Tokyo Olympic Tickets: Be Prepared to be Disappointed

TOKYO (AP) — Want tickets for next year's Tokyo Olympics? Prepare to be let down.

Millions were disappointed Thursday when applicants in a ticket lottery — for Japan residents, only — began learning if they landed tickets. The answer is going to be overwhelmingly — no. The same will be true for residents outside Japan who could experience a similar dejection: too much demand and too few tickets.

This was not the case at the last several games — the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang and the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro — when tickets were given away and volunteers were often summoned to fill empty seats for the television cameras.

Ticketing expert Ken Hanscom says: "This is probably going to be the most popular Olympics, and possibly one of the most popular events of all time." Hanscom is the chief operating officer of the Los Angeles-based firm TicketManager, which manages big-event tickets for corporate clients.

He predicts 80-90% in the Japan lottery could come away empty handed.