Amid "dismal domestic ticket sales" for February's PyeongChang Winter Olympics, the Korea Federation of Banks said on Tuesday that it will buy 1B won ($879,600) worth of briefs as part of its "social responsibility" efforts, according to Yuna Park of REUTERS. Response to the first phase of ticket sales in South Korea earlier this year was "utterly underwhelming." As of Thursday, 315,000 tickets for the Games had been sold, just under 30% of the 1.07 million total target, with some 60% of those sales "taking place abroad." While organizers have earmarked 750,000 tickets for domestic sale, "only" 124,000 have been sold "so far." The banking federation said on Tuesday that it decided to "step in to help boost sales" with less than five months to go before the opening ceremony. Federation official Shon Kyung-ae said, "Buying tickets was considered one of the ways to support the Olympic Games considering the recent slow ticket sales. We have decided to buy 1 billion won worth of tickets." The federation also announced it would donate 20B won ($17.6M) to PyeongChang organizers "to help the Games run smoothly." In a release, the federation said, "As part of our social responsibility efforts, the federation has decided to support the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympic Games, which will be an opportunity to improve the country's global image" (REUTERS, 9/26).
