Salt Lake 2034 Olympics Will Have ‘Really Expensive’ Tickets

The International Olympic Committee recently awarded Salt Lake City as the host of the 2034 Winter Olympics, though already, the committee is warning of steep ticket prices.

The news arrived Wednesday morning as the IOC voted 83-6 to award the state the 2034 games.

Since November, Salt Lake City was named the preferred bidder for the games, as no permanent venues needed to be built. While other games had to spend millions on new stadiums — with Tokyo dropping $520 million on an aquatics center and South Korea spending $110 million on a temporary stadium — Utah privately funded a budget of $3.99 billion. The budget is significantly cheaper than Paris’ budget, which lands close to $9 billion.

According to the Salt Lake City Tribune, the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games has set aside thousands of affordable tickets for Utahns, though ticket sales are relied upon to cover at least a third of the Games’ $4 billion price tag.

Fraser Bullock, the SLC-UT president and CEO, spoke at the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Coordination Committee last month, noting that “we will be unapologetic that there’s going to be some really expensive tickets, but they’re combined with hospitality.”

“Those pay for the games,” Bullock said. “Then we’re going to have some really inexpensive tickets.”

While Bullock assured that there are 34,000 tickets going for only $34, those cheaper tickets will likely only be admissible to events like pool-play hockey or cross country skiing. The highly anticipated games, however, like figure skating or gold-medal hockey, will likely cost hundreds of dollars more.

It seems that ticket prices will be a similar conversation surrounding the Paris 2024 Olympics. This year’s Games kicked-off Friday, and from the start, the committee received harsh criticism for high ticket prices. Many have spoken-out, including Sebastian Coe, the president of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and former head of the London 2012 organizing committee. He criticized the Paris 2024 bosses for the cost of tickets for next year’s event, noting that fans and the families of athletes will be priced-out.

Category First seats are going for €990 on the high end, followed by Category A-D tickets, ranging from €690 to €85.