1994 Winter Olympics - Organization

Organization

• 1.21 million tickets were sold for the games. LOOC estimated that an additional 500,000 viewed the games for free along the courses. In addition, 180,000 seats were used by the media and VIPs.

The overall responsibility for the games was held by the Lillehammer Olympic Organizing Committee, which was created on 14 November 1988 and led by Gerhard Heiberg. It was reorganized several times with various subsidiaries, but from 1993 consisted of a single company owned 51% of Lillehammer Municipality, 24.5% by the Government of Norway and 24.5% by the Norwegian Olympic Committee. The government had issued a guarantee for the games, and also covered the expenses related to infrastructure. The total costs of the games was 7.4 billion Norwegian krone (NOK), of which NOK 0.95 billion was expenditure by the ministries, NOK 4.48 billion was for operations and event expenses, and NOK 1.67 billion was for investments. The games had a revenue of NOK 2.71 billion, of which NOK 1.43 billion was from television rights, NOK 0.65 billion was from sponsors, and NOK 0.15 billion was from ticket sales.

Production of the broadcasting, which costs NOK 462 million, was the responsibility of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK), with assistance from the Canadian Television (CTV) and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). NRK had 1,424 people working at the Olympics, while international broadcasters sent an additional 4,050 accredited broadcasting personnel. The transmission rights for the games were held by EBU in Europe, CBS in the United States, NHK in Japan, CTV in Canada, the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union, Nine Network in Australia, as well as other broadcasters in other countries. The total transmission rights price was 350 million United States dollars. In part because of the Harding–Kerrigan affair, the viewship in the United States is still the highest ever for Winter Olympics.

NOK 460 million was used on information technology, with the main system running on an IBM AS/400. 3,500 terminals were in use during the game based on the Info '94 system; it was the first Olympics to have terminals installed abroad. Seiko delivered the time-keeping devices. Telecommunications were delivered by Norwegian Telecom, including signal transmission. This included a mobile radio network with nine base stations.