced by the organizers, almost 2,000 million more compared to the Rio 2016 Games -10,990 million euros -. An amount similar to London 2012 -about 11,592 million euros- or Athens 2004 -about 8,954 million euros-. And nothing to do with the approximate 26,151 million euros in Beijing 2008 or 4,106 million in Sydney 2000.
The economic difference between these Games and those of Rio 2016 lies, mainly, in the aforementioned extra cost due to the pandemic added to health measures, the return of tickets, the increase in insurance costs, extra labor expenses or the creation of new secure infrastructures.
Some expenses assumed by the Government of Tokyo, which will contribute more than 800 million euros, while almost 600 million euros more will be injected from the national coffers. The rest of the capital will come from a private fund financed by the organizing committee, in order to increase the number of sponsorships.
