CoSport, the official ticketer for the USOPC, said that the Tokyo Games "already may be the toughest Olympics ticket in decades, and possibly ever," according to Rachel Bachman of the WALL STREET JOURNAL. Before a new batch of tickets became available on Thursday, CoSport had "sold out" of most Tokyo Games single tickets for the U.S. market, and was "offering mainly packages that include hotel or entertainment elements." After recent Olympics in Russia, South Korea and Brazil showed "less interest from consumers," Tokyo Games tickets are "scarcer even than those for the wildly popular" '12 London Games. As of Wednesday, 4.48 million tickets had been "sold to residents of Japan," which is more than half of the 7.8 million total that organizing committee "estimates it will have available to sell." Bachman notes with the Tokyo Games more than six months away, it is "clear that demand for popular events has overwhelmed supply." In the first ticket lottery in Japan last May, prospective buyers made "56.77 million requests for tickets," and just "3.22 million tickets were sold" (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 1/17).
