Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced Tuesday the Tokyo Olympics are postponed until 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
He said in the announcement he had reached an agreement with International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, according to CNN.
Dick Pound, a senior member of the International Olympic Committee, said Monday the organization had already decided that the 2020 Olympics would be postponed due to the pandemic.
“On the basis of the information the IOC has, postponement has been decided,” Pound said in an interview with USA Today. “The parameters going forward have not been determined, but the Games are not going to start on July 24, that much I know.” The IOC did not officially announced the postponement of the Games at that time, but said on Sunday that it would formally decide that in four weeks’ time.
By last December, host network NBC had already surpassed $1 billion in advertising sales for the Games and was well on the way to topping the $1.2 billion in ad sales from 2016’s Olympics in Rio.
More to come…
