Japanese public broadcaster NHK said that the 2020 Tokyo Olympics will cost the organizing committee "six times than their original estimate," and come in at around 1.8T yen ($14.9B), according to Junko Fujita of REUTERS. The cost blow out "was caused by unexpected payments for building lanes on highways, as well as rising materials costs and personnel expenses." The Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee will be able to raise only about 450B yen ($3.71B) "from sponsors and ticket sales, which means a shortfall of more than" 1T yen ($8.3B). Total costs for staging the Tokyo Olympics, estimated to be more than 2.1T yen ($17.3B), "will be shared by the committee, the Tokyo government and national government" (REUTERS, 12/19). In London, the BBC reported "next year's Olympics in Rio" has a budget of £2.38B ($3.6B) while London 2012 cost £8.77B in total. However, if the cost of the Tokyo Olympics were to reach $14.9B, "it would still be considerably less than the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia," which was estimated to have cost £31B. The "initial cost of the 2020 Games" was estimated at £1.6B ($2.4B) (BBC, 12/19).
