The 2026 Winter Games lost money big time, according to a report in an Italian newspaper.
“A hole of at least 310 million euros,” nearly $363 million in U.S. dollars, is what organizers of the 2026 Winter Games must now reconcile, according to a translation of story posted online Tuesday in La Notizia.
The Milan Cortina organizing committee detailed the budget gap at a meeting earlier this month, the newspaper reported. Construction delays, especially at the Milan ice hockey arena, were blamed for 230 million euros, about $269 million, in increased costs.
A revenue shortfall of some 80 million euros, about $94 million, added to the deficit, although the newspaper pointed out that the money made from merchandise sales has yet to be determined.
The response to the 2026 Games deficit
Italian organizers are seeking 100 million euros, about $117 million, from the International Olympic Committee, La Notizia said, assistance that is “far from being due,” leaving it up to local and regional governments to cover the losses.
An opposition party political leader in the Veneto region that includes Cortina, Giovanni Manildo, is quoted as saying the Olympic legacy “currently appears more burdensome than triumphant for the regional coffers.”
But Veneto President Alberto Stefani said 143 million euros, about $167 million, has already been set aside as “prudential guarantees” against shortfalls and promised to “make all the necessary adjustments” since “the Olympics obviously require costs, like all major events.”
A member of Milan’s city council, Alessandro Giungi, said the deficit came as a surprise.
“Milan won’t give a cent, for sure,” said Giungi, president of the city’s Olympics commission, adding he plans to ask organizers to repay money spent on a road to the hockey arena. “We knew nothing about this hole, and we’ll try to find out more. I’m still against it.”
Italy’s situation may impact negotiations underway between Los Angeles city leaders and organizers of the 2028 Summer Games there, according to Rich Perelman, founder and editor of The Sports Examiner, a California-based online publication focused on the Olympics.
“L.A. City Council members are already worried about any coverage of a deficit by the LA28 organizers and this will only raise their concerns,” Perelman wrote in a Wednesday post about Italy’s budget shortfall.
Keeping Utah’s 2034 Winter Games budget on track
The $4 billion price tag for Utah’s 2034 Winter Games is expected to be funded entirely from private sources of revenue, largely through the sale of broadcast rights, sponsorships and tickets.
But under the contract Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed with the International Olympic Committee, it’s the state’s taxpayers who are on the hook for any financial shortfalls. The situation was the same for Utah’s 2002 Winter Games, which left a surplus that added up to $100 million.
Fraser Bullock, who helped run the 2002 Games and is now the president and executive chair of Utah’s Organizing Committee for the 2034 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, said he has high confidence in what he called “an excellent financial model.”
Italy, Bullock said, “did the best job it could given the circumstances of its Games, which are completely different from ours. But we applaud the effort that they put in, and their successful Games.”
Unlike Italy, Utah’s Olympic organizers “have several very significant elements in our favor,” he said, including not needing to build any new permanent venues. The ski jumps, sliding track, skating oval and other facilities from 2002 are all set to be used again in 2034.
Plus, Bullock said the United States is a much bigger market than Italy for everything from sponsorship deals to ticket and Olympic merchandise sales, “so we have a far larger opportunity for revenue.”
And the more than $250 million in contributions pledged to the Utah 2034 organizing committee from local donors through the Podium34 program offers “a nice cushion moving forward,” he said, adding there’s a total of $460 million in contingency funds built into the budget.
Utah is also counting on its “significant depth of experience” when it comes to running an Olympics, Bullock said. “We‘ve done this before. We know how to manage costs. We live by the philosophy of nice to have versus must have. We focus on the must-have elements.”
Currently, he said, Utah organizers are collaborating with the IOC to determine if there’s a way to restructure the technology used for the 2034 Games and beyond, potentially saving $100 million or more from one of the biggest expense items in the budget.
“We’re very focused on prudent financial management,” Bullock said of the initiative to reduce costs. “That’s our ambition, It’s incredibly and challenging but we are hard at work on that effort. We look at everything to save money and still put on great Games.”