With the Tokyo Olympics postponed until 2021, now comes the multi-billion-dollar question: Who pays the bills for the delay, and how large will they be? The most likely answer is primarily Japanese taxpayers.
"Of course there will be costs," organizing committee CEO Toshiro Muto said when the postponement was announced.
"As for how much, we have no figures with us right now. As for who will shoulder these costs? Needless to say, they are not going to be easy discussions, so we are not sure how long they will take."
"The general target is summer of next year," said Yoshiro Mori, president of the organizing committee and a former Japanese Prime Minister. "We have to go through scheduling, international events. Many things will have to be adjusted before we come up with a certain time frame."
Bent Flyvbjerg, an author of "The Oxford Olympics Study 2016: Cost and Cost Overrun at the Games," in an email to the Associated Press, said the IOC should share more of the costs and termed it a "monopoly."
The study found the Olympics have the "highest average cost overrun of any type of mega-project."
Flyvbjerg said the IOC should "pick up a larger part of the bill for the games, which the IOC profits from. Tokyo and Japan will pick up the added cost, unless the IOC makes an exception and expands the reserve fund, which is what the IOC should do from an ethics point of view."
"Because at some venues it takes about a year to get them ready. We can't take them down and then set them up again for the Olympics. That also means added costs."
All tickets have a force majeure clause, which might get organizers off the hook of paying refunds if the coronavirus is deemed to be "beyond Tokyo 2020's reasonable control."